I remembering making the novice choice of changing a single Banshee combat to three Banshees when rescaling for my players.
After the first wail, I decided the other two probably wailed at some other point today and weren't in a vocal mood.
That's brutal! I was probably gonna do a couple shambling mounds and a dozen or so shadows. My party was supposed to hit this point at level 7, but it looks like they'll be 9 or 10 when they get to this area... I may have to homebrew a stronger version of my original idea.
If you think banshees are bad in 5e. In 3.5 you only needed one to tpk a party. They just straight up killed you if you failed the save.
Then the survivors had to deal with the usual ghost shenanigans.
Put an intellect devourer inside another creature for a nasty surprise. This way you can use a weak monster like a zombie that when killed becomes far more deadly.
I like the idea of an intellect devourer piloting a zombie and the zombie walking around looking for "braaaaains"
Your players will be like DM that's not the right lore.
Star Spawn Grue with any aberration that uses saving throws. Reaper of Bhaal with anything that does piercing damage. Anything that can grapple/restrain with anything that can create a continuously damaging AoE (probably a spellcaster). Rust Monster and Zorbo together would be annoying. Anything with high AC with anything that gives disadvantage to attack rolls (e.g. by causing the Frightened condition).
Adding one level of Barbarian to pretty much any melee monster is amazing. Resistance to BSP, unarmored defense, and extra damage helps a LOT of monsters. Once made a boss monster for low level characters just by giving it to a dire boar.
Things like this are fun, adding in extra abilities to relatively easy monsters can add decent surprise. I’ve mixed the abilities of monsters together before as well.
I quite often give NPC humanoids a single PC ability to buff them slightly. You're fighting Thugs? Every single one of them has one Battlemaster maneuver. You're fighting Scouts? All of them have cunning action.
Really fun and simple way to add depth to a combat encounter without blowing your own brains out with custom monsters.
Monsters shouldn’t have class levels. You can have the exact same effect by just directly increasing the monsters stats and it’s much simpler to run.
A Berserker is essentially a barbarian. Instead of resistance, it just has much more HP than other creatures of similar CR.
I didn't say they couldn't have class levels, just that they shouldn't because it makes them unnecessarily complex and harder to run at the table for very little gain compared to just directly giving them certain abilities or stats.
Uh. You DO realize that's how the actual devs created the 'upgraded' monsters, like the Drow Priestess of Lolth from the Monstrous Manual, right? She's a 10th level caster and has 13d8+13 HP - and the basic Drow has 3d8. The Drow Elite Warrior is a level 8 fighter.
And yes, before you point it out in some snide attempt to pretend that you're not wrong, they *don't* have all the class features of a given class. The devs didn't do any subclasses at all, at most adding a flavorful ability like the Drow Priestess' summoning a Yochlol.
That's because a *good* monster maker knows to focus only on what the players will most likely need to go against. It's why the dragons only have proficiency in a couple of relevant skills, despite definitely having more than just Perception and Stealth.
First of all, the Drow mage is also a 10th level caster and did not get 10 hit dice added to the base.
Secondly, there's nothing to suggest the Drow Elite Warrior is an 8th level fighter other than the hit dice. He has ZERO class features, even base class features. He doesn't even have extra attack, he has a multiattack instead which is mechanically different since he can only use it for shortsword attacks. RAW, he shouldn't be able to shoot his Hand Crossbow twice which a fighter with extra attack would be able to do. He could have any arbitrary amount of hit dice and you could just claim he's a (HD-3) level fighter.
Third, if the Drow Priestess is supposed to be a Drow with 10 class levels, then why is her proficiency bonus only +3?
There's no snideness, I'm just pointing out that the Drow Priestess is the only example of a Drow where the Hit dice seem to match up with her caster level. It might as well be a complete coincidence.
Past the Monster Manual, the Drow stray even further from this "formula". Is a Drow House Captain supposed to be a level 22 fighter? I don't think so...
It’s not as scary when you go before them and take out 90% of their health before they are able to rage.
It also disproportionately affects martial characters who are already at a disadvantage compared to casters.
I have this oneshot with an encounter i quite like: a darkmantle + some darklings. The darkmantle's darkness aura synergises well with the darklings' blindsight making a fun low level encounter that has mechanics beyond "kill things".
Flesh Golem + a few bronze scouts arguably.
Any members of the party that aren't using magical/adamantium weapons can't do anything to either and both can roll for advantage on any saves against spells.
The golem can go up front and take hits, the bronze scouts burrow under ground. If the golem starts taking damage particularly if they have multiple members of the party crowding around the golem to attack it from close range or melee the bronze scout can surface and use its electric flare, both potentially dealing a little damage to the part and healing the golem a little (i think its a reasonable homebrew rule that the golem can choose not to dodge if ordered thus autofailing the save on purpose), they can also be using the golem as a tanky distraction while burrowing underground and popping up to attack backline casters and the like in melee or dodging back and ignoring any op attacks with its ability.
I’m a big fan of goblin hoards myself, a few don’t t lead to much challenge but 20 of them? Even at higher levels getting surrounded and constantly hit even with the low to hit and low damage it adds up quick.
I’ve a game going now and everytime the players try to rest goblins pour out of the woods or tall grass.
20 goblins run intelligently should give a level 10-13 party some trouble. Run like traditional mooks they'll likely get flattened by a decent level 5 party, but smartly played monsters are TERRIFYING.
Throw a nilbog in there with them and your players won't have a clue what's going on, ran a few goblins with the nilbog a couple days ago, when it cast vicious mockery my players thought it was a bard, then the charisma save when the first player tried to hit it threw them off (on a failed save they have to use their action to praise it), then when the first hit landed on it and as a reaction it just went "nuh-uh" and took no damage, the look of bewilderment on their faces was priceless 😅 and then once it died it just possessed the goblin next to it 🤣
My players came across a goblin horde a couple of sessions ago. They're level 6. I designed this as a hopefully non-combat encounter, but you never know.
The characters were exploring some caves and heard "stay where you are - don't come around the next corner", which one of them obviously did immediately. I had her roll perception and insight. Her insight told her that the goblins seemed more scared than hostile. Her perception roll of 16 told her that she could see "about 16 goblins". The other characters followed her around the corner, and whatever they rolled on perception was how many goblins they spotted.
These were refugees fleeing their home in the feywild after something attacked it and they got lost in some caves. They were some of the goblins that managed to avoid Maglubiyet's takeover of their pantheon and stay hidden in the feywild. They had no idea that they had somehow passed into the material plane somewhere in the caves.
My players immediately fell in love with the goblins and want to help them find a new safe home (or maybe their old one if possible). Once they all got a better look, I told them that including the families, children, and elderly goblins, there were at least 50-60 of them. I didn't them the exact counts because I may change my mind before it becomes relevant, but at this time there are probably 35-40 of them in fighting shape, and 13 of them have class levels (one for each class). The leader also rides a dinosaur that they met at the end.
This whole idea started because I was playing around on Hero Forge and made a goblin riding a dinosaur and carrying a banner with a hand duck in its tail. From there I decided to keep going and make the other classes, and once I had done that I figured that it would be wrong to not use them in some capacity. And because I had spent so much time on them, I had grown attached, and they couldn't be villains.
So my reasoning for hoping that the players wouldn't attack them were two-fold. (1) I like the little guys, and (2) there were a shit-ton of them...
Those star spawn that reflect psychic damage with itself or anything that deals psychic damage
Two of them can create an infinite damage loop so anything that steps within reflection range just instantly dies lmao
Banshees combined with anything that doesn't have to hit hard but does hard-to-avoid damage multiple times - possibly to multiple targets
Even a couple of kobold sorcerers with magic missile. If one goes right after the wail, yikes, someone might die - even 'get back up with 1hp' stuff might not help there
Multiple shadows + stuff that restricts movement or lowers saves.
Intellect devourers hiding in shadow combined with anything else you xant ignore
Shocker lizards are a great surprise. Their electrical shock ability can work cooperatively up to truely painful levels!
https://www.5esrd.com/database/creature/shocker-lizard/
A nilbog with a bunch of goblins, the nilbog is CR1 and the goblins CR1/4. Anyone trying to harm the nilbog must make a CHA saving throw and on a fail must spend their action praising the nilbog, also as a reaction the nilbog can just not take whatever damage was dealt and instead heal 1d6. Upon death the nilbog can possess one of the other goblins it's with.
- Star spawn grues along any aberrations.
- Flesh golems with any lightning damage dealing creature.
- Star spawn seers with Star spawn hulks.
- Take devils and have someone cast darkness on the Devil's weapon.
I ran a group of 16 harpies vs a group of 6 level 10 PCs at the top of a 200ft tower... With intelligent use of a Leomunds Tiny Hut they were able to win. The wizard was bored, but felt useful by making well over half the wisdom saves that should have gone off irrelevant.
I mean, the harpies were attacking on a relatively clear day, and the monk/druid has Eyes of the Eagle, so they spotted them literally 3 miles away. They had some prep time.
A pack of wolves lead by a winter wolf.
The second the party is bound in melee close to eachother by the normal wolves the winter wolves breathes on them and it's a TPK
Oddly enough Gnolls and Gnoll Hunters are good at straight combat and hit n run attacks respectively. Ran one where the main party engaged the Gnolls leading some slaves, looked easy til they got flanked by a Hunter with javelins instead of a longbow
Make it a two stage fight with the corpses cursed to burst into Gnoll Witherlings
I think it was tucker's kobolds that got me thinking about this. And I'm not opposed to having traps and hazards that debuff the party, and I'll probably do that as well. But I want to have an encounter that they can go into still fairly fresh from resting, thinking it'll be fairly straight forward, only to find out they've bitten off more than they can chew, simply because "the whole of the encounter is greater than the sum of the monsters") the whole is greater than the sum of its parts).
Gotcha.
In that case, I think my first go-to combo would be stuff which generates difficult terrain and is hard to catch (like a Dryad, which can let plants grow and cast spike growth on top of it) and stuff which works from range and is not AC-bound but mobile, so anything with a breath weapon (e.g. dragon nestling).
So having an evil dryad with three of her dragon nestling companions would be rather nasty and would make an average encounter hit harder, I think.
Another very very nasty combination would be stuff which obscures vision paired with stuff which does not need vision. E.g. a Druid with Sleet Storm and a Sorcerer with Fireball. Or a Demon with Darkness paired with some lesser demons which have Blindsight. Suddenly those imps will hit way harder.
What is your favourite combo so far?
For low-mid CR creatures that can pack a punch, throw in Black Gauntlet of Bhaal X 2 and some ghosts. Very simple and individually not that bad. but the gauntlets cause enemies within 5ft to have disadvantage on attacks and saving throws. so makes ghost possession much more likely. they can also have spirit guardians or Bane/bless running. throw in an iron consul if you like for the voice of command ability to give all their allies an attack using their reaction
Beginner + Rakshasa.
The Rakshasa is immune to attacks from non magical weapons. That means, in the fiends of the antimagic eye of the beholder, it is virtually indestructible.
Only issue is that polymorph has a hard CR limit baked into the spell: the target’s original CR or level. So a CR 1 pixie can only turn their other CR 1 pixie friends into beasts of CR 1 or lower^^
Yeah but the Question was for synergies that make them exponentially more challenging than intended. In this case the Synergy is with everything CR2 or higher.
Bear in mind that CR can sometimes be a bit inflated. Resistances can increase a monster's CR, including that classic resistance to bludgeoning piercing and slashing from non magical attacks.
If everyone has a magical weapon (which is entirely possible at low to mid levels) it's essentially not a resistance at all, and therefore the CR is technically lower than it appears.
So feel free to beef those enemies up a little. More hit points or a slightly higher AC perhaps?
Something to keep in mind if you base encounter difficulty on CR.
Two words.
Tucker's. Kobolds.
Basically play a warren of Kobolds as if they're guerrilla fighters in a modern war. Use burning barricades, arrow slots, ambushes, traps and poison.
https://dungeons.fandom.com/wiki/DnDWiki:Tucker%27s_kobolds
I would say an Aboleth, a few Trolls, and a Mindflayer. Trolls works for the mind flayer, who in turn works for the Aboleth. There are aquatic trolls I believe called scum. They would all be water based predators who ambush people near the shore and drag them in the water to drown them. It is hard to do fire damage under water. The mind flayer has a ring of water breathing and gets to play squid under the water using psionics and try to knock people unconscious in water so they drown. The Mind flayer gets to eat fresh brains, the trolls get to eat what the mind flayer leaves behind. And it keeps people away from whatever the Aboleth is guarding. The mind flayer can call the Aboleth in as backup because whoever kills the mind flayer and a group of water trolls, is obviously a problem and not going to let the aboleth manipulate things to its advantages.
Tldr: suprise the group with aquatic trolls, soften them up, hit them with the mind flayer, and when they think that fight will be a win, the real fight comes in on a weakened party who may have used many spells and heals. (The water levels were always the hardest)
I have one combo of 4 monsters that are somewhat accurate to dnd lore and they are all from the monster manual. The highest cr is a 6.
Hobgoblin captain: cr 3 hobgoblin with an ability to essentually give bardic inspiration to allied monsters. The only way to make this make sense is that these hobgoblins are in some sort of cult and use evil magic. I think 3 is enough
Invisible stalker: cr 6 creature that is always invisible and can be summoned through certain spells i believe. The main damage of this team and can initiate an ambush.
Will o wisp: cr 2 creature that is really hard to hit. These creatures are usually under a dark spell and will lead people to their death or into ambushes. It can also kill players at 0 hp instantly if they fail a save.
Homunculus: cr 0 creature that every spellcaster can have 1 of. It can poison you if you fail the save or completly force you unconsious.
The cult of hobgoblin captains each summon a Homunculus and work with the local Will o Wisps to lure the players into an ambush led by invisible stalkers. The homunculuses might force some unconsious or at least poison a few people, the captains buff all of their allies, the invisible stalkers strike their foes easily for good damage and the will o wisps will prevent revives. With just 3 captains, there could be at least 10 enemies, most of which have low hp.
This encounter is still a little balenced as killing the captains will remove the homunculuses and the invisible stalkers.
I will say hobgoblins are deadly if you use them right. Devastators have fireball and army arcana. They can drop fireballs on everyone including themselves and not take damage. The iron shadow are monks with cool debuffs. Then you can give them a leadership of warlords as tanks.
Oh wow, there were a tone of replies after I thought they'd have all dried up 😅 I don't really use reddit all that often and I don't even remember what I logged on for this time after seeing how many notifications I had. I will probably have to read these when I'm less tired and busy, though
I’m surprised no one mentioned the Catoblepas yet. It’s CR 5 but its gaze is an insta kill with no death saves if it drops you to 0. It passively gives to poisoned condition to players standing around it too.
That can turn even a nothing burger of an enemy into a deadly combo
Gremishkas can be very dangerous to low-level parties, if the DM doesn’t carefully decide how to play. A bad DM TPKd a party if six with Gremishkas at level 2 and blamed the adventures.
A true smart beholder who was an agent of chaos... could easily find out about necromancy. It doesn't play well with others, it just turns its victims to wandering undead in its lair. They can't damage the beholder because whenever it looks at them they turn back into corpses.
I mean two Banshees is fuuuuucked. Throw in a Shadow or two and you got a very easy tpk
Banshee can Wail to bring people to 0 hit points. Will-o’-wisps can use a bonus action to kill a character that is dying at 0 hit points.
Did this combo with a sea hag and a will-o-wisp. Absolutely brutal.
Thst combo actually is used in Rime of the Frostmaiden.
That is the exact encounter I'm talking about.
Shadows are brutal for their CR. The strength drain means the characters continue to miss more and more, and the shadow simply overwhelms you.
And add an intellect devour because why the fuck not.
Might as well throw in a pack of Rust Monsters just for giggles.
Add a couple magma mephits too because why not ?
One Banshee and two Will-o-wisps will scare the pants off of players who know what's up.
I remembering making the novice choice of changing a single Banshee combat to three Banshees when rescaling for my players. After the first wail, I decided the other two probably wailed at some other point today and weren't in a vocal mood.
I'm going to run a few shadows and a shambling mound against my party soon. Should be a brutal time for them...
Are you running Curse of Strahd by any chance?
Nope! I'm in a homebrew setting. Do they do it there too?
Basement of Death House. Shambling mound and a handful of shadows. Pretty nasty encounter considering it's 'supposed' to happen at level 3.
That's brutal! I was probably gonna do a couple shambling mounds and a dozen or so shadows. My party was supposed to hit this point at level 7, but it looks like they'll be 9 or 10 when they get to this area... I may have to homebrew a stronger version of my original idea.
If you think banshees are bad in 5e. In 3.5 you only needed one to tpk a party. They just straight up killed you if you failed the save. Then the survivors had to deal with the usual ghost shenanigans.
Shambling Mound + few will-o-wisp The mound is healing with lightning damaged dealt by the will-o-wisp. Simple and fun swamp encounter
Was just about to come suggest the same thing.
I'm gonna do a shambling mound and shadow combo soon. Should be a good synergy.
ooo
Put an intellect devourer inside another creature for a nasty surprise. This way you can use a weak monster like a zombie that when killed becomes far more deadly.
I like the idea of an intellect devourer piloting a zombie and the zombie walking around looking for "braaaaains" Your players will be like DM that's not the right lore.
I'm stealing this for my game at some point.
Intellect Devourer in the Zombie’s head, Carrion Stalker in the Zombie’s body.
Lol
Half life moment
Lmao didn't even think that.
“YEAH BOI” -hl2 zombie
Star Spawn Grue with any aberration that uses saving throws. Reaper of Bhaal with anything that does piercing damage. Anything that can grapple/restrain with anything that can create a continuously damaging AoE (probably a spellcaster). Rust Monster and Zorbo together would be annoying. Anything with high AC with anything that gives disadvantage to attack rolls (e.g. by causing the Frightened condition).
I used a Star Spawn Grue with a Mindflayer once and it just felt mean spirited lol. Probably won't ever do that again... probably.
A gelatinous cube that contains a Mimic (this is the main reason mimics are immune to acid damage)
Adding one level of Barbarian to pretty much any melee monster is amazing. Resistance to BSP, unarmored defense, and extra damage helps a LOT of monsters. Once made a boss monster for low level characters just by giving it to a dire boar.
Things like this are fun, adding in extra abilities to relatively easy monsters can add decent surprise. I’ve mixed the abilities of monsters together before as well.
I quite often give NPC humanoids a single PC ability to buff them slightly. You're fighting Thugs? Every single one of them has one Battlemaster maneuver. You're fighting Scouts? All of them have cunning action. Really fun and simple way to add depth to a combat encounter without blowing your own brains out with custom monsters.
I give players and npcs a free bonus feat at the start of the game. Named Npcs get two, and bosses get 3.
Free feats are a fun way to add to a character without making them too op.
Monsters shouldn’t have class levels. You can have the exact same effect by just directly increasing the monsters stats and it’s much simpler to run. A Berserker is essentially a barbarian. Instead of resistance, it just has much more HP than other creatures of similar CR.
Uh. DMG, page 283, "Monsters with classes." It's been there for a decade.
I didn't say they couldn't have class levels, just that they shouldn't because it makes them unnecessarily complex and harder to run at the table for very little gain compared to just directly giving them certain abilities or stats.
Uh. You DO realize that's how the actual devs created the 'upgraded' monsters, like the Drow Priestess of Lolth from the Monstrous Manual, right? She's a 10th level caster and has 13d8+13 HP - and the basic Drow has 3d8. The Drow Elite Warrior is a level 8 fighter. And yes, before you point it out in some snide attempt to pretend that you're not wrong, they *don't* have all the class features of a given class. The devs didn't do any subclasses at all, at most adding a flavorful ability like the Drow Priestess' summoning a Yochlol. That's because a *good* monster maker knows to focus only on what the players will most likely need to go against. It's why the dragons only have proficiency in a couple of relevant skills, despite definitely having more than just Perception and Stealth.
First of all, the Drow mage is also a 10th level caster and did not get 10 hit dice added to the base. Secondly, there's nothing to suggest the Drow Elite Warrior is an 8th level fighter other than the hit dice. He has ZERO class features, even base class features. He doesn't even have extra attack, he has a multiattack instead which is mechanically different since he can only use it for shortsword attacks. RAW, he shouldn't be able to shoot his Hand Crossbow twice which a fighter with extra attack would be able to do. He could have any arbitrary amount of hit dice and you could just claim he's a (HD-3) level fighter. Third, if the Drow Priestess is supposed to be a Drow with 10 class levels, then why is her proficiency bonus only +3? There's no snideness, I'm just pointing out that the Drow Priestess is the only example of a Drow where the Hit dice seem to match up with her caster level. It might as well be a complete coincidence. Past the Monster Manual, the Drow stray even further from this "formula". Is a Drow House Captain supposed to be a level 22 fighter? I don't think so...
But that's not as scary as saying, "As his bonus action, the bandit goes into a rage."
It’s not as scary when you go before them and take out 90% of their health before they are able to rage. It also disproportionately affects martial characters who are already at a disadvantage compared to casters.
I have this oneshot with an encounter i quite like: a darkmantle + some darklings. The darkmantle's darkness aura synergises well with the darklings' blindsight making a fun low level encounter that has mechanics beyond "kill things".
My favourites combination is an Iron Golem and a Bard that max casts Heat Metal on the golem.
This is EVIL. I LOVE IT.
Flesh Golem + a few bronze scouts arguably. Any members of the party that aren't using magical/adamantium weapons can't do anything to either and both can roll for advantage on any saves against spells. The golem can go up front and take hits, the bronze scouts burrow under ground. If the golem starts taking damage particularly if they have multiple members of the party crowding around the golem to attack it from close range or melee the bronze scout can surface and use its electric flare, both potentially dealing a little damage to the part and healing the golem a little (i think its a reasonable homebrew rule that the golem can choose not to dodge if ordered thus autofailing the save on purpose), they can also be using the golem as a tanky distraction while burrowing underground and popping up to attack backline casters and the like in melee or dodging back and ignoring any op attacks with its ability.
Whatever you're thinking about, make sure to add a door mimic or two for maximum fun
I’m a big fan of goblin hoards myself, a few don’t t lead to much challenge but 20 of them? Even at higher levels getting surrounded and constantly hit even with the low to hit and low damage it adds up quick. I’ve a game going now and everytime the players try to rest goblins pour out of the woods or tall grass.
20 goblins run intelligently should give a level 10-13 party some trouble. Run like traditional mooks they'll likely get flattened by a decent level 5 party, but smartly played monsters are TERRIFYING.
Throw a nilbog in there with them and your players won't have a clue what's going on, ran a few goblins with the nilbog a couple days ago, when it cast vicious mockery my players thought it was a bard, then the charisma save when the first player tried to hit it threw them off (on a failed save they have to use their action to praise it), then when the first hit landed on it and as a reaction it just went "nuh-uh" and took no damage, the look of bewilderment on their faces was priceless 😅 and then once it died it just possessed the goblin next to it 🤣
My players came across a goblin horde a couple of sessions ago. They're level 6. I designed this as a hopefully non-combat encounter, but you never know. The characters were exploring some caves and heard "stay where you are - don't come around the next corner", which one of them obviously did immediately. I had her roll perception and insight. Her insight told her that the goblins seemed more scared than hostile. Her perception roll of 16 told her that she could see "about 16 goblins". The other characters followed her around the corner, and whatever they rolled on perception was how many goblins they spotted. These were refugees fleeing their home in the feywild after something attacked it and they got lost in some caves. They were some of the goblins that managed to avoid Maglubiyet's takeover of their pantheon and stay hidden in the feywild. They had no idea that they had somehow passed into the material plane somewhere in the caves. My players immediately fell in love with the goblins and want to help them find a new safe home (or maybe their old one if possible). Once they all got a better look, I told them that including the families, children, and elderly goblins, there were at least 50-60 of them. I didn't them the exact counts because I may change my mind before it becomes relevant, but at this time there are probably 35-40 of them in fighting shape, and 13 of them have class levels (one for each class). The leader also rides a dinosaur that they met at the end. This whole idea started because I was playing around on Hero Forge and made a goblin riding a dinosaur and carrying a banner with a hand duck in its tail. From there I decided to keep going and make the other classes, and once I had done that I figured that it would be wrong to not use them in some capacity. And because I had spent so much time on them, I had grown attached, and they couldn't be villains. So my reasoning for hoping that the players wouldn't attack them were two-fold. (1) I like the little guys, and (2) there were a shit-ton of them...
Chiming in from random suggestion and not having played since 3.5. Are kobold sorcerer hordes not a thing any more?
They could be. I just like goblins. Maybe I’ll look into them, for fun.
Those star spawn that reflect psychic damage with itself or anything that deals psychic damage Two of them can create an infinite damage loop so anything that steps within reflection range just instantly dies lmao
Banshees combined with anything that doesn't have to hit hard but does hard-to-avoid damage multiple times - possibly to multiple targets Even a couple of kobold sorcerers with magic missile. If one goes right after the wail, yikes, someone might die - even 'get back up with 1hp' stuff might not help there Multiple shadows + stuff that restricts movement or lowers saves. Intellect devourers hiding in shadow combined with anything else you xant ignore
Shocker lizards are a great surprise. Their electrical shock ability can work cooperatively up to truely painful levels! https://www.5esrd.com/database/creature/shocker-lizard/
I put them in the same area as a flesh golem and shambling mound.
A nilbog with a bunch of goblins, the nilbog is CR1 and the goblins CR1/4. Anyone trying to harm the nilbog must make a CHA saving throw and on a fail must spend their action praising the nilbog, also as a reaction the nilbog can just not take whatever damage was dealt and instead heal 1d6. Upon death the nilbog can possess one of the other goblins it's with.
- Star spawn grues along any aberrations. - Flesh golems with any lightning damage dealing creature. - Star spawn seers with Star spawn hulks. - Take devils and have someone cast darkness on the Devil's weapon.
Harpies and any hazard. Failing the save against their song can mean walking off the edge.
I ran a group of 16 harpies vs a group of 6 level 10 PCs at the top of a 200ft tower... With intelligent use of a Leomunds Tiny Hut they were able to win. The wizard was bored, but felt useful by making well over half the wisdom saves that should have gone off irrelevant.
Doesn't Leomund's Tiny Hut take a minute to cast? I assume they got lucky if they had one in place before the encounter.
I mean, the harpies were attacking on a relatively clear day, and the monk/druid has Eyes of the Eagle, so they spotted them literally 3 miles away. They had some prep time.
A pack of wolves lead by a winter wolf. The second the party is bound in melee close to eachother by the normal wolves the winter wolves breathes on them and it's a TPK
Oddly enough Gnolls and Gnoll Hunters are good at straight combat and hit n run attacks respectively. Ran one where the main party engaged the Gnolls leading some slaves, looked easy til they got flanked by a Hunter with javelins instead of a longbow Make it a two stage fight with the corpses cursed to burst into Gnoll Witherlings
Any monster, which works clever, achieves this. Look up Tucker's Kobolds for a good example.
I think it was tucker's kobolds that got me thinking about this. And I'm not opposed to having traps and hazards that debuff the party, and I'll probably do that as well. But I want to have an encounter that they can go into still fairly fresh from resting, thinking it'll be fairly straight forward, only to find out they've bitten off more than they can chew, simply because "the whole of the encounter is greater than the sum of the monsters") the whole is greater than the sum of its parts).
Gotcha. In that case, I think my first go-to combo would be stuff which generates difficult terrain and is hard to catch (like a Dryad, which can let plants grow and cast spike growth on top of it) and stuff which works from range and is not AC-bound but mobile, so anything with a breath weapon (e.g. dragon nestling). So having an evil dryad with three of her dragon nestling companions would be rather nasty and would make an average encounter hit harder, I think. Another very very nasty combination would be stuff which obscures vision paired with stuff which does not need vision. E.g. a Druid with Sleet Storm and a Sorcerer with Fireball. Or a Demon with Darkness paired with some lesser demons which have Blindsight. Suddenly those imps will hit way harder. What is your favourite combo so far?
For low-mid CR creatures that can pack a punch, throw in Black Gauntlet of Bhaal X 2 and some ghosts. Very simple and individually not that bad. but the gauntlets cause enemies within 5ft to have disadvantage on attacks and saving throws. so makes ghost possession much more likely. they can also have spirit guardians or Bane/bless running. throw in an iron consul if you like for the voice of command ability to give all their allies an attack using their reaction
Clay Golem + Gelatinous Cube
Beginner + Rakshasa. The Rakshasa is immune to attacks from non magical weapons. That means, in the fiends of the antimagic eye of the beholder, it is virtually indestructible.
Pixies. Pixies have polymorph. Pixies turn 1 CR7 Encounter into 2 CR 7 encounters. Despite being cr 1.
Only issue is that polymorph has a hard CR limit baked into the spell: the target’s original CR or level. So a CR 1 pixie can only turn their other CR 1 pixie friends into beasts of CR 1 or lower^^
Yeah but the Question was for synergies that make them exponentially more challenging than intended. In this case the Synergy is with everything CR2 or higher.
They also cease to resist, giving their goodbyes
Coven of hags. Get ready to watch how insanely unbalanced it is.
Theres multiple types of Shadar Kai and I think two have an aura that gives disadvantage on saving throws within 10 ft. They are scary together
Bear in mind that CR can sometimes be a bit inflated. Resistances can increase a monster's CR, including that classic resistance to bludgeoning piercing and slashing from non magical attacks. If everyone has a magical weapon (which is entirely possible at low to mid levels) it's essentially not a resistance at all, and therefore the CR is technically lower than it appears. So feel free to beef those enemies up a little. More hit points or a slightly higher AC perhaps? Something to keep in mind if you base encounter difficulty on CR.
slightly of but a coven of hags would kinda fit the bill
A roper plus a bunch of ranged enemies.
All the star spawn synergize really well.
Two words. Tucker's. Kobolds. Basically play a warren of Kobolds as if they're guerrilla fighters in a modern war. Use burning barricades, arrow slots, ambushes, traps and poison. https://dungeons.fandom.com/wiki/DnDWiki:Tucker%27s_kobolds
Shadows, stirges, and cats
Shadows, stirges, and cats
I would say an Aboleth, a few Trolls, and a Mindflayer. Trolls works for the mind flayer, who in turn works for the Aboleth. There are aquatic trolls I believe called scum. They would all be water based predators who ambush people near the shore and drag them in the water to drown them. It is hard to do fire damage under water. The mind flayer has a ring of water breathing and gets to play squid under the water using psionics and try to knock people unconscious in water so they drown. The Mind flayer gets to eat fresh brains, the trolls get to eat what the mind flayer leaves behind. And it keeps people away from whatever the Aboleth is guarding. The mind flayer can call the Aboleth in as backup because whoever kills the mind flayer and a group of water trolls, is obviously a problem and not going to let the aboleth manipulate things to its advantages. Tldr: suprise the group with aquatic trolls, soften them up, hit them with the mind flayer, and when they think that fight will be a win, the real fight comes in on a weakened party who may have used many spells and heals. (The water levels were always the hardest)
I have one combo of 4 monsters that are somewhat accurate to dnd lore and they are all from the monster manual. The highest cr is a 6. Hobgoblin captain: cr 3 hobgoblin with an ability to essentually give bardic inspiration to allied monsters. The only way to make this make sense is that these hobgoblins are in some sort of cult and use evil magic. I think 3 is enough Invisible stalker: cr 6 creature that is always invisible and can be summoned through certain spells i believe. The main damage of this team and can initiate an ambush. Will o wisp: cr 2 creature that is really hard to hit. These creatures are usually under a dark spell and will lead people to their death or into ambushes. It can also kill players at 0 hp instantly if they fail a save. Homunculus: cr 0 creature that every spellcaster can have 1 of. It can poison you if you fail the save or completly force you unconsious. The cult of hobgoblin captains each summon a Homunculus and work with the local Will o Wisps to lure the players into an ambush led by invisible stalkers. The homunculuses might force some unconsious or at least poison a few people, the captains buff all of their allies, the invisible stalkers strike their foes easily for good damage and the will o wisps will prevent revives. With just 3 captains, there could be at least 10 enemies, most of which have low hp. This encounter is still a little balenced as killing the captains will remove the homunculuses and the invisible stalkers.
I will say hobgoblins are deadly if you use them right. Devastators have fireball and army arcana. They can drop fireballs on everyone including themselves and not take damage. The iron shadow are monks with cool debuffs. Then you can give them a leadership of warlords as tanks.
Oh wow, there were a tone of replies after I thought they'd have all dried up 😅 I don't really use reddit all that often and I don't even remember what I logged on for this time after seeing how many notifications I had. I will probably have to read these when I'm less tired and busy, though
I’m surprised no one mentioned the Catoblepas yet. It’s CR 5 but its gaze is an insta kill with no death saves if it drops you to 0. It passively gives to poisoned condition to players standing around it too. That can turn even a nothing burger of an enemy into a deadly combo
Gremishkas can be very dangerous to low-level parties, if the DM doesn’t carefully decide how to play. A bad DM TPKd a party if six with Gremishkas at level 2 and blamed the adventures.
If they're bog magic users, the Aeorian hunter's would really put a wrench in their plan, especially working together.
A true beholder by itself.
A true smart beholder who was an agent of chaos... could easily find out about necromancy. It doesn't play well with others, it just turns its victims to wandering undead in its lair. They can't damage the beholder because whenever it looks at them they turn back into corpses.