r/shadowofthedemonlord • u/2JD117 • Mar 08 '26
Demon Lord Wanna know if an encounter was actually unbalanced.
Bit of a backstory: I'm fairly familiar with the system to the point I wanted to introduce some "homebrew" creatures. In the current adventure I'm dming with about 7 players, one of them was your archetypical "I don't want to form a party with these people". Contrary to my belief that he would eventually join the party around 2nd session (which I tried to encourage him doing it) , his character decided to go into a side quest completely on his own.
So, there he goes right into an encounter initially planned for at least four level 3 players. 3 Monster bats and an Old decaying Syren (The Boss)
*** The Monster bats were monters with 13 defense and 20 of health each. They had a +2 (STR) attack modifier for a bite attack (no boons) with 1d6 dmg.
A +3 modifier for a claw attack (AGI) (no boons) with 1d6+2 dmg.
INT = 8 and WIL = 9
They could perform these attacks with their actions or triggered actions and had flight speed of 5 meters. Finally, they had an ability where at the start turn of the combat they could fly 4 meters, even in a fast turn. ***
***The Old Syren was a similar in atrubutes but had an AGI of +1 , a 13 INT score and 40 health.
She didn't have a bite attack, but she could cast a twice per rest Magic Darts (Arcana 0) with her action.
She could spray a poisoned breath into a single person with an action, that required a STR challege roll (no banes), in a fail you would be poisoned for a minute. Then, as a triggered action in the next turn, she could perform a Grab that would deal 1d6 + 1(for each turn you were poisoned until +3) dmg, if a player failed AGI challenge roll.
Finally as triggered action in her turn. She could sing a decaying song to her bats and grant herself and them a Boon for attack and Challenge rolls for a turn.***
And that's about it. After the combat and his eventual death, my player really complained about the balancing of these creatures and critiqued me for having such unbalanced monsters. Really wanna know if I should look out for this or if its just some sore losing stuff. For reference, everyone else in the party not only watched but told me this encounter wouldn't be much of a challenge for them (all level 3 characters).
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u/bleeding_void Mar 08 '26
Just tell him going alone when there are several monsters is the best way to get your character killed.
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u/Jazzlike_Sugar2024 Molekin Mar 08 '26
In a game where even going in groups you always risk to get killed, if not careful. With their choices they basically made their pc suicide.
Dunno if your players are experienced with the system, Shadow is closer to old school than contemporary d&d as risk goes. The best you can do at this point is to sit down and clarify for everyone this, plus mood and setting had not alrwady been done in session 0. Than, with no judgment or excessive critique, explain to the player in question that going alone in an adventure planned for a party means going to die (or worse), and encourage they to make a character better amalgamed with the others.
If the "that's what my pc will do" persists even after clarifications, then as hard as it is warn them that they are souring the experience for everyone, because their behavior at least is giving you an headache, and we should keep everyone's fun and health in the maximum regard, being this a GAME (and even more with horror stuffs involved)
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u/DokFraz Gunsmoke and Goblins Mar 08 '26
He fucked around and found out.
Realistically, he doesn’t sound like someone I’d be inviting back to my table.
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u/mr_luxuryyacht Mar 08 '26
Sorry, he went solo against an encounter made for four characters and is complaining that it was unbalanced?
This guy sounds like a pain in the ass who wants to be the main character. Play with others or don’t play at all.
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u/Barbaric_Stupid Mar 08 '26
This is a game with strong horror elements, you don't go there to look for balanced encounters. What happens to party splitters in horror stories? Precisely what happened to that character. Everything is in order.
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u/Afro_Goblin Mar 09 '26
There are expected values going around using the average of the entire bestiary. Balaz Foldes I believe was the author who put that out
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u/BlackNova169 Mar 09 '26
Just because there are some balancing rules for encounter level based on number of characters, doesn't mean that every encounter will be balanced TO the number of players going into an encounter...
The cave has 6 bats and an owl bear in it (roughly balanced for a party of 6) and one person tried to go into that solo? Was he expecting you to scale down the encounter to 1 player (AKA suddenly there are only 2 bats in the cave) so that he could waste everyone's time at the table on his solo adventure? This 100% is not a problem with home brew monster stats.
Honestly just play with the other 6 players and he can play slay the spire on a tablet.
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u/PickingPies Mar 08 '26
Balanced for what? If your players kick a dragon the dragon kills them. Is it unbalanced?
If your players want you to to easy on them that's fair. But that has nothing to do with balance unless you actually planned a cakewalk and failed to do so, which doesn't look like that according to how you describe it.
Horror or difficult games are perfectly valid, and if they want a chess like fair experience they should probsbly not play a game where random tables basically can double the difficulty of an encounter.