An Encounter Recipe?

Rather than limit these encounters to a particular to the level and number of characters in your party, these encounters focus on strategy the enemy uses and how to combine monster's abilities in interesting (and challenging) ways. When my recipe says "1 Ogre, 4 goblins", you should think of it as roughly a 1 to 4 ratio of Ogres to Goblins, but feel free to add more or less to fit your party's dietary needs!

On that note, Most of my encounters will even give guidelines on how to scale the encounter up for more players or higher levels, but I still can't possibly know what your party's real strength is. If you have them kitted to kill zombies, for example, and you throw them into my Zombie Zoo, take that into consideration when deciding how to scale them.

Spiciness?

Spiciness describes the synergy between the creatures in an encounter. For example, a CR 1/4 and a CR 2 creature doesn't sound like a threat to a level 10 party member. But if that party member is low on health, and that CR1/4 can cast Sleep, then the CR2 Intellect Devourer can insta-kill it with one intelligence check. Because of that, Intellect Devourers are very spicy when combo'd with anything that can stun, sleep, or otherwise leave someone Incapacitated. Here's a breakdown of my system:

Thanks to @TheOperaGeek for sponsoring this encounter!

Spiciness: 5/5 (Boss Fight)

This performance is deadly; your players will need strategy to survive.

Feeds about 3-5 players, level 4-6

Scales for: Number of Players, Player Level

Ingredients:

Stat blocks are on the next page or Monster Manual!

• The Aria Spectre
• X Stage Hands (One Per Player)
• X Will-o-Wisps (One for every level over 4)

Scale the Save DCs: At level 6, add +1 to their Save DCs.

Preparation

The Aira Spectre is a hauntingly beautiful spectre. In life, she was the center of the show, and in death-- she refuses to yield the stage. After all-- the show must go on!

Based on the Banshee and Shadow statblocks, these two custom creatures have been modified to more perfectly compliment each other, with the Aria acting as a soloist performing massive AoEs attacks and debuffs, while the stage-hands remain hidden and protect her. At higher levels, I've added Will-O-Wisps to add an additional threat to the players, forcing them

Cooking the Will-O-Wisps

Round 1+: The role of the Will-o-Wisps in this fight is partially asthetic (I loved the idea of floating lights on the stage), and partly for their Consume Life ability. Consider keeping them invisible until someone drops to 0 (which may be immediately due to Killing Aria). Then, consume life as a bonus action and use your action to return to invisibility.

Defensive Note: Be sure to end their turns away from visible creatures to avoid them getting hit by a fireball while invisible! If they take any damage, they're likely to lose concentration on their Invisibility (+0 Con Save) or just perish outright (they only have 22hp)

Cooking the Stage Hands

Round 1+: The Stage Hands have 3 jobs, keep Aria well-lit, remain in the shadows, and prevent people from stopping the show! Keep Cue Lights on Aria, try to use Fly Rigging to prevent melee people from getting close to her by hoisting them in the air, or finish off downed party members.

Reactions: Always try to end your turn next to party members to get the most use out of The Show Must Go On!

Don't forget! If you're not in bright light, use Preserve Immersion to stay Hidden. Otherwise, you must move to an area that isn't brightly lit. (After all, stage hands are not meant to be seen in the show!)

Cooking the Aria Spectre

Round 1: If she's in bright light, she can use her Killing Aria (which is her best ability). If your Stage Hands have used Cue Lights on her, or you can simply move to bright light, then do that. Otherwise, fly upwards and use your Tessitura to do a little damage. While it may be tempting to Coloratura, your Aria will damage all of them, so it would end the effect if used before that.

Round 2: If you've used your Killing Aria, use your Coloratura now to prevent the remaining party members from healing them (and giving your stagehands / will-o-wisps time to finish them off), using your bonus action for Arcane Crescendo. Otherwise, definitely use your Killing Aria now!

Round 3+: By now, it should be a cleanup job: Either the party has gotten lucky on their saves and avoided the worst of Killing Aria, or the party is in dire shapes. Either way, the strategy is the same: Keep your Coloratura active (it's concentration & recharges on 6), and throw in some extra damage through Tessitura when you have a free action.

When you reach 0HP for the first time: Your Cadenza activates, recharges all your abilities, and gives you an immediate action. If you're brightly lit, use Killing Aria. Otherwise, Coloratura might be enough to keep you alive until the start of your next turn.

Note on Cue Lights: Since your spotlight follows you, you can position yourself better before using Killing Aria to hit more party members, but be careful with your movement. You could accidentally reveal the location of the stage-hands by moving through them (and thus, brightly lighting them).

Thanks to @Goblins_Mordor for sponsoring this encounter!

Spiciness: 5/5

Feeds about 3-5 players, level 5-8

Scales for: Number of Players, Player Level

Ingredients:

• Booyahg Wielder (VGM, Necklace of Fireballs, 1 bead, Possessed by Nilbog Spirit at start of battle)
• Booyahg Booyahg Booyahg (mage armor already cast)
• One Goblin per player.
  Scaling for Level: For each level over 5, convert one Goblin to a Booyagh Wielder (Wand of Wonder). At Level 8, use Goblin Boss stat block for each (with Wands of Wonder)

Preparation

Usually, all you need to know about a monster (for combat) is in their stat block-- but the Nilbog is so sneaky and mischievous that one of it's most flavorful (and powerful) ability is actually on an entirely different page!

Every Turn

Wild Magic: Don't forget that, unlike Wild Magic Sorcerers, BOOYAHGs roll on the wild magic table every single time they cast a spell. That combined with the Wands of Wonder are going to make for absolute arcane chaos.

Nimble Escape: You can disengage as a bonus action, meaning you never have to take an attack of opportunity!

Reactions

Reversal Of Fortune vs Counter Spell vs Shield: If the only person effected by the spell would be the Nilbog and it's a damaging spell, it may be better to use Reversal Of Fortune to negate the damage rather than burn a spell slot. If it's a big AoE that's gonna take out all your Gobbos-- Counter spell! Alternatively, if it's an attack-roll based spell (or weapon attack), it's actually best to use Shield that way you get that tasty +5 to AC for the rest of your turn.

Thanks to @HottingerLauren for sponsoring this Encounter!

Spiciness: 5/5

Feeds about 3-5 players, level 5-7

Scales for: Number of Players, Player Level

Ingredients:

• Florabarian (stat block on next page!)
• X Poison Vine Blights (One Per Player)
• Use the Vine Blight stat block but add the following ability: Toxic Thorns. Any creature that grapples the Blight or otherwise comes into direct contact with the Blight's vines must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or become poisoned for 1 minute. A poisoned creature no longer in direct contact with the Blight can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

Scaling for Level: At level 7, add +1 to their Save DCs.

Preparation

The Florabarian is named such because they are intoxicatingly beautiful, yet dangerous. They utilize their vicious vines to brutalize their enemy, poisoning them and twisting their minds until they can no longer discern friend from foe.

This fight is all about Poison & Charm. Each ingredient in it can either inflict poison (and help the Florabarian get her Intoxicating Charm off), or has other means of crowd control to prevent the party from simply ganging up on the florabarian until she's downed.

Things you should know for this fight:

• Reactions can happen even on the turn of the person triggering the reaction (thus if the Florabarian poisons someone, she can use her reaction on her own turn).
• Poisoned gives them disadvantage on Attack rolls and Ability Checks.
• While charmed, they follow Florabarian's orders without hesitation or misinterpretation.

Thanks to @StarShinobi for sponsoring this encounter!

Spiciness: 4/5

A lot of single target Damage, but not going to TPK.

Feeds about players 3-5, level 5-7

Scales for: Number of Players, Player Level

Ingredients:

• 2 Star Shinobi (Based on the Star Spawn Mangler, MToF)
• X Star Spawn Grue (One Per Player, MToF)

Scale the Save DCs: At level 7, add +1 to their Save DCs.

Preparation

Star Spawn are the demons of aberrations-- Chaotic, Evil, looking to destroy things. But unlike the animalistic, primal demons that use brute force or arcane might, the Star Spawn can be hyper intelligent.

As an example, the Star Spawn Mangler is very stealthy. Between having a +7 to stealth, darkvision, Ambush, AND Shadow Stealth, it already felt like a ninja, so adding the two abilities Time Warp and Substitution Jutsu make it feel way more interesting and "ninja like". Of course, the encounter has to be an ambush as well, so here's the pre-battle prep!
Before the Combat: The Star Shinobi are hiding in shadows (possibly on the walls or columns as they have a climb speed), while the Grue are behind total cover. As the party walks into their trap, they each roll Perception (DC 17) to notice the Shinobi, who are quickly beginning the fight. On a failure, that creature is surprised.

Thank you to @DavvyChappy for sponsoring this encounter!

Spiciness: 5/5

Some creatures can hold their own against the action economy... Especially the Wizard.

Feeds about 3-5 players, level 8-10

Scales for: Number of Players, Player Level

Ingredients:

• Special Leigh, The Wizard (Next Page!)

Scale the Save DCs: For every level over 8, add 15hp to Special Leigh. At level 10, add +1 to their Save DCs.

Preparation

When writing Special Leigh, the Wizard, there were some no-brainers in the design, such as giving them Fireball, but what makes Special Leigh Special? They went to all the schools. Leigh is an abjurer, conjurer, diviner, enchanter, evoker, illusionist, transmuter, and necromancer!

The problem usually faced by single-creature boss fights is that the action economy is stacked so far against them that the creature either has to nuke them down immediately to have a chance or has to abuse bounded accuracy to survive more than a round or two (and it's not fun for the players to constantly be missing).

To fix that, we're doing a couple things:

• Scaling the number of Legendary Actions they have to party size-1
• Scaling the number of Legendary Resistance they have to half the party's size.
• Buffing the shit out of them pre-battle.

Pre-battle:

• Special Leigh has stoneskin, mind blank, & Mage armor already cast. They regained these spell slots through Arcane Recovery or some other bullshit though (power pearl? Used Scrolls?)
• Special Leigh begins the fight with their Abjurer Shield shield active at 30HP, the Illusion from Illusionist active, & the Transmuter's Stone giving them +10 to their movement speed.
• Leigh begins the fight as an Enchanter.

When to Choose what School? Rather than choosing what spell you want and simply picking the school that goes with it, I'd prioritize picking what benefit you want and then choosing what spell you want after. Remember that you still have to recharge each of these abilities through casting a spell of the same school while that school's effect is active on you.

Note: Abjurer is particularly good because you can switch to it as a legendary action, and then heal your Arcane Ward as a reaction through casting Shield.

Cooking the Wizard

Before your first Turn: Your Instinctive charm is active, so if someone targets you with a ranged attack or they target you with a melee attack and have an ally next to them, use it!

Round 1 (Active buffs: Displacement, Arcane Ward, Instinctive Charm, Transmuter's Stone, Stoneskin): At the start of the fight, you have all your defensive buffs active, and we want to keep it that way! Getting hit will remove your Displacement, reduce your Arcane Ward, and force a concentration check on Stoneskin, so play some cat-and-mouse with your 40ft movespeed. Don't worry about attacks of opportunity, we can cast Shield if necessary (and it will last until the start of your next turn, giving you a full round of its benefits). We can't use a Concentration spell yet without losing Stoneskin, so use fireball or cone of cold to hit as many of them as possible.

Round 2: It's time to trigger a trap! I'd wager there's at least 1 melee person next to you now (who probably had to Dash to catch you), so use Wall Of Force to exclude everyone else from the fight, and cantrip that person down with legendary actions. Note that Wall of Force is concentration, so you lose Stoneskin if it was still active (though I doubt it is).

Round 3: Switch to Necromancer if you've lost 15+ hp, or Diviner if you haven't. If someone is in the wall of force with you, hit them with Finger of Death to kill them, and then heal for 21hp if that person dies & you chose Necromancer; if you chose Diviner, you can make them re-roll their save if they pass (and you should!). If no one is in the wall with you, switch to Enchanter and target the party's spellcaster with a Power Word Kill. That likely kills them outright, and recharges your Instinctive Charm. Since only spells can get through Wall of force, if that was their only spellcaster... you're effectively invincible at this point.

Round 4: With 2 people down, we can gain a lot by removing a third from combat. If your Diviner is ready to use, switch to that before using Mental Prison on one of the survivors. That drops Wall of Force, but also prevents that person from doing something to pick up a downed party member by turning this effectively into a duel between whoever is left and Special Leigh. If you'd rather not lose Wall of force, hit the remaining party members with Synaptic Static instead to potentially down more of them but also to debuff them.

Round 5+: At this point, if things have gone as written above, it's going to be a TPK. While we're not aiming to TPK as a DM, this encounter will absolutely require your players to be smart to avoid it!

Legendary Actions: Notice that my tactical breakdown doesn't say "Turn X", but rather Round X. If you can do the suggested strategies as a legendary action, do it!

Reactions: You have both Counterspell and Shield. If someone is casting a spell at you that uses attack rolls (or magic miss), it's actually better to use Shield. It costs a lot less (level 1 spell vs 3) and provides better benefit

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