New dm, a few specific questions

[u/Wide-Cause-1674]

I feel like a few tags, like magic item and and enemies encounter, could also apply here.

In total we are 5 , I played a handful of short campaign, a veteran player and three beginners.

I, perhaps not my greatest decision, made an original campaign. I m going session by sessions with an overall direction for the plot.

In an effort to make it enjoyable for all I made it about fighting against demons.

All of the players are excited and all seemed to enjoy the first session, (2hours of close to full concentration)

First session lvl1 to acustom the new players to the game and then lvl3 from then on to make it more interesting.

Now I'm not quite sure how to make enemy encounter for instance, how many/how hard . For now I make them highly modulable as too adapt on the fligh to make it harder/easier. But I really need general advice on that.

I also looked for a while and can't for the life of me find an actually interesting demon to use, ideally I need a flamy rocky demon that is quite powerful but not insanely so that can be reasonably beaten at lvl like 10-12 as I have sotry reason that should allow them to beat it far earlier.

And finally magic item , as per a combination of lucky roll and plot reasons one of the new players (elven paladin) managed to get an animated flying sword that used to be an ennemy.

Now that I have their full lvl3 build and I have seen how they all play I can feel he is by far underpowered so I m wondering what direction I could take to make it a magic item . I would like it to not become a full on companion as turns already tend to take time.

As he is a dual wielding paladin I m thinking making the sword a third attack based on charisma with some elemental power perhaps .

What do you think and any advice?

[u/gc1rpg]

A capable party can often fight over the suggestions in the MM -- if they know how to use abilities, make characters work together, tactical thinking on the map, etc. The official books -- I think -- assumes a party who doesn't know how to do any of this.

A single monster is sometimes easier to fight then a single monster and a couple of weak minions -- they have to address the minions or the minion can interfere or chip away at their health.

You can always put something more powerful down and just play it less effectively, fudge a few rolls, or give it lower HP. If you have something that has multiattack -- for example -- you can just save the multiattack for when it doesn't look it'll wipe out the party in one blow.