Take The Bet
In practice, there’s a finite number of encounters used to start typical new campaigns. There’s no shortage of low level/ challenge monsters, but many are just used in mobs at higher levels or as secondary encounters. The first encounter tends to be more iconic. A big name critter. You’re likely to fight kobolds over monodrones and goblins over grimlocks.
There’s lots of reasons for the first encounter to be “boring”. It might be because the group is trying a new edition of variant of the game and wants to start with a familiar monster. Or they’re returning to low levels after a stint of high level play and are taking the opportunity to bring back a favourite monster unseen for many, may levels. Or the group might be new and the opportunity is being presented to introduce the players to a classic D&D monster.
Hmm…now you’ve got me wondering how to make the first battle of a campaign awesome and significant.
Like, a wyvern swoops down on the party, or they corner a cackling evil wizard, or a titan attacks the city walls, or something like that.
The problem is, though, to mechanically back up what those monsters do story-wise, they’ll inevitably have a much higher challenge rating than the PCs, which means if the PCs actually fight them at a low level (1 or 2 or whatever you start your game at), they’ll be squished. And you can’t avoid that unless you play the monster/bad guy like an idiot or severely weaken their attacks or something like that.
Still, that gives me an idea…imagine a scene where the party, just travelling along, encounters a giant wyvern that’s just finished off a powerful cleric and is trying to make off with their shinies.
Thanks to the cleric who it just barely defeated, it’s low on health, its poison is exhausted, and a curse has severely weakened its attack and damage, but it’s still determined enough to try and take down the PC party.
Will the PCs prevail against this giant wyvern and avenge the cleric? Will it escape with the cleric’s magical artifact, necessitating a hunting party to take it down?
Well, you did hit an interesting point here. Chances are, I ended a homebrew campaign last year where there wasn’t a great variety of monsters involved (hobgoblin invasion in a peaceful realm, along with worg-riding goblins and bugbear scouts). The party confronted them many times, yet I used the different terrains and situations to keep things interesting (having to save the population of a whole village kind of limited their options). So, even overused monsters can give a tasty start if used wisely.
Nowadays I’m readying a 6-part campaign involving pirates, seafaring and a big hidden treasure (classical elements), but with a lot of parley and alliances. The first fight starts with a boom: a couple ghasts. At 1st level, yes. And yet, my group of 3 playtesters made a short work of them…. who said you can’t throw something tough on the PCs?