I'm preparing for my first game as a DM running the Sunless Citadel. It looks like there's a good possibility Erky Timbers will join the party midway through the dungeon. Is there a way to add him to encounters or my campaign so he'll show up as a friendly character? Currently, it looks like I can add him to encounters as an enemy, but then it throws the challenge rating way off.
The easiest way to add an NPC for balancing purposes is to just choose the option to add a character of a level you feel is appropriate to the encounter builder.
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// I am Arenlor Developers should read This Changelog Moderator for D&D Beyond's YouTube, Twitch, and Discord.
Got it, so no way to mark a creature in the encounter as friendly, for example? Does that mean that if I want to add an adventuring NPC to my campaign I'd have to manually create a character with that NPC's exact stats?
that's because the DMG does not give any rules for friendly or neutral Monsters (or other things with a CR) in the calculation for encounter difficulty. you can add the enemies first to have an accurate calculation and then add the neutral/friendly characters
That makes sense. I guess another option would be to just have check boxes to enable/disable monsters from being added in to the difficulty calculation, rather than have any notion of "friendliness"
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I'm preparing for my first game as a DM running the Sunless Citadel. It looks like there's a good possibility Erky Timbers will join the party midway through the dungeon. Is there a way to add him to encounters or my campaign so he'll show up as a friendly character? Currently, it looks like I can add him to encounters as an enemy, but then it throws the challenge rating way off.
Thanks for any help with this!
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ModeratorThe easiest way to add an NPC for balancing purposes is to just choose the option to add a character of a level you feel is appropriate to the encounter builder.
// I am Arenlor
Developers should read This Changelog
Moderator for D&D Beyond's YouTube, Twitch, and Discord.
Got it, so no way to mark a creature in the encounter as friendly, for example? Does that mean that if I want to add an adventuring NPC to my campaign I'd have to manually create a character with that NPC's exact stats?
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ModeratorCurrently monsters are only added as enemies, yes.
// I am Arenlor
Developers should read This Changelog
Moderator for D&D Beyond's YouTube, Twitch, and Discord.
This would still be a great feature.
Yeah I am new to D&D and I'm really surprised there is no way to change the friendliness in an encounter or add non-character non-hostile NPCs
that's because the DMG does not give any rules for friendly or neutral Monsters (or other things with a CR) in the calculation for encounter difficulty. you can add the enemies first to have an accurate calculation and then add the neutral/friendly characters
That makes sense. I guess another option would be to just have check boxes to enable/disable monsters from being added in to the difficulty calculation, rather than have any notion of "friendliness"