Setup:  I still feel I'm just not getting the finer art of encounter(s) generation where I've either thrown too much or too little at my players which really makes for some uneven gameplay.  I've decided to try and stick to the Encounter Daily Budget and practice with some single-level dungeons in stocking some of the rooms to get an idea of what makes for good encounter sets.   

Question: I'm curious to see if anyone follows the Daily Budget rules when generating encounters or if you have an opinion on the method.

I usually use the XGTE single player quick matchup ( page 91), and each player face their own quick matchup in a average-difficulty encounter.

As for one big bad, I'd say possibly just use the average-party-level-system ( i.e., a CR 4 monster for a party of 4 4th-level players ), although at first and second level, i'd reduce damage/use lower CR monster due to squishiness problems, and also, sometimes you'll want the monster(s) in question to be weaker/stronger, but these are just a few quick pointers.   

I don't follow it. I put what should be into a place into the place and write up a "plan of action" for the monsters (i.e., what their SOP is when they see an enemy, hear a battle down the hall, etc) and let the players deal with it. So far they have done fine (they are level 7). If they wipe because they over-aggroed, that's their problem. If they make it easy by stringing out encounters, that's fine.

I use CR to just roughly judge what power level of bad guys I should put into areas and I put them into fixed locations that could, depending on the party's actions, be "single encounter areas." But if they get into a running fight or if they trigger multiple encounters at once, that is on them. So far I have not done a "Coleville screw" to them, because they've been smart enough not to cause one, but I'm perfectly happy to do so if they trigger it by their actions.

In terms of CR -- I use KFC to just tell me if this individual encounter is what the DMG would call easy, medium, etc., but that is just to help me ballpark it in terms of what I am going for in the encounter. 

I guess I'm the only one checking out this thread to see if it was in fact intended to be Encounters in ratio to the PCs daily bidet.  And now I'm inspired to build some homebrew.

Quote from MidnightPlat >>

I guess I'm the only one checking out this thread to see if it was in fact intended to be Encounters in ratio to the PCs daily bidet.  And now I'm inspired to build some homebrew.

 Damn it!  I completely missed that title flub. Fixed.

I just finished a small side-quest dungeon... I may re-do the map, as I am not 100% sure I like it. But in any case, the encounters I came up with are, in order... Hard, easy, easy, easy, medium, Deadly. This sequence will happen only if the go from the entrance to the ending point and clean everything out roughly in order (some are side rooms but those are the easy ones so flipping them around won't change the sequence).

However, there is pretty much a straight-shot right now from the starting point to the boss room (one of the reasons I am considering redoing the map). They could beeline it. In which case, it would be Hard, easy, deadly, but then some of the stuff they missed might well come down on them from behind.

I have no idea what the party will do. The do a lot of scouting with familiars and clairvoyance and such, so they likely won't be ambushed in this particular setting. But if they do something crazy, they could end up fighting 3 or 4 encounters at once, and I would not be shocked at a TPK if that happens (especially if they get trapped in the final room with 3 or 4 encounters coming at them from behind and blocking the exit). On the other hand if they go slowly, don't alert anyone, and take the encounters one at a time, the whole thing will probably be cake.

Quote from BioWizard >>

I just finished a small side-quest dungeon... I may re-do the map, as I am not 100% sure I like it. But in any case, the encounters I came up with are, in order... Hard, easy, easy, easy, medium, Deadly. This sequence will happen only if the go from the entrance to the ending point and clean everything out roughly in order (some are side rooms but those are the easy ones so flipping them around won't change the sequence).

However, there is pretty much a straight-shot right now from the starting point to the boss room (one of the reasons I am considering redoing the map). They could beeline it. In which case, it would be Hard, easy, deadly, but then some of the stuff they missed might well come down on them from behind.

I have no idea what the party will do. The do a lot of scouting with familiars and clairvoyance and such, so they likely won't be ambushed in this particular setting. But if they do something crazy, they could end up fighting 3 or 4 encounters at once, and I would not be shocked at a TPK if that happens (especially if they get trapped in the final room with 3 or 4 encounters coming at them from behind and blocking the exit). On the other hand if they go slowly, don't alert anyone, and take the encounters one at a time, the whole thing will probably be cake.

My total encounters look like Easy, Hard, Easy, Hard, Easy, Deadly, Trival, and Trival.  BUT the direct path comes out to Easy, Trap, Deadly, Trival, Trival which really is a pretty terrible layout (Though in my defense I was using the DMG random tables for populating a dungeon.) So I'll go back and readjust placement.  That came out to 20150 daily against the allowed 17500

Side Question: Do you normally run into TPK, or is it a just in case the characters are acting reckless.