I wish the DMG had additional levels on the Combat Encounter Difficulty chart that were more difficult than Deadly. As I understand it, Deadly is supposed to mean there is the chance of a player death. But I find they rarely even go that far, unless the party is already worn down by multiple encounters. I know that's the way you're intended to play, but for reasons that's not compatible with my group's play style. So I wish there was a level that told me when I'd gotten to the point where player death is likely even when everyone is burst firing. And I wish there was a threshold that told you when you were at risk of a TPK, too.
Anybody have any idea how you'd have to scale the effective XP totals for those thresholds?
I don't think it's possible to be accurate beyond a certain range. Higher CR monsters scale non-linearly as they gain access to additional features such as immunity and spells. A few bad rolls can turn even a moderate encounter into a quick TPK, and party composition can also be a major factor.
This issue is a major reason for inflating monster Hit Points and adding waves of combat. Keep throwing things at your party until they feel sufficiently threatened.
Obviously not every encounter should be so.... adaptable, but there are several monsters with Mythic Actions that effectively achieve this by offering an escalation option. "This isn't even my final form!"
At a certain point, you'll simply have to improvise encounter difficulty on the spot in order to keep things fresh. There are too many variables to make prediction of much value.
Thanks. Multiple waves are a good idea, and final form is a good imitation of multiple waves that fits thematically for bosses. I might try to use more of those.
However, I've long aspired to make the game a true game, with consequences for good play and bad. Hopefully those consequences aren't a campaign-ending TPK, but I want players to feel like their choices matter. If I allowed them to escape suicidal-level heroism scot-free, it cheapens it. If I always scale the monster down to where they just survive, it doesn't make a difference if they play poorly and I scale down a lot or well and I scale down a little.
That's definitely where Session 0 comes into play. If the party is game for a "hardcore" experience, then that can be decided up front, which frees you up to design a "no mercy" encounter. In that kind of scenario, I would be inclined to implement a "Three Strikes" system where the party can have a "Soft Reset", if there is ever a TPK.
You could tie that in mechanically some way, such as having each TPK become a penalty on future Death Saving Throws.
I will probably choose one of several options in the event of a TPK:
- time travel fixes it
- campaign continues in the afterlife
- campaign continues with a new party
- it was just a dream
But some of these have *some* consequences even if it isn't game-ending. Still, I'd prefer to avoid TPKs, because you can probably only do one or two of these radical restarts per campaign, max.
Depends on the campaign. If you're trying to stick to a more traditional adventure, then yeah. Too many restarts kinda breaks immersion.
However, if you design the campaign with an appropriate plot device, then it can be baked into the process. For example, if the party is being projected into another plane, then a TPK is them being banished back to their home plane. It would take something like a Githyanki Silver Sword to sever their tether and risk true death.
This provides a low level TPK buffer that only costs the party travel time, and possibly treasure, and when they get to a sufficient level, you can bring out the Silver Swords to increase the threat level.
Time lost getting back to the adventure plane may translate to their enemies furthering their nefarious plots, or innocent NPCs being slain.
Sounds good but my party is already insufficiently concerned with the fate of the world. If there were a multiverse of infinite earths I think they'd just go trans-planar murder hobo.
If the characters don't care about the fate of the world, there are a number of possible explanations for that.
They don't like the setting, and there is nothing you can do about that but change it.
They don't like the rules you are using to implement the setting, and you can discus that with them and try to work it out.
They are so powerful already that they aren't interested in just saving the world, they're wanting to move on to another setting entirely.
I think of Tier 3 as when they are at the "saving the world" stage. If they're not in that tier, that's your problem. If they are in Tier 4, it's pretty much expected that they will be doing something like traveling to other planes and such, and there really isn't a Tier 5. I've never seen a good suggestion for doing a Tier 5 game, because that's pretty much where the players are Demigods.
It honestly sounds like you and the players disagree about the play style. They want something they consider more fun, and it's the DM's job to do that. If they are Murder-Hoboes, and you don't like that, you'll have to change something. Making "super deadly" encounters would be if you really do want to have a Total Party Kill.
I will probably choose one of several options in the event of a TPK:
- time travel fixes it
- campaign continues in the afterlife
- campaign continues with a new party
- it was just a dream
But some of these have *some* consequences even if it isn't game-ending. Still, I'd prefer to avoid TPKs, because you can probably only do one or two of these radical restarts per campaign, max.
Actually if they TPK in any of the upcoming encounters, they'll likely wake up in the enemies' dungeon.
To be clear, I don't want super deadly encounters. I want to know a threshold so I know the difference between deadly and super deadly, and I can pick just plain deadly.
We're in Tier 2, so maybe it's fine that they haven't accepted the call to save the world yet. They are doing pretty good tier 2 things, like becoming famous and being asked by governments to turn the tide of internecine conflicts.
Also I'm trying to give them agency to be, if not murder hobos, at least chaotic neutral. They were thinking about triple-crossing a pirate, and I was going to let them do it, but they got distracted by a different side quest. That's the problem. I like constantly throwing out quest hooks that they can pick up or not, whatever they feel like, but they haven't picked any main quest line to follow and are just doing serial adventures.
This is probably the sort of thing where talking to my players is the answer. It's possible they think a serial episodic game is the way I want to run it, and they're trying to go along with my style.
Sometimes you need to stop dropping hooks and just drop the characters...into a situation, one that is your story. While I understand player agency, that means they control their characters, not what's going on in the world around them. If you find that they really aren't into your story, well, that's rough. I guess the people I play with make it pretty simple. My friend told a bunch of of us that he wanted to run The Storm King's Thunder, we said that sounded fun. Now I'm going to run Curse of Strahd, they are all in. There will be many personal touches added by the players and the DM but, everyone is onboard for the main plot and that's good enough.
I pretty much use the Encounter Builder tool, and when I hit Deadly, I drop the number of monsters until It goes down to Hard, then add one back. That only works for normal fights of course, not boss encounters. With those, I usually add generic players to see how many it takes to drop it down to Hard, add one back, and consider how I can work in some allies.
I will probably choose one of several options in the event of a TPK:
- time travel fixes it
- campaign continues in the afterlife
- campaign continues with a new party
- it was just a dream
But some of these have *some* consequences even if it isn't game-ending. Still, I'd prefer to avoid TPKs, because you can probably only do one or two of these radical restarts per campaign, max.
I never aim for a TPK to happen, but I also don’t step in and stop things if it does. If players lose a couple and still refuse to retreat then it is on them, if they make really bad decisions despite evidence in front of them and do something that kills them all it’s on them. My players understand that I will give them no win situations they have to escape from
If your players don't seem interested in the fate of the world, and you need them to be for your campaign, then I would suggest that you run a kind of session 0.5 with them. Ask them the following:
What do they want their characters to spend time doing?
This far into the campaign, what are their individual character motivations for adventuring? Characters who don't care about helping the world to be a better place must be motivated by a desire for money, fame, or power. If they want money, they need a world to spend it in. If they want fame, they should care about the world. If they want power, then what do they plan to rule if the world is ruined?
What ties do their characters have in the world? Do they have family, old friends, a business, a home town, or anything that they care about? If not then they need a bit of a rethink.
You need to be given solid answers to these questions, or you may find that the players aren't fulfilling their end of the unspoken player-DM contract. The players must be interested in what you are prepping for them, or else you can't prepare.
In terms of CR and encounter level, Deadly Encounters are usually pretty easy for the party in my campaign, and I have to go way over threshold to challenge them, even if they've done a couple of encounters before. The main reason for that is that monster hit points are way too low in 5th edition whilst damage output is very high for both PCs and monsters leading to combats that last just 1-2 turns even at Deadly level.
Yeah, my combats are often over too quickly. It doesn't help that I have given my party some homebrew bonuses and some of them are also pretty good powergamers.
I will consider using stock monsters with increased hp. Do you have a recommended factor for the increase? 50%? 100%?
Without all the variables in your game at our disposal, no one can tell you how to scale encounters. You have to experiment and as was mentioned, sometimes add or subtract planned enemies that might be in reserve for later rounds of the combat.
I will probably choose one of several options in the event of a TPK:
- time travel fixes it
- campaign continues in the afterlife
- campaign continues with a new party
- it was just a dream
But some of these have *some* consequences even if it isn't game-ending. Still, I'd prefer to avoid TPKs, because you can probably only do one or two of these radical restarts per campaign, max.
My advice never undo the TPK unless it happened by fluke at level 1-2 and even then be up front with the players and see what they want to do. By undoing that event you take away player agency and also make them think you will undo every mistake they make.
Do explain in session 0 that escape and retreat is always an option. As for making encounters hard, it isn’t all about the monsters and how many but also how you use them, if you are using something ethereal set up your map with lots of walls it can float in and out of to attack and then go out of sight, if something that flies, put it in the air and make your players work out how to bring it down, make them fight something underwater, or have the enemy flank them, attacking the back line characters directly from behind.
Using your monsters tactics and skills and creating environments that need thought is how you make combat interesting not just for the players but for you as a dm.
I really don't understand how you can get a TPK unless that is your intent as a DM. Sure, you could have an enemy cast a Fireball on a whole party of wounded characters and kill them but, are you not bright enough to see that this could end up in a TPK? Letting the whole party die because they made a few mistakes(or you did as a DM when you overmatched the party with your encounter) is not preserving player agency. Expecting characters to run/escape an encounter is absolutely not player agency.
If you have to undo a TPK, I'm thinking there's a better chance that the DM has to undo their own mistakes. That said, there are exceptions depending on a gaming groups play style preference.
If you are playing Hardcore Survival mode and everyone pretty much understands this. TPKs could happen.
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I wish the DMG had additional levels on the Combat Encounter Difficulty chart that were more difficult than Deadly. As I understand it, Deadly is supposed to mean there is the chance of a player death. But I find they rarely even go that far, unless the party is already worn down by multiple encounters. I know that's the way you're intended to play, but for reasons that's not compatible with my group's play style. So I wish there was a level that told me when I'd gotten to the point where player death is likely even when everyone is burst firing. And I wish there was a threshold that told you when you were at risk of a TPK, too.
Anybody have any idea how you'd have to scale the effective XP totals for those thresholds?
I don't think it's possible to be accurate beyond a certain range. Higher CR monsters scale non-linearly as they gain access to additional features such as immunity and spells. A few bad rolls can turn even a moderate encounter into a quick TPK, and party composition can also be a major factor.
This issue is a major reason for inflating monster Hit Points and adding waves of combat. Keep throwing things at your party until they feel sufficiently threatened.
Obviously not every encounter should be so.... adaptable, but there are several monsters with Mythic Actions that effectively achieve this by offering an escalation option. "This isn't even my final form!"
At a certain point, you'll simply have to improvise encounter difficulty on the spot in order to keep things fresh. There are too many variables to make prediction of much value.
Thanks. Multiple waves are a good idea, and final form is a good imitation of multiple waves that fits thematically for bosses. I might try to use more of those.
However, I've long aspired to make the game a true game, with consequences for good play and bad. Hopefully those consequences aren't a campaign-ending TPK, but I want players to feel like their choices matter. If I allowed them to escape suicidal-level heroism scot-free, it cheapens it. If I always scale the monster down to where they just survive, it doesn't make a difference if they play poorly and I scale down a lot or well and I scale down a little.
That's definitely where Session 0 comes into play. If the party is game for a "hardcore" experience, then that can be decided up front, which frees you up to design a "no mercy" encounter. In that kind of scenario, I would be inclined to implement a "Three Strikes" system where the party can have a "Soft Reset", if there is ever a TPK.
You could tie that in mechanically some way, such as having each TPK become a penalty on future Death Saving Throws.
I will probably choose one of several options in the event of a TPK:
- time travel fixes it
- campaign continues in the afterlife
- campaign continues with a new party
- it was just a dream
But some of these have *some* consequences even if it isn't game-ending. Still, I'd prefer to avoid TPKs, because you can probably only do one or two of these radical restarts per campaign, max.
Depends on the campaign. If you're trying to stick to a more traditional adventure, then yeah. Too many restarts kinda breaks immersion.
However, if you design the campaign with an appropriate plot device, then it can be baked into the process. For example, if the party is being projected into another plane, then a TPK is them being banished back to their home plane. It would take something like a Githyanki Silver Sword to sever their tether and risk true death.
This provides a low level TPK buffer that only costs the party travel time, and possibly treasure, and when they get to a sufficient level, you can bring out the Silver Swords to increase the threat level.
Time lost getting back to the adventure plane may translate to their enemies furthering their nefarious plots, or innocent NPCs being slain.
Sounds good but my party is already insufficiently concerned with the fate of the world. If there were a multiverse of infinite earths I think they'd just go trans-planar murder hobo.
If the characters don't care about the fate of the world, there are a number of possible explanations for that.
I think of Tier 3 as when they are at the "saving the world" stage. If they're not in that tier, that's your problem. If they are in Tier 4, it's pretty much expected that they will be doing something like traveling to other planes and such, and there really isn't a Tier 5. I've never seen a good suggestion for doing a Tier 5 game, because that's pretty much where the players are Demigods.
It honestly sounds like you and the players disagree about the play style. They want something they consider more fun, and it's the DM's job to do that. If they are Murder-Hoboes, and you don't like that, you'll have to change something. Making "super deadly" encounters would be if you really do want to have a Total Party Kill.
<Insert clever signature here>
Actually if they TPK in any of the upcoming encounters, they'll likely wake up in the enemies' dungeon.
To be clear, I don't want super deadly encounters. I want to know a threshold so I know the difference between deadly and super deadly, and I can pick just plain deadly.
We're in Tier 2, so maybe it's fine that they haven't accepted the call to save the world yet. They are doing pretty good tier 2 things, like becoming famous and being asked by governments to turn the tide of internecine conflicts.
Also I'm trying to give them agency to be, if not murder hobos, at least chaotic neutral. They were thinking about triple-crossing a pirate, and I was going to let them do it, but they got distracted by a different side quest. That's the problem. I like constantly throwing out quest hooks that they can pick up or not, whatever they feel like, but they haven't picked any main quest line to follow and are just doing serial adventures.
This is probably the sort of thing where talking to my players is the answer. It's possible they think a serial episodic game is the way I want to run it, and they're trying to go along with my style.
Sometimes you need to stop dropping hooks and just drop the characters...into a situation, one that is your story. While I understand player agency, that means they control their characters, not what's going on in the world around them. If you find that they really aren't into your story, well, that's rough. I guess the people I play with make it pretty simple. My friend told a bunch of of us that he wanted to run The Storm King's Thunder, we said that sounded fun. Now I'm going to run Curse of Strahd, they are all in. There will be many personal touches added by the players and the DM but, everyone is onboard for the main plot and that's good enough.
I'm running homebrew and yeah pretty soon I'll be dropping them in a situation they have to respond to.
I pretty much use the Encounter Builder tool, and when I hit Deadly, I drop the number of monsters until It goes down to Hard, then add one back. That only works for normal fights of course, not boss encounters. With those, I usually add generic players to see how many it takes to drop it down to Hard, add one back, and consider how I can work in some allies.
<Insert clever signature here>
I never aim for a TPK to happen, but I also don’t step in and stop things if it does. If players lose a couple and still refuse to retreat then it is on them, if they make really bad decisions despite evidence in front of them and do something that kills them all it’s on them. My players understand that I will give them no win situations they have to escape from
If your players don't seem interested in the fate of the world, and you need them to be for your campaign, then I would suggest that you run a kind of session 0.5 with them. Ask them the following:
You need to be given solid answers to these questions, or you may find that the players aren't fulfilling their end of the unspoken player-DM contract. The players must be interested in what you are prepping for them, or else you can't prepare.
In terms of CR and encounter level, Deadly Encounters are usually pretty easy for the party in my campaign, and I have to go way over threshold to challenge them, even if they've done a couple of encounters before. The main reason for that is that monster hit points are way too low in 5th edition whilst damage output is very high for both PCs and monsters leading to combats that last just 1-2 turns even at Deadly level.
Yeah, my combats are often over too quickly. It doesn't help that I have given my party some homebrew bonuses and some of them are also pretty good powergamers.
I will consider using stock monsters with increased hp. Do you have a recommended factor for the increase? 50%? 100%?
Without all the variables in your game at our disposal, no one can tell you how to scale encounters. You have to experiment and as was mentioned, sometimes add or subtract planned enemies that might be in reserve for later rounds of the combat.
My advice never undo the TPK unless it happened by fluke at level 1-2 and even then be up front with the players and see what they want to do. By undoing that event you take away player agency and also make them think you will undo every mistake they make.
Do explain in session 0 that escape and retreat is always an option.
As for making encounters hard, it isn’t all about the monsters and how many but also how you use them, if you are using something ethereal set up your map with lots of walls it can float in and out of to attack and then go out of sight, if something that flies, put it in the air and make your players work out how to bring it down, make them fight something underwater, or have the enemy flank them, attacking the back line characters directly from behind.
Using your monsters tactics and skills and creating environments that need thought is how you make combat interesting not just for the players but for you as a dm.
I really don't understand how you can get a TPK unless that is your intent as a DM. Sure, you could have an enemy cast a Fireball on a whole party of wounded characters and kill them but, are you not bright enough to see that this could end up in a TPK? Letting the whole party die because they made a few mistakes(or you did as a DM when you overmatched the party with your encounter) is not preserving player agency. Expecting characters to run/escape an encounter is absolutely not player agency.
If you have to undo a TPK, I'm thinking there's a better chance that the DM has to undo their own mistakes. That said, there are exceptions depending on a gaming groups play style preference.
If you are playing Hardcore Survival mode and everyone pretty much understands this. TPKs could happen.