Hi, I'm a new DM looking to run my first session or two with some pre-written one-shots but they don't always show what level character they are created for.
How do I create a balanced encounter? I have tried looking at the encounter creator, but if creating a small dungeon, is each room one encounter or the whole lot? The first session I am running has a total of 6 goblins, 6 zombies, 4 cultists and a cult leader. What is the best level for characters here? Would this be too much for a level 1 or level 2 party?
If your situations are based on the concept that one encounter will be completed before the next one starts, then I might suggest adjusting them to be single encounters with an overall total that meets/slightly exceeds adventuring day total budget.
If you situations are based on one long, phased encounter, I might suggest aiming that encounter at the deadly threshold, towards the 1/2 to 2/3 mark of your adventuring day budget.
4-lvl 1PCs - Comes in at just above daily budget for raw xp, but over 4X the daily budget adjusted for number of mobs. If you were to break this into smaller chunks, it would still likely smoke a level 1 party.
4-lvl 3 PCs - Comes in on-par for a daily budget with the consideration or numbers. Broken down into bite sized pieces of 400-1000 xp per encounter, the party should have some challenge finishing the end of the dungeon, but likely survive the ordeal.
There will inevitably be someone come along and tell you that you can aim all of your encounters at the deadly threshold, and the party will walk out just fine. If you are a new DM, with (I'm assuming) a new party with limited experience, I would definitely follow the guidance in the encounter building section and see how it works for you first. If you find that you can swing difficulty to the deadly end safely, without a TPK a every combat, then I suggest you do so with caution.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Great thanks, your analysis above is helpful. It is planned to be one long phased encounter (with the option for a short rest if players decide) The group are new players so I will give them the option of starting at level 2 or three and if they choose level 2 I will adjust the number of opponents. I'd like to err on the side of caution for my first time DMing, wouldn't want to start with a TPK if I can help it :)
Great thanks, your analysis above is helpful. It is planned to be one long phased encounter (with the option for a short rest if players decide) The group are new players so I will give them the option of starting at level 2 or three and if they choose level 2 I will adjust the number of opponents. I'd like to err on the side of caution for my first time DMing, wouldn't want to start with a TPK if I can help it :)
If they are new players do not let them start beyond level 2.
The instinct is to get them to fall in love with the game and their characters by showing all the options available. Sadly, this has the opposite effect often of giving the players too much choice. Start them at level one, and run through how each of the abilities work so that they can get used to their spells, abilities and actions before they add any more.
Now, I know this is going to sound like sacrilege but if you have story reasons that you want to include certain types of enemies or encounters you can always depower the enemies.
The quick and easy way is to look at the HP value of a creature. More often than not our instinct is to go with the fixed number but the rolled value. What do I mean by this?
Let's take the Goblin - Monsters - D&D Beyond (dndbeyond.com) as an example. They can have anywhere between 2 and 12 HP. And I have always argued that they should have varied HP pools. This means that if things are looking really grim during combat you have the choice to make the last few goblins lower health. Only you see the HP of the enemies so to the players it won't be too noticeable if one goblin dies quicker than another. If you are questioned, simply ask the players if they all have the same health level. When they say no, you simply say, neither do enemies.
The other thing to say is that in a good encounter a part of you will worry you've made it too difficult for players. If you're worried about a PC death...that's good usually. Don't be put off by the term deadly in CR and encounter building. Usually parties can withstand around 2 of these types of encounters between long rests. Unless you've built it way OP.
Speaking to your specific example, I would actually reduce the amount of enemies they encounter (maybe two of the goblins run off?), drop some strategic healing potions somewhere easy to get to for the players to pick up. Think about game level design. If you've gone through an area with enemies, it'll always make you suspicious if you find healing items a bit further on...it usually signals there's another fight ahead.
I would really advise against starting players too high level though. Level 2 would be the highest I would go for brand new players to D&D. Otherwise they get swamped with options they don't know how to use.
Thanks, that's good advice. I'll stick to starting them at level 1 or two then and reduce the enemy's. If there's less for the players to know, it'll also reduce what I have to remember about their characters :) The comment about randomised HP is also good to know cheers.
Great thanks, your analysis above is helpful. It is planned to be one long phased encounter (with the option for a short rest if players decide) The group are new players so I will give them the option of starting at level 2 or three and if they choose level 2 I will adjust the number of opponents. I'd like to err on the side of caution for my first time DMing, wouldn't want to start with a TPK if I can help it :)
One long phased (multipart) encounter would likely be the equivalent of an extended battle, no breaks in the middle. If there is a break (short rest) then this will be done in two, or more encounters and will be easier for the party. A longer protracted battle wil be more straining on party resources and daily abilities than several small bites. If you have access to the DMG, I would recommend a look through Multipart Encounters.
Sometimes an encounter features multiple enemies that the party doesn’t face all at once. For example, monsters might come at the party in waves. For such encounters, treat each discrete part or wave as a separate encounter for the purpose of determining its difficulty.
A party can’t benefit from a short rest between parts of a multipart encounter, so they won’t be able to spend Hit Dice to regain hit points or recover any abilities that require a short rest to regain. As a rule, if the adjusted XP value for the monsters in a multipart encounter is higher than one-third of the party’s expected XP total for the adventuring day (see “The Adventuring Day,” below), the encounter is going to be tougher than the sum of its parts.
As Aquilain mentions, new players (and some veterans) might need more time to figure out the game flow, how their PC works, how their team works together, even how to BE a team. A good tactic might be to start the fledgling party off with a hot start. Somewhere the party is gathering and there is a fight break out, could be with local thugs in a town, could be with goblins on the road, whatever fits your opening scene. Put enough xp in that combat for the party to level immediately afterward. If you do this prior to your dungeon, they can start at 2nd level, or 3rd if they manage a couple small odd jobs (killing rats for the innkeep) before they take on the big job of your dungeon. If you already have a module prepped, it might be better to keep the party distracted until they are level appropriate instead of re-working the already built module. Gives them time to become familiar with things, and grow into their PC, and saves you from doing a goodly amount of reverse engineering. Using the first two levels to figure out encounter building, and how resilient the party actually is will help you in the long run as well.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
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Hi, I'm a new DM looking to run my first session or two with some pre-written one-shots but they don't always show what level character they are created for.
How do I create a balanced encounter? I have tried looking at the encounter creator, but if creating a small dungeon, is each room one encounter or the whole lot? The first session I am running has a total of 6 goblins, 6 zombies, 4 cultists and a cult leader. What is the best level for characters here? Would this be too much for a level 1 or level 2 party?
Thanks for you help
I'll link to the Basic Rules - Combat Encounter Difficulty for you to reference. If you have access to the DMG or XGtE, there are more explanitory resources there.
If your situations are based on the concept that one encounter will be completed before the next one starts, then I might suggest adjusting them to be single encounters with an overall total that meets/slightly exceeds adventuring day total budget.
If you situations are based on one long, phased encounter, I might suggest aiming that encounter at the deadly threshold, towards the 1/2 to 2/3 mark of your adventuring day budget.
The 6 Goblin, 6 Zombie, 4 Cultist and 1 "Cult Leader"
There will inevitably be someone come along and tell you that you can aim all of your encounters at the deadly threshold, and the party will walk out just fine. If you are a new DM, with (I'm assuming) a new party with limited experience, I would definitely follow the guidance in the encounter building section and see how it works for you first. If you find that you can swing difficulty to the deadly end safely, without a TPK a every combat, then I suggest you do so with caution.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Great thanks, your analysis above is helpful. It is planned to be one long phased encounter (with the option for a short rest if players decide) The group are new players so I will give them the option of starting at level 2 or three and if they choose level 2 I will adjust the number of opponents. I'd like to err on the side of caution for my first time DMing, wouldn't want to start with a TPK if I can help it :)
If they are new players do not let them start beyond level 2.
The instinct is to get them to fall in love with the game and their characters by showing all the options available. Sadly, this has the opposite effect often of giving the players too much choice. Start them at level one, and run through how each of the abilities work so that they can get used to their spells, abilities and actions before they add any more.
Now, I know this is going to sound like sacrilege but if you have story reasons that you want to include certain types of enemies or encounters you can always depower the enemies.
The quick and easy way is to look at the HP value of a creature. More often than not our instinct is to go with the fixed number but the rolled value. What do I mean by this?
Let's take the Goblin - Monsters - D&D Beyond (dndbeyond.com) as an example. They can have anywhere between 2 and 12 HP. And I have always argued that they should have varied HP pools. This means that if things are looking really grim during combat you have the choice to make the last few goblins lower health. Only you see the HP of the enemies so to the players it won't be too noticeable if one goblin dies quicker than another. If you are questioned, simply ask the players if they all have the same health level. When they say no, you simply say, neither do enemies.
The other thing to say is that in a good encounter a part of you will worry you've made it too difficult for players. If you're worried about a PC death...that's good usually. Don't be put off by the term deadly in CR and encounter building. Usually parties can withstand around 2 of these types of encounters between long rests. Unless you've built it way OP.
Speaking to your specific example, I would actually reduce the amount of enemies they encounter (maybe two of the goblins run off?), drop some strategic healing potions somewhere easy to get to for the players to pick up. Think about game level design. If you've gone through an area with enemies, it'll always make you suspicious if you find healing items a bit further on...it usually signals there's another fight ahead.
I would really advise against starting players too high level though. Level 2 would be the highest I would go for brand new players to D&D. Otherwise they get swamped with options they don't know how to use.
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Thanks, that's good advice. I'll stick to starting them at level 1 or two then and reduce the enemy's. If there's less for the players to know, it'll also reduce what I have to remember about their characters :) The comment about randomised HP is also good to know cheers.
One long phased (multipart) encounter would likely be the equivalent of an extended battle, no breaks in the middle. If there is a break (short rest) then this will be done in two, or more encounters and will be easier for the party. A longer protracted battle wil be more straining on party resources and daily abilities than several small bites. If you have access to the DMG, I would recommend a look through Multipart Encounters.
Sometimes an encounter features multiple enemies that the party doesn’t face all at once. For example, monsters might come at the party in waves. For such encounters, treat each discrete part or wave as a separate encounter for the purpose of determining its difficulty.
A party can’t benefit from a short rest between parts of a multipart encounter, so they won’t be able to spend Hit Dice to regain hit points or recover any abilities that require a short rest to regain. As a rule, if the adjusted XP value for the monsters in a multipart encounter is higher than one-third of the party’s expected XP total for the adventuring day (see “The Adventuring Day,” below), the encounter is going to be tougher than the sum of its parts.
As Aquilain mentions, new players (and some veterans) might need more time to figure out the game flow, how their PC works, how their team works together, even how to BE a team. A good tactic might be to start the fledgling party off with a hot start. Somewhere the party is gathering and there is a fight break out, could be with local thugs in a town, could be with goblins on the road, whatever fits your opening scene. Put enough xp in that combat for the party to level immediately afterward. If you do this prior to your dungeon, they can start at 2nd level, or 3rd if they manage a couple small odd jobs (killing rats for the innkeep) before they take on the big job of your dungeon. If you already have a module prepped, it might be better to keep the party distracted until they are level appropriate instead of re-working the already built module. Gives them time to become familiar with things, and grow into their PC, and saves you from doing a goodly amount of reverse engineering. Using the first two levels to figure out encounter building, and how resilient the party actually is will help you in the long run as well.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad