I nerfed an encounter. I wanted it to be too easy rather than too hard. I'm going to back off on the experience of the bad guys.
Is there a resource that tells the experience amount? given hit points of monsters?
Is it plausible to wait and see how the players do and then depending on if the encounter was easy, medium, difficult use the challenge rating table in the DMG. (sort of after the fact instead creating an encounter that I wanted to be rated as 'medium')
If you look into the DMG there is a section on crafting creatures where it helps you calculate the CR of a creature and the XP award based on that CR.
As you adjust certain things about the creatures you can see how it influences their CR, for example if you reduce the AC of a creature it is possible to reduce the associated CR by a great deal. A creature with 17 AC being reduced to 14 AC can be as much as a -8 change to the defensive CR of that creature, which in turn can be as much as a 4,600 XP difference. There's a little more math involved to make sure you have it right, but it should be pretty easy to understand if you look through that section of the DMG (starting on page 273).
You can always look at the chart on page 82 of the DMG and award experience based on their level and encounter difficulty. For example: your party is level 5 and you have a medium encounter the chart says the threshold is 500 xp (which is how much the total xp of all monsters are suppose to be for the encounter) and award that.
Personally I like the milestone leveling system because then I don't have to worry about calculating xp points and when I feel like it's a good time for them to level up is when they level up. A good resource for creating encounters without having to nerf monsters is Kolbold Fight Club. They give you monsters and difficulty based on your party's level and numbers. I hope I could help.
I would say the best way to start is to see how the players do with a given encounter. There are a lot of variables involved. I've learned that the DMGs method for creating encounters is a bit off, and the best way (for me) is to play around with the encounters and adjust accordingly. You can make weaker (worth less xp) creatures a little harder by maxing out their HP instead of going with the average, making a slight adjustment to their AC (ex. goblins wearing chainmail), or just throwing a couple more creatures in there. Action economy is a big factor, there is a big difference between fighting a CR3 creature and three CR1 creatures at lower levels. All that being said, you're the DM. If the book says a creature is worth 500xp, and you want it to be 300xp, that's your call. You could just take the xp value of a creature that is one CR lower than what they are fighting (make a CR3 creature worth 450xp instead of 700).
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He's BONA-FIDE!
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I nerfed an encounter. I wanted it to be too easy rather than too hard. I'm going to back off on the experience of the bad guys.
Is there a resource that tells the experience amount? given hit points of monsters?
Is it plausible to wait and see how the players do and then depending on if the encounter was easy, medium, difficult use the challenge rating table in the DMG. (sort of after the fact instead creating an encounter that I wanted to be rated as 'medium')
If you look into the DMG there is a section on crafting creatures where it helps you calculate the CR of a creature and the XP award based on that CR.
As you adjust certain things about the creatures you can see how it influences their CR, for example if you reduce the AC of a creature it is possible to reduce the associated CR by a great deal. A creature with 17 AC being reduced to 14 AC can be as much as a -8 change to the defensive CR of that creature, which in turn can be as much as a 4,600 XP difference. There's a little more math involved to make sure you have it right, but it should be pretty easy to understand if you look through that section of the DMG (starting on page 273).
You can always look at the chart on page 82 of the DMG and award experience based on their level and encounter difficulty. For example: your party is level 5 and you have a medium encounter the chart says the threshold is 500 xp (which is how much the total xp of all monsters are suppose to be for the encounter) and award that.
Personally I like the milestone leveling system because then I don't have to worry about calculating xp points and when I feel like it's a good time for them to level up is when they level up. A good resource for creating encounters without having to nerf monsters is Kolbold Fight Club. They give you monsters and difficulty based on your party's level and numbers. I hope I could help.
Here is the link for Kolbold Fight Club: http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder
Remember this is a game and it's suppose to be fun for everybody. Let's all have fun and kill monsters.
Thanks
I would say the best way to start is to see how the players do with a given encounter. There are a lot of variables involved. I've learned that the DMGs method for creating encounters is a bit off, and the best way (for me) is to play around with the encounters and adjust accordingly. You can make weaker (worth less xp) creatures a little harder by maxing out their HP instead of going with the average, making a slight adjustment to their AC (ex. goblins wearing chainmail), or just throwing a couple more creatures in there. Action economy is a big factor, there is a big difference between fighting a CR3 creature and three CR1 creatures at lower levels. All that being said, you're the DM. If the book says a creature is worth 500xp, and you want it to be 300xp, that's your call. You could just take the xp value of a creature that is one CR lower than what they are fighting (make a CR3 creature worth 450xp instead of 700).
He's BONA-FIDE!