Occasionally I read about parties that were TPK'd because they foolishly attacked some overly powerful creature.
This always makes me wonder how this happens in the first place. The way I've been DMing, it's kind of like in video games with adaptive difficulty, where the creatures they encounter always happen to be level-appropriate. That way, even if the party decides to go murder-hobo, at the most they will be forced to fight a series of deadly (but possible) fights.
So I wanted to ask other DMs: Do you regularly put overly powerful creatures in your players' path? If so, do you telegraph how powerful they are? How do you make sure your party can distinguish between "this creature is so powerful it would be dumb to fight it" and "this creature is so powerful, you'll be total badasses when you slay it"?
And the other side of the coin: Let's say you prepared a Goblin dungeon for your level 3 party. The party ignores it and decided to do some other stuff instead. Now they are level 6 and decide to do the Goblin dungeon after all. Do you now stuff it with more powerful creatures as if it had always been a level 6 dungeon, or do you let them do the level 3 dungeon even though it's super boring (and doesn't give an appropriate amount of XP for their level)?
Yes, I balance content, and yes, I create unwinnable fights. I create them intentionally unwinnable, knowing the party's level and making them unwinnable for that level. I usually make them escapable or otherwise create consequences for losing other than ending the campaign.
If my players wanted to go back and do a low-level goblin dungeon they skipped, they would probably find that the goblins flee as soon as they find out they're coming. Any goblins they encounter would surrender and beg for mercy, unless they had established themselves as merciless. And if they insisted on fighting, I'd probably just roll a couple goblin attacks and then say, "You cut them down like grass." We don't need to play it out.
I balance only encounters that my players should resolve with combat. If they find ways to avoid the combat, well played.
If my players decide to make a very bad decision like attacking a king in the Throne room guarded by elite soldiers or attacking an ancient Gold Dragon that they were supposed to negotiate with, i let them feel the consequences. If they don't retreat or escape this could lead to a TPK, but otherwise players wouldn't have any consequences and it takes away from player agency. It's like saying: "No matter how stupid you (players) act, I (the DM) will handle that for you!" But i never plan an encounter that will probably lead to a TPK.
If i send my players against a maybe too powerful foe i will mention that in some way through the voice of an NPC:
Be careful, it is possible that the town is in the hold of an Aboleth. It would not be smart to face this powerful foe allone or without good preparations
My friends, i must tell you, that you are about to go to Bel's Forge. This is a dangerous task and it wouldn't be wise to challange Bel on your own
If my players don't take the chance of clearing the Goblin dungeon, probably something will have happened here andy their reward will probably lost or the challenge is higher, for example:
The Goblins have been found and slaved by a marouding Group of Hobgoblins that now are responsible for even more havoc in the area
Other Heroes or the Townsguard have slain the goblins already and the dungeon is now empty and only used as a home of an old bear or a hermit.
So I wanted to ask other DMs: Do you regularly put overly powerful creatures in your players' path? If so, do you telegraph how powerful they are? How do you make sure your party can distinguish between "this creature is so powerful it would be dumb to fight it" and "this creature is so powerful, you'll be total badasses when you slay it"?
Yes. I try to. Show them the effects of a "more competent NPC" that got smoked by the BBE. Imagine the PCs standing on the parapet of a castle trying to cross to get to the ballista when the guard captain runs out from cover and is immediately popped like a hotdog in a microwave by the Blue Dragon that is attacking the castle. Pieces of stone and mortar being blasted off the wall by the elemental force.
To be clear, there is a razor's edge between "this creature is so powerful it would be dumb to fight it" and "this creature is so powerful, you'll be total badasses when you slay it". It all boils down to courage, stupidity, caffeine and anger. A feasible plan is super useful too.
And the other side of the coin: Let's say you prepared a Goblin dungeon for your level 3 party. The party ignores it and decided to do some other stuff instead. Now they are level 6 and decide to do the Goblin dungeon after all. Do you now stuff it with more powerful creatures as if it had always been a level 6 dungeon, or do you let them do the level 3 dungeon even though it's super boring (and doesn't give an appropriate amount of XP for their level)?
I let them roll that little level 3 encounter. Hopefully they haven't forgotten that: traps still suck when you are more experienced, Goblins don't have to fight stupidly, Small creatures don't build things for Medium creatures to take the guided dungeon tour - they build them sized for the inhabitants, being swarmed at level 6 sucks just as bad as being swarmed at level 3. Point here is this: just because the PCs have gained experience, doesn't mean that the players are any better at not underestimating their enemy. I would expect the party to walk in like they own the place and think that the denizens would just hand everything over to them. You know how bullies work. Sure, I might update the damage output of traps and the like to represent the new Tier of play, but the inhabitants would stay the same for the most part. They might get a more intelligent leader, or a new shaman. Their boss would probably be an Action Oriented Boss, but it will still be goblins and the other little things that you would have found earlier in the adventure.
I try to create challenges, not solutions. Problem solving is the player's job, not mine. If they decide that they want to hold off on a small goblin tribe until they are better able to take them on, maybe the surrounding area is plagued by the goblins. Maybe the goblins grow in number and strength. Maybe the local leaders hire someone more capable and willing to "take care of" the threat to the town. Unlike a video game, this world lives.
“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
@BigLizard: I get what you are saying, and I agree on most points, but I kinda feel like there has to be some compromise there, no? Somehow I need to provide my players with achievable goals for each level. If the choices they make happen to always lead them into underwhelming or overwhelming situations (because I decided that's what made sense ecologically), they'd quickly get bored or frustrated, I imagine. Can you speak a bit to that?
May I also ask if you consider the DMG's guidelines for encounter building at all? By that I mean, populating a dungeon according to the recommendations regarding encounter difficulty and XP budget per adventuring day?
The concept of balancing encounters I think is a very different conversation when dealing with 5e standard because the system doesn't scale particularly well. There is a massive difference between the capabilities of a 1st level character and a 3rd character for example. A 10th level character is a god compared to a 3rd level character and so on. In a more stable system like OSE, the difference between 1st and 5th level for example is quite marginal. You might have 5-15 more hit points depending on class but that is about it. Your capabilities are largely defined by your gear.
Ohh, that makes a lot of sense! I frequent the RPG stackexchange a lot, where I'd just tag questions with the game and edition, so I had forgotten that in this forum it's not obvious which system and edition I'm talking about. Yeah, I'm playing D&D-5e which, as you said, scales very rapidly and so it's very different from game systems that are more "down to earth". In DnD-5e the players need a steady stream of XP that constantly ramps up, and they are not going to be able to find it without me balancing their options. I don't have to plan every encounter in advance, but at least I need to have balanced options available.
Generally the balance is done sort of like.. Ok there is a goblin camp here... there are roughly 15-30 goblins in a camp.. maybe half of them are on patrol or working in the forest, so there are 15 of them here. Now what are they doing.. how will they perceive a group of adventures walking into thei camp, how quick will they to their weapons if they are attacked... I try to think of the details of the situation and try to make it feel realistic. But wether or not there will be a fight and what the conditions of the fight will be, I usually don't know that during the planning phase. Like I have no idea what the players will do, but Im not going to create a goblin camp with 5 goblins because "that is what the players can reasonably face". I find that sort of balancing very unwieldy.
Thanks, that was very insightful. I still think that (at least in the system and campaign I'm playing) there has to be some kind of consideration regarding their level. E.g. putting 15-30 goblins there is ok, but putting 50-60 goblins there would just lead to my players saying "Great, we wasted a day walking here and now there is nothing we can do. What's next?" But I like the idea of more organic world building in general.
Yes, I balance content, and yes, I create unwinnable fights. I create them intentionally unwinnable, knowing the party's level and making them unwinnable for that level. I usually make them escapable or otherwise create consequences for losing other than ending the campaign.
If my players wanted to go back and do a low-level goblin dungeon they skipped, they would probably find that the goblins flee as soon as they find out they're coming. Any goblins they encounter would surrender and beg for mercy, unless they had established themselves as merciless. And if they insisted on fighting, I'd probably just roll a couple goblin attacks and then say, "You cut them down like grass." We don't need to play it out.
This is very similar to how I run things, except that if my level 6 PCs went back to the goblin dungeon they'd ignored at level 2, they'd find that the dungeon was inhabited not only by CR3 berserker goblins, goblin shamans and other levelled up minions but probably a few trolls, and a CR9 creature waiting for them at the end. I don't like to waste content.
In my current campaign, I expected my PCs to head to a city and resolve encounters there around level 5. They are now level 9, and still haven't gone there. When they do, the number of creatures and CR of all of those creatures will be much higher.
I don't make my level 9 PCs bother making attack rolls against CR1/4 type creatures anymore. They can auto kill one for every attack they make.
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Hi,
Occasionally I read about parties that were TPK'd because they foolishly attacked some overly powerful creature.
This always makes me wonder how this happens in the first place. The way I've been DMing, it's kind of like in video games with adaptive difficulty, where the creatures they encounter always happen to be level-appropriate. That way, even if the party decides to go murder-hobo, at the most they will be forced to fight a series of deadly (but possible) fights.
So I wanted to ask other DMs: Do you regularly put overly powerful creatures in your players' path? If so, do you telegraph how powerful they are? How do you make sure your party can distinguish between "this creature is so powerful it would be dumb to fight it" and "this creature is so powerful, you'll be total badasses when you slay it"?
And the other side of the coin: Let's say you prepared a Goblin dungeon for your level 3 party. The party ignores it and decided to do some other stuff instead. Now they are level 6 and decide to do the Goblin dungeon after all. Do you now stuff it with more powerful creatures as if it had always been a level 6 dungeon, or do you let them do the level 3 dungeon even though it's super boring (and doesn't give an appropriate amount of XP for their level)?
Yes, I balance content, and yes, I create unwinnable fights. I create them intentionally unwinnable, knowing the party's level and making them unwinnable for that level. I usually make them escapable or otherwise create consequences for losing other than ending the campaign.
If my players wanted to go back and do a low-level goblin dungeon they skipped, they would probably find that the goblins flee as soon as they find out they're coming. Any goblins they encounter would surrender and beg for mercy, unless they had established themselves as merciless. And if they insisted on fighting, I'd probably just roll a couple goblin attacks and then say, "You cut them down like grass." We don't need to play it out.
I balance only encounters that my players should resolve with combat. If they find ways to avoid the combat, well played.
If my players decide to make a very bad decision like attacking a king in the Throne room guarded by elite soldiers or attacking an ancient Gold Dragon that they were supposed to negotiate with, i let them feel the consequences. If they don't retreat or escape this could lead to a TPK, but otherwise players wouldn't have any consequences and it takes away from player agency. It's like saying: "No matter how stupid you (players) act, I (the DM) will handle that for you!"
But i never plan an encounter that will probably lead to a TPK.
If i send my players against a maybe too powerful foe i will mention that in some way through the voice of an NPC:
If my players don't take the chance of clearing the Goblin dungeon, probably something will have happened here andy their reward will probably lost or the challenge is higher, for example:
Yes. I try to. Show them the effects of a "more competent NPC" that got smoked by the BBE. Imagine the PCs standing on the parapet of a castle trying to cross to get to the ballista when the guard captain runs out from cover and is immediately popped like a hotdog in a microwave by the Blue Dragon that is attacking the castle. Pieces of stone and mortar being blasted off the wall by the elemental force.
To be clear, there is a razor's edge between "this creature is so powerful it would be dumb to fight it" and "this creature is so powerful, you'll be total badasses when you slay it". It all boils down to courage, stupidity, caffeine and anger. A feasible plan is super useful too.
I let them roll that little level 3 encounter. Hopefully they haven't forgotten that: traps still suck when you are more experienced, Goblins don't have to fight stupidly, Small creatures don't build things for Medium creatures to take the guided dungeon tour - they build them sized for the inhabitants, being swarmed at level 6 sucks just as bad as being swarmed at level 3. Point here is this: just because the PCs have gained experience, doesn't mean that the players are any better at not underestimating their enemy. I would expect the party to walk in like they own the place and think that the denizens would just hand everything over to them. You know how bullies work. Sure, I might update the damage output of traps and the like to represent the new Tier of play, but the inhabitants would stay the same for the most part. They might get a more intelligent leader, or a new shaman. Their boss would probably be an Action Oriented Boss, but it will still be goblins and the other little things that you would have found earlier in the adventure.
I try to create challenges, not solutions. Problem solving is the player's job, not mine. If they decide that they want to hold off on a small goblin tribe until they are better able to take them on, maybe the surrounding area is plagued by the goblins. Maybe the goblins grow in number and strength. Maybe the local leaders hire someone more capable and willing to "take care of" the threat to the town. Unlike a video game, this world lives.
“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
@BigLizard: I get what you are saying, and I agree on most points, but I kinda feel like there has to be some compromise there, no? Somehow I need to provide my players with achievable goals for each level. If the choices they make happen to always lead them into underwhelming or overwhelming situations (because I decided that's what made sense ecologically), they'd quickly get bored or frustrated, I imagine. Can you speak a bit to that?
May I also ask if you consider the DMG's guidelines for encounter building at all? By that I mean, populating a dungeon according to the recommendations regarding encounter difficulty and XP budget per adventuring day?
Thanks!
Ohh, that makes a lot of sense! I frequent the RPG stackexchange a lot, where I'd just tag questions with the game and edition, so I had forgotten that in this forum it's not obvious which system and edition I'm talking about. Yeah, I'm playing D&D-5e which, as you said, scales very rapidly and so it's very different from game systems that are more "down to earth". In DnD-5e the players need a steady stream of XP that constantly ramps up, and they are not going to be able to find it without me balancing their options. I don't have to plan every encounter in advance, but at least I need to have balanced options available.
Thanks, that was very insightful. I still think that (at least in the system and campaign I'm playing) there has to be some kind of consideration regarding their level. E.g. putting 15-30 goblins there is ok, but putting 50-60 goblins there would just lead to my players saying "Great, we wasted a day walking here and now there is nothing we can do. What's next?" But I like the idea of more organic world building in general.
This is very similar to how I run things, except that if my level 6 PCs went back to the goblin dungeon they'd ignored at level 2, they'd find that the dungeon was inhabited not only by CR3 berserker goblins, goblin shamans and other levelled up minions but probably a few trolls, and a CR9 creature waiting for them at the end. I don't like to waste content.
In my current campaign, I expected my PCs to head to a city and resolve encounters there around level 5. They are now level 9, and still haven't gone there. When they do, the number of creatures and CR of all of those creatures will be much higher.
I don't make my level 9 PCs bother making attack rolls against CR1/4 type creatures anymore. They can auto kill one for every attack they make.