If I give a party extra help in the form of monsters or other NPCs that assist them, how does this effect calculating an encounters difficulty?
For example, if a party of level 3's has a CR 2 monster, is there a level equivalent for what that monster would provide the party that I could use when trying to judge how difficult an encounter would be?
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There's also a handy table in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. (According to that table, your CR 2 monster is equivalent to a 5th Level character.) Of course, that's really generalized, I think. Use such tables as estimates and you should be ok. (If the party turns out to be too powerful for your encounters, you can usually beef them up by adding additional foes on the fly: "another squad of hobgoblins comes over the rise, sees your in-progress battle, and, screaming their guttural battlecry, charges to the aid of your opponents."
There's also a handy table in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. (According to that table, your CR 2 monster is equivalent to a 5th Level character.) Of course, that's really generalized, I think. Use such tables as estimates and you should be ok. (If the party turns out to be too powerful for your encounters, you can usually beef them up by adding additional foes on the fly: "another squad of hobgoblins comes over the rise, sees your in-progress battle, and, screaming their guttural battlecry, charges to the aid of your opponents."
Xanathar has that? I may have to look into getting that then. Obviously you can always try to scale encounters by adding enemies, altering the stats of whatever you are using, and so on- But its still nice to be able to get some estimates for consistency beforehand.
There's also a handy table in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. (According to that table, your CR 2 monster is equivalent to a 5th Level character.) Of course, that's really generalized, I think. Use such tables as estimates and you should be ok. (If the party turns out to be too powerful for your encounters, you can usually beef them up by adding additional foes on the fly: "another squad of hobgoblins comes over the rise, sees your in-progress battle, and, screaming their guttural battlecry, charges to the aid of your opponents."
First a general bit of advice: resolving a bunch of attacks by NPCs on other NPCs is boring for both players and DM. You will generally be better off handling NPC allies by just declaring that they are offscreen fighting a group of offscreen villains.
Second, it's usually easier to handle the balance by subtraction -- just subtract the number of enemies your allies can be expected to deal with from total encounter strength, and what's left is the actual difficulty.
Those said, the equivalence actually varies somewhat, because the way NPCs are balanced assumes they only participate in a single fight, so a spellcasting enemy is perfectly free to burn all its high level spells in a single fight. That's not a valid assumption for allies.
All those said, treating an NPCs level as twice its CR will probably not have silly results.
As a rule of thumb, NPC vs NPC action should take place generally separate from the Player VS NPC action. NPC's should never 'steal the thunder' out from under players, but support is still an option.
There are a few tricks you can pull since all this action is happening behind the screen: 1. Group up allied NPC's and Enemy NPC's into their own intiative. Don't roll initiative for individual mooks, group them up so you can take a fistfull of d20's and knock out all their actions in five seconds. 2. Roll a fast D20, high hits, use average damage. Don't get bogged down in dice and math for NPC vs NPC. That stuff is for players to keep them busy and engaged. DO calculate the full bonuses and effects when NPC's interact with player characters, however. 3. Do not count NPC vs NPC action as part of an encounter CR. Determine which NPC's are going to interact with the players and generally stick with that. Avoid having allied npcs gang up alongside players; players have THEIR encounter, the spare NPC's are simply set dressing. 4. "special' or 'named' NPC's should have other things to do than to directly assist the party in their encounters, such as hold a door shut, hold a defensive position, or simply have more important tasks that they need to be doing and leave the party as a rear guard.
For the DM, the rules are suggestions and guidelines, so wing it fast and loose if you find yourself playing against yourself and try to get out of that state as soon as possible with as little time and effort as possible.
I would like to pitch in that beyond level 5 or so, there is little point in mathematically balancing combat. The encounter balance system doesn't account for magic items, extra abilities gained through downtime, PCs using tactics, or monsters using tactics, to name a few. It's a D&D world where anything can happen and actions have consequences, and your party is strong enough to not be wiped out by said consequences. It's time to take the training wheels off.
In addition, bear in mind that watching NPCs kill each other IS boring. Let a player volunteer to run your NPC helper instead - it makes things easier for you, too!
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Panda-wat (I hate my username) is somehow convinced that he is objectively right about everything D&D related even though he obviously is not. Considering that, he'd probably make a great D&D youtuber.
"If I die, I can live with that." ~Luke Hart, the DM lair
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If I give a party extra help in the form of monsters or other NPCs that assist them, how does this effect calculating an encounters difficulty?
For example, if a party of level 3's has a CR 2 monster, is there a level equivalent for what that monster would provide the party that I could use when trying to judge how difficult an encounter would be?
There is, but there are a few good "encounter balance calculators" out there you can use.
https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/calc/enc_size.html
https://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
There's also a handy table in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. (According to that table, your CR 2 monster is equivalent to a 5th Level character.) Of course, that's really generalized, I think. Use such tables as estimates and you should be ok. (If the party turns out to be too powerful for your encounters, you can usually beef them up by adding additional foes on the fly: "another squad of hobgoblins comes over the rise, sees your in-progress battle, and, screaming their guttural battlecry, charges to the aid of your opponents."
Recently returned to D&D after 20+ years.
Unapologetic.
Both of these I have seen and use (and they ARE very helpful), but this is not what I was looking for.
Xanathar has that? I may have to look into getting that then. Obviously you can always try to scale encounters by adding enemies, altering the stats of whatever you are using, and so on- But its still nice to be able to get some estimates for consistency beforehand.
what page?
Believe dmjonesie is referring to the tables shown on page 90 :)
First a general bit of advice: resolving a bunch of attacks by NPCs on other NPCs is boring for both players and DM. You will generally be better off handling NPC allies by just declaring that they are offscreen fighting a group of offscreen villains.
Second, it's usually easier to handle the balance by subtraction -- just subtract the number of enemies your allies can be expected to deal with from total encounter strength, and what's left is the actual difficulty.
Those said, the equivalence actually varies somewhat, because the way NPCs are balanced assumes they only participate in a single fight, so a spellcasting enemy is perfectly free to burn all its high level spells in a single fight. That's not a valid assumption for allies.
All those said, treating an NPCs level as twice its CR will probably not have silly results.
As a rule of thumb, NPC vs NPC action should take place generally separate from the Player VS NPC action. NPC's should never 'steal the thunder' out from under players, but support is still an option.
There are a few tricks you can pull since all this action is happening behind the screen:
1. Group up allied NPC's and Enemy NPC's into their own intiative. Don't roll initiative for individual mooks, group them up so you can take a fistfull of d20's and knock out all their actions in five seconds.
2. Roll a fast D20, high hits, use average damage. Don't get bogged down in dice and math for NPC vs NPC. That stuff is for players to keep them busy and engaged. DO calculate the full bonuses and effects when NPC's interact with player characters, however.
3. Do not count NPC vs NPC action as part of an encounter CR. Determine which NPC's are going to interact with the players and generally stick with that. Avoid having allied npcs gang up alongside players; players have THEIR encounter, the spare NPC's are simply set dressing.
4. "special' or 'named' NPC's should have other things to do than to directly assist the party in their encounters, such as hold a door shut, hold a defensive position, or simply have more important tasks that they need to be doing and leave the party as a rear guard.
For the DM, the rules are suggestions and guidelines, so wing it fast and loose if you find yourself playing against yourself and try to get out of that state as soon as possible with as little time and effort as possible.
I would like to pitch in that beyond level 5 or so, there is little point in mathematically balancing combat. The encounter balance system doesn't account for magic items, extra abilities gained through downtime, PCs using tactics, or monsters using tactics, to name a few. It's a D&D world where anything can happen and actions have consequences, and your party is strong enough to not be wiped out by said consequences. It's time to take the training wheels off.
In addition, bear in mind that watching NPCs kill each other IS boring. Let a player volunteer to run your NPC helper instead - it makes things easier for you, too!
Panda-wat (I hate my username) is somehow convinced that he is objectively right about everything D&D related even though he obviously is not. Considering that, he'd probably make a great D&D youtuber.
"If I die, I can live with that." ~Luke Hart, the DM lair