So, I have devised a medium encounter for two level 4 and two level 5 PCs which means I have 1500 EXP as a budget. But it feels a tad... unbalanced. Check this out:
Two CR 1/2 and eight CR 1/4 100 EXP cost into 250 for a total of 500 EXP for the two CR 1/2 cultists. 50 cost into 125 eight times for a total of 1000 for the CR 1/4 cultists.
This group should have a total of 388 HP (the minimal) which is ON PAR with a CR 20 creature!!
And they all have at least one attack per round to deal an average of 56 damage per round! And again, that's the minimum! They can drop players real fast! That's intense!
Am I doing something wrong? :(
Edit: an additional note: Xanathar's Guide to Everything suggests, using the "Multiple Monsters: 1st-5th level Table", that I could have two CR 2 monsters for my level 5 heroes and eight CR 1/4 for my level 4 adventurers in this one encounter... that's even stronger, I thought the maths were supposed to match! :'(
Here is my take on your situation, please correct any parts of this that may be incorrect.
You have decided that you want the fight to be a certain difficulty,
so you went to the DMG and the MM and are trying to make the fight as difficult as you want it to be, but not too difficult.
When you are attempting to make all of the numbers for CR, XP, Adjusted XP, XP budget, and HP all match up like it says in the book,
only not all of those numbers match the way you expect them to and you’re confused.
Do I have the general just of things?
If I am correct then here is my “DM Hack” for how I address that situation every time I run combat. I use James T. Kirk’s solution to the Kobayashi Maru, I “change the conditions of the test.”
I go to the MM and other sources and grab whatever monsters I think are right for the encounter.
I decide how tough I want the fight to be.
I take an educated guess at how many I think there should be for the fight, and how many HP I think they will need. I prep that.
I run combat, and if my estimates don’t make the fight as hard as I thought it should be, I adjust the numbers accordingly either up or down. ***Unless, ether the Players or the PCs or the monsters (dice are dice) did something either badassed or terrible. If the Players/PCs were awesome badasses, the fight should be easier than I expected, if they were made poor decisions or simply rolled poorly then the fight goes harder for them. 🤷♂️)
I figure out XP at the end after I know how hard it was, instead of how hard I think I need to made it.
Basically, I just do it in a different order, and save myself the headache. Does that help?
Hello there! Yeah, that's basically it! I thought I had it figured out... but it didn't make sense to me... up until I gave my players 202 HP to hit: they took it down in three turns. And the monster had two attacks per turn! So, you know... maybe I jumped too quickly on the forums. Now, I feel a bit like I messed up...
I'd just like to say that changing things up on the spot is a bad idea: I want my players' trust. Not to make them feel like I make a combat last as long as I feel like it. I don't want to be arbitrary. I want to give them a good experience of trust and compagnionship. I don't mind if my monsters get blasted quicker than expected. However, I wanted a formula that allowed me a fair understanding of the game. Guess the book may have been right on this one... so, well, thanks a lot of you for the help. Let's hope next session gets a bit more fair for my players. And I hope you guys continue to have fun at D&D! :D
Just going to say this, in personal experience, I only use waves when a fight is too big to run as one whole fight.
Example: Ravnica campaign, the players are prison guards, there is a prison break. Instead of throwing 120 Golgari members at the party and all of the other guards at the same time, I did it in about 5 different waves, and many of the escapees never came into contact with the players because they were fighting other people at the same time.
Waves aren't used to make the players feel cooler or more powerful, for me, it just helps to make it easier to run.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
They have no reason not to trust me, they have no idea that I’m doing it. And they keep getting their butts kicked, but they keep winning, in their minds at least by the skin of their teeth. In their experience they keep overcoming incredible challenges against the worst I can throw at them. Why wouldn’t they trust me?
Just going to say this, in personal experience, I only use waves when a fight is too big to run as one whole fight.
I use waves when it makes sense for the scenario. Typically that's because the monsters are split up for some reason or another (possibly related to PC action) and it takes a bit of time for the other group to arrive (depending on distance, this might instead be two separate combats).
I’m glad it worked out by the way. I mean that. And I’m glad you found your solution in the book. I’m glad that worked. There is no “One Right Way” to do things. As long as everyone is having fun, you did it right.
Just so you understand, I don’t just make it up as I go along. I simply have decades of experience and instinct at my disposal. To be honest, I’d have probably ended up with the same result you did, I just wouldn’t have landed on the 200ish HP you did until I was rolling dice. That’s the only real difference, my educated guesses get me in the right ballpark and I nail down the final numbers when I need to. That’s why my players can trust me, because in the end they will still have a fair and balanced fight. I just came up with a system that gets me the same results more or less, and involves less bookkeeping on my end.
Hello there! Yeah, that's basically it! I thought I had it figured out... but it didn't make sense to me... up until I gave my players 202 HP to hit: they took it down in three turns. And the monster had two attacks per turn! So, you know... maybe I jumped too quickly on the forums. Now, I feel a bit like I messed up...
I'd just like to say that changing things up on the spot is a bad idea: I want my players' trust. Not to make them feel like I make a combat last as long as I feel like it. I don't want to be arbitrary. I want to give them a good experience of trust and compagnionship. I don't mind if my monsters get blasted quicker than expected. However, I wanted a formula that allowed me a fair understanding of the game. Guess the book may have been right on this one... so, well, thanks a lot of you for the help. Let's hope next session gets a bit more fair for my players. And I hope you guys continue to have fun at D&D! :D
Just going to say this, in personal experience, I only use waves when a fight is too big to run as one whole fight.
Example: Ravnica campaign, the players are prison guards, there is a prison break. Instead of throwing 120 Golgari members at the party and all of the other guards at the same time, I did it in about 5 different waves, and many of the escapees never came into contact with the players because they were fighting other people at the same time.
Waves aren't used to make the players feel cooler or more powerful, for me, it just helps to make it easier to run.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
They have no reason not to trust me, they have no idea that I’m doing it. And they keep getting their butts kicked, but they keep winning, in their minds at least by the skin of their teeth. In their experience they keep overcoming incredible challenges against the worst I can throw at them. Why wouldn’t they trust me?
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I use waves when it makes sense for the scenario. Typically that's because the monsters are split up for some reason or another (possibly related to PC action) and it takes a bit of time for the other group to arrive (depending on distance, this might instead be two separate combats).
I’m glad it worked out by the way. I mean that. And I’m glad you found your solution in the book. I’m glad that worked. There is no “One Right Way” to do things. As long as everyone is having fun, you did it right.
Just so you understand, I don’t just make it up as I go along. I simply have decades of experience and instinct at my disposal. To be honest, I’d have probably ended up with the same result you did, I just wouldn’t have landed on the 200ish HP you did until I was rolling dice. That’s the only real difference, my educated guesses get me in the right ballpark and I nail down the final numbers when I need to. That’s why my players can trust me, because in the end they will still have a fair and balanced fight. I just came up with a system that gets me the same results more or less, and involves less bookkeeping on my end.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting