Two words that need to be considered when asking whether any encounter is balanced or not: Action Economy.
Essentially, the side with the most actions (usually corresponding to the most participants) will usually win, usually regardless of CR.
10 enemies against 4 PC's? Put your money on the 10 as your PC's are buried in attacks that, even if they're from comparatively squishy enemies, enough will get through to them by sheer numbers
Two words that need to be considered when asking whether any encounter is balanced or not: Action Economy.
Essentially, the side with the most actions (usually corresponding to the most participants) will usually win, usually regardless of CR.
10 enemies against 4 PC's? Put your money on the 10 as your PC's are buried in attacks that, even if they're from comparatively squishy enemies, enough will get through to them by sheer numbers
Well, allow me to disagree with a simple example: four 10th level characters are for certain going to win against 20 goblins.
It is true that the CR is not the sole indicator to make a well-balanced encounter (even the lead designers say so), but at the very least, it helps the DM narrow the range of monsters to be used.
Two words that need to be considered when asking whether any encounter is balanced or not: Action Economy.
Essentially, the side with the most actions (usually corresponding to the most participants) will usually win, usually regardless of CR.
10 enemies against 4 PC's? Put your money on the 10 as your PC's are buried in attacks that, even if they're from comparatively squishy enemies, enough will get through to them by sheer numbers
Large numbers of low value actions do not beat small numbers of high value actions. Now, the table for "modify xp for multiple monsters" is assuming people are taking steps to mitigate the true advantage of numbers, which will make large numbers of small attackers very dangerous if such actions are unavailable (a level 10 party vs 80 bandits is nominally a medium encounter. Run that in open terrain and if the PCs don't get up a wall spell fast they'll get slaughtered), but that still doesn't mean actions are the only useful metric.
Two words that need to be considered when asking whether any encounter is balanced or not: Action Economy.
Essentially, the side with the most actions (usually corresponding to the most participants) will usually win, usually regardless of CR.
10 enemies against 4 PC's? Put your money on the 10 as your PC's are buried in attacks that, even if they're from comparatively squishy enemies, enough will get through to them by sheer numbers
Large numbers of low value actions do not beat small numbers of high value actions. Now, the table for "modify xp for multiple monsters" is assuming people are taking steps to mitigate the true advantage of numbers, which will make large numbers of small attackers very dangerous if such actions are unavailable (a level 10 party vs 80 bandits is nominally a medium encounter. Run that in open terrain and if the PCs don't get up a wall spell fast they'll get slaughtered), but that still doesn't mean actions are the only useful metric.
Agreed, but they are the most useful of the easy to measure metrics for less experienced DMs IMHO.
Agreed, but they are the most useful of the easy to measure metrics for less experienced DMs IMHO.
The existing DMG rules will do a vastly better job than simply counting actions. Any system that considers a giant badger (1 action, 2 attacks) and a storm giant (1 action, 2 attacks) equal is not useful.
Two words that need to be considered when asking whether any encounter is balanced or not: Action Economy.
Essentially, the side with the most actions (usually corresponding to the most participants) will usually win, usually regardless of CR.
10 enemies against 4 PC's? Put your money on the 10 as your PC's are buried in attacks that, even if they're from comparatively squishy enemies, enough will get through to them by sheer numbers
Well, allow me to disagree with a simple example: four 10th level characters are for certain going to win against 20 goblins.
It is true that the CR is not the sole indicator to make a well-balanced encounter (even the lead designers say so), but at the very least, it helps the DM narrow the range of monsters to be used.
How about 'sometimes'. The thesis of "the side with more actions wins" is true more often than not, but it isn't true consistently enough to make it directly usable as anything more than an input in a larger formula.
Any encounter builder math will have the problem that party composition is variable, and different classes are strong against different threats. That's not really fixable, though if you toss a reasonable mix of threats at a party hopefully it comes out even.
Any simple encounter builder will have the problem that the circumstances of a fight matter a lot and are hard to build into a formula. The DMG has some advice on that, but it's fairly limited.
The D&D encounter builder in particular has the problem that people expect a 'deadly' fight to be, well, deadly, rather than 'the third one of these you have in a day might be a problem". It also rates various factors oddly (for example, pack tactics is treated as +1 to hit) and makes pretty questionable assumptions about area effects.
All that said, it works okay as a starting point. However, if you really want to know what will be hard, you pretty much have to do modeling.
Well there’s your answer BioWiz, because math can’t beat solid intuition without also being too complicated to bother with for the majority of the people.
The D&D encounter builder in particular has the problem that people expect a 'deadly' fight to be, well, deadly, rather than 'the third one of these you have in a day might be a problem". It also rates various factors oddly (for example, pack tactics is treated as +1 to hit) and makes pretty questionable assumptions about area effects.
I think it probably would have helped if they didn't call it "deadly." Maybe just call them "very hard" or something....
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Absolutely. And it’s a great way to either ratchet up or tone down any encounter that’s already in-progress. Remember, the players have know idea if the number of waves that the DM planned is the same number they ended up using. Same as HP. The DM can always secretly adjust HP mid combat to either ratchet up difficulty (or at least tension, and therefore drama), remember the trick is to make the encounters feel epic. As long as the players walked away feeling like it was one heck of a fight, that’s all that really matters.
[I’m not telling you, Pentagruel, I know you know this stuff. It’s more for the benefit of the OP and the lurkers (Used in a non derogatory manner) who prefer to just read and learn. Every forum has them. Hello forum lurkers. 👋 Stay healthy during this pandemic!]
I guess that’s why I don’t find CR that useful, all it tells me is how hard the battle supposedly is at the beginning, but I don’t necessarily rely on that value for the whole fight, so it has no bearing on how hard the fight actually turns out to be. I have the tools to make pretty much any encounter exactly as hard as it needs to be for the players to feel like they got their PCs’ asses kicked the whole way and still feel victorious.
That’s probably why I find the Encounter Builder/Combat Tracker so... “underwhelming.” They simple are nowhere near as dynamic is I need them to be for the way I run things. They end up being more of a pain in my neck than a tool. Heck, I did an entire encounter once and realized when it was over that I never hit next once during the whole fight because I’m so used to minor notes and just tracking everything in my head for the most part.
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?
Two words that need to be considered when asking whether any encounter is balanced or not: Action Economy.
Essentially, the side with the most actions (usually corresponding to the most participants) will usually win, usually regardless of CR.
10 enemies against 4 PC's? Put your money on the 10 as your PC's are buried in attacks that, even if they're from comparatively squishy enemies, enough will get through to them by sheer numbers
Well, allow me to disagree with a simple example: four 10th level characters are for certain going to win against 20 goblins.
It is true that the CR is not the sole indicator to make a well-balanced encounter (even the lead designers say so), but at the very least, it helps the DM narrow the range of monsters to be used.
Yes, it’s a means of giving inexperienced DMs a metric by which to “eyeball it” until they develop that skill for themselves.
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Large numbers of low value actions do not beat small numbers of high value actions. Now, the table for "modify xp for multiple monsters" is assuming people are taking steps to mitigate the true advantage of numbers, which will make large numbers of small attackers very dangerous if such actions are unavailable (a level 10 party vs 80 bandits is nominally a medium encounter. Run that in open terrain and if the PCs don't get up a wall spell fast they'll get slaughtered), but that still doesn't mean actions are the only useful metric.
Agreed, but they are the most useful of the easy to measure metrics for less experienced DMs IMHO.
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The existing DMG rules will do a vastly better job than simply counting actions. Any system that considers a giant badger (1 action, 2 attacks) and a storm giant (1 action, 2 attacks) equal is not useful.
Hence "usually"
How about 'sometimes'. The thesis of "the side with more actions wins" is true more often than not, but it isn't true consistently enough to make it directly usable as anything more than an input in a larger formula.
Really? My experience is the opposite, at least for tiers 1 and 2.
I guess I must just be doing it wrong. All I know is i do better when I don’t use it.
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It can be useful, but it is rarely useful in my experience in its current form.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Any encounter builder math will have the problem that party composition is variable, and different classes are strong against different threats. That's not really fixable, though if you toss a reasonable mix of threats at a party hopefully it comes out even.
Any simple encounter builder will have the problem that the circumstances of a fight matter a lot and are hard to build into a formula. The DMG has some advice on that, but it's fairly limited.
The D&D encounter builder in particular has the problem that people expect a 'deadly' fight to be, well, deadly, rather than 'the third one of these you have in a day might be a problem". It also rates various factors oddly (for example, pack tactics is treated as +1 to hit) and makes pretty questionable assumptions about area effects.
All that said, it works okay as a starting point. However, if you really want to know what will be hard, you pretty much have to do modeling.
Well there’s your answer BioWiz, because math can’t beat solid intuition without also being too complicated to bother with for the majority of the people.
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I think it probably would have helped if they didn't call it "deadly." Maybe just call them "very hard" or something....
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Send the enemy monsters in waves.
If it looks like the party is getting too mauled then just stop sending them.
If they murder them too quickly, send in more waves.
Waves are a great idea... provided they make sense given what is happening in the scene.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Waves generally reduce difficulty over the same number of critters as a mass.
Absolutely. And it’s a great way to either ratchet up or tone down any encounter that’s already in-progress. Remember, the players have know idea if the number of waves that the DM planned is the same number they ended up using. Same as HP. The DM can always secretly adjust HP mid combat to either ratchet up difficulty (or at least tension, and therefore drama), remember the trick is to make the encounters feel epic. As long as the players walked away feeling like it was one heck of a fight, that’s all that really matters.
[I’m not telling you, Pentagruel, I know you know this stuff. It’s more for the benefit of the OP and the lurkers (Used in a non derogatory manner) who prefer to just read and learn. Every forum has them. Hello forum lurkers. 👋 Stay healthy during this pandemic!]
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I guess that’s why I don’t find CR that useful, all it tells me is how hard the battle supposedly is at the beginning, but I don’t necessarily rely on that value for the whole fight, so it has no bearing on how hard the fight actually turns out to be. I have the tools to make pretty much any encounter exactly as hard as it needs to be for the players to feel like they got their PCs’ asses kicked the whole way and still feel victorious.
That’s probably why I find the Encounter Builder/Combat Tracker so... “underwhelming.” They simple are nowhere near as dynamic is I need them to be for the way I run things. They end up being more of a pain in my neck than a tool. Heck, I did an entire encounter once and realized when it was over that I never hit next once during the whole fight because I’m so used to minor notes and just tracking everything in my head for the most part.
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Here is my take on your situation, please correct any parts of this that may be incorrect.
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.”
Basically, I just do it in a different order, and save myself the headache. Does that help?
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