When you are creating monster encounters for a homebrew adventure do you have any personal guidelines to balance the difficulty level per encounter?
What I mean is do you make all your basic encounters of Medium difficulty or do you sprinkle in some Easy encounters. I've looked back at my encounters and it seems that I only go for Medium, with one Hard, encounters because I guess my logic is Easy is too easy and my players may be bored or feel like it is more of time waste of combat.
I know a lot of you in this section homebrew your games so that got me to thinking about what is a proper balance people use when developing an adventure.
I started out with a lot of medium for level 1-3, just cuz I didn't want to kill everyone. Level 4 now I am doing more Hard. And some Deadly. So far they are surviving.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
I started out with a lot of medium for level 1-3, just cuz I didn't want to kill everyone. Level 4 now I am doing more Hard. And some Deadly. So far they are surviving.
Can I ask what classes your party is running? I have 4 players each at 4th level (Wizard, Monk, Rogue, and Ranger), so you could be lining up to where I'm developing encounters.
I normally go Hard to Deadly but I think that is because I sometimes struggle to get the "right" amount of encounters in a game day.
I also found that some of the easy ones for the level (lvl 3) the party were just one shoting everything(some good rolls) but just made the combat feel pointless.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
All posts come with the caveat that I don't know what I'm talking about.
Historically, I've run Hard to Deadly based on Kobold Fight Club- because that was what was challenging for the Party.
Since the CR system is pretty inaccurate - and gets more inaccurate as the Party gets higher in levels - I've pretty much chucked trying to balance encounters entirely,
I like the Matt Colvile approach, which is don't balance the encounters. Put in whatever makes sense from in world perspective, and let the Players figure out how they are going to tackle it: frontal assault? Talk their way through it? Sneak around? Go back and enlist allies to help defeat it? There is always a way around an obstacle, even if that way is to go away and come back later when you've got more power at your disposal.
How to avoid a TPK? Meta-game it. Outright tell your Players: I'm putting whatever makes sense from an in-world perspective into the adventure You're a 3rd level Party, but if I think the Bad Guys would have an Ancient Red Dragon guarding their fortress, I'll put it in. It's on you to scout out the encounter, evaluate it, and decide how - or even if - you want to deal with it. The existence of an encounter does not mean that there's a way for you "win" it - yet. So play it smart.
Sometimes the Players won't play it smart, but a) that's on them, and b) sometimes they will surprise everyone, and pull an amazing victory out of stupendous odds - those are heroic campaign moments to remember :D
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.
Indeed. Not every encounter should be designed as something the players can "win". If it adds flavour / entertainment, and moves the plot forward, it is a valid encounter / scene. My players started at 1st level, and have moved up to 7th. At least a third of the stuff they face they know they can't beat straightup, but there is always something of value they can learn, or sometimes, they should just go around. Many moons ago I was DM'ing 2nd ed. I created a scene where the group came over a rise, and they witnessed a massive battle of 20 Githyanki with 3 Red Dragons as support versus 20 Mind Flayers. All were oblivious to the players. It was designed as a set piece for the players merely to observe, and move around. The players decided that they would attack EVERYBODY. Total TPK ensued. I felt no guilt.
I normally go Hard to Deadly but I think that is because I sometimes struggle to get the "right" amount of encounters in a game day.
I also found that some of the easy ones for the level (lvl 3) the party were just one shoting everything(some good rolls) but just made the combat feel pointless.
Historically, I've run Hard to Deadly based on Kobold Fight Club- because that was what was challenging for the Party.
Since the CR system is pretty inaccurate - and gets more inaccurate as the Party gets higher in levels - I've pretty much chucked trying to balance encounters entirely,
I like the Matt Colvile approach, which is don't balance the encounters. Put in whatever makes sense from in world perspective, and let the Players figure out how they are going to tackle it: frontal assault? Talk their way through it? Sneak around? Go back and enlist allies to help defeat it? There is always a way around an obstacle, even if that way is to go away and come back later when you've got more power at your disposal.
How to avoid a TPK? Meta-game it. Outright tell your Players: I'm putting whatever makes sense from an in-world perspective into the adventure You're a 3rd level Party, but if I think the Bad Guys would have an Ancient Red Dragon guarding their fortress, I'll put it in. It's on you to scout out the encounter, evaluate it, and decide how - or even if - you want to deal with it. The existence of an encounter does not mean that there's a way for you "win" it - yet. So play it smart.
Sometimes the Players won't play it smart, but a) that's on them, and b) sometimes they will surprise everyone, and pull an amazing victory out of stupendous odds - those are heroic campaign moments to remember :D
Can I ask what classes your party is running? I have 4 players each at 4th level (Wizard, Monk, Rogue, and Ranger), so you could be lining up to where I'm developing encounters.
I have a very similar party... Sorcerer, Cleric, Rogue, Ranger. Basically they have a cleric instead of a monk.
The thing with any encounter builder based off of DMG (Kobold Fight Club is an example, as well as the one here and the one in Foundry VTT) is that the "difficulties" assume something like 6-8 encounters per day. What would be hard in that context is not that hard if you only have one encounter per day. So if I think the party is going to fight only one time that day for some reason, I make it harder.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
Can I ask what classes your party is running? I have 4 players each at 4th level (Wizard, Monk, Rogue, and Ranger), so you could be lining up to where I'm developing encounters.
I have a very similar party... Sorcerer, Cleric, Rogue, Ranger. Basically they have a cleric instead of a monk.
The thing with any encounter builder based off of DMG (Kobold Fight Club is an example, as well as the one here and the one in Foundry VTT) is that the "difficulties" assume something like 6-8 encounters per day. What would be hard in that context is not that hard if you only have one encounter per day. So if I think the party is going to fight only one time that day for some reason, I make it harder.
Yeah, I keep trying to find decent ways of deleting the assumption of 6-8 encounters per day and not breaking the balance between classes that primarily use daily resources (casters mostly) and classes that primarily use encounter or at-will resources, and not coming up with anything I much like.
Can I ask what classes your party is running? I have 4 players each at 4th level (Wizard, Monk, Rogue, and Ranger), so you could be lining up to where I'm developing encounters.
I have a very similar party... Sorcerer, Cleric, Rogue, Ranger. Basically they have a cleric instead of a monk.
The thing with any encounter builder based off of DMG (Kobold Fight Club is an example, as well as the one here and the one in Foundry VTT) is that the "difficulties" assume something like 6-8 encounters per day. What would be hard in that context is not that hard if you only have one encounter per day. So if I think the party is going to fight only one time that day for some reason, I make it harder.
A good way to look at it and something that I had not considered.
IF the players follow the game (City base homebrew micro-adventure) properly, big IF I know, it will only be a couple of enounters per day which could allow me to up the difficulty level to a degree.
My feeling is, if they don't rest when they should, that is on them.
My party is currently exploring a necropolis in which they have fought a couple of very tough monsters and faced a few traps, one of which almost got them (but saving throw!) and one of which they easily avoided. They should at this point know what they are in for. Last thing we did was they took a short (not long) rest. If they then hit the next encounter short of spell slots, that is on them. I did not tell them what kind of rest to take (or to rest at all).
There is only so much hand-holding I am willing to do. And as I also warned them, at 4th level, IMO, the "training wheels" are off. I took it super easy on them during the first 3 small adventures. Now they are into their first "real" adventure and if they screw up and die or TPK, then that is what happens. Their new PCs can go looking for the old ones' corpses.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
When you are creating monster encounters for a homebrew adventure do you have any personal guidelines to balance the difficulty level per encounter?
What I mean is do you make all your basic encounters of Medium difficulty or do you sprinkle in some Easy encounters. I've looked back at my encounters and it seems that I only go for Medium, with one Hard, encounters because I guess my logic is Easy is too easy and my players may be bored or feel like it is more of time waste of combat.
I know a lot of you in this section homebrew your games so that got me to thinking about what is a proper balance people use when developing an adventure.
I started out with a lot of medium for level 1-3, just cuz I didn't want to kill everyone. Level 4 now I am doing more Hard. And some Deadly. So far they are surviving.
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.
I usually go for Hard-Deadly +, and occasionally sprinkle in a Medium encounter. I don’t even bother with Easy.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Can I ask what classes your party is running? I have 4 players each at 4th level (Wizard, Monk, Rogue, and Ranger), so you could be lining up to where I'm developing encounters.
I normally go Hard to Deadly but I think that is because I sometimes struggle to get the "right" amount of encounters in a game day.
I also found that some of the easy ones for the level (lvl 3) the party were just one shoting everything(some good rolls) but just made the combat feel pointless.
All posts come with the caveat that I don't know what I'm talking about.
I generally don't feel like running six encounters per day, so I just make every encounter Deadly unless I specifically mean it to be a walkover.
Historically, I've run Hard to Deadly based on Kobold Fight Club - because that was what was challenging for the Party.
Since the CR system is pretty inaccurate - and gets more inaccurate as the Party gets higher in levels - I've pretty much chucked trying to balance encounters entirely,
I like the Matt Colvile approach, which is don't balance the encounters. Put in whatever makes sense from in world perspective, and let the Players figure out how they are going to tackle it: frontal assault? Talk their way through it? Sneak around? Go back and enlist allies to help defeat it? There is always a way around an obstacle, even if that way is to go away and come back later when you've got more power at your disposal.
How to avoid a TPK? Meta-game it. Outright tell your Players: I'm putting whatever makes sense from an in-world perspective into the adventure You're a 3rd level Party, but if I think the Bad Guys would have an Ancient Red Dragon guarding their fortress, I'll put it in. It's on you to scout out the encounter, evaluate it, and decide how - or even if - you want to deal with it. The existence of an encounter does not mean that there's a way for you "win" it - yet. So play it smart.
Sometimes the Players won't play it smart, but a) that's on them, and b) sometimes they will surprise everyone, and pull an amazing victory out of stupendous odds - those are heroic campaign moments to remember :D
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.
Indeed. Not every encounter should be designed as something the players can "win". If it adds flavour / entertainment, and moves the plot forward, it is a valid encounter / scene. My players started at 1st level, and have moved up to 7th. At least a third of the stuff they face they know they can't beat straightup, but there is always something of value they can learn, or sometimes, they should just go around. Many moons ago I was DM'ing 2nd ed. I created a scene where the group came over a rise, and they witnessed a massive battle of 20 Githyanki with 3 Red Dragons as support versus 20 Mind Flayers. All were oblivious to the players. It was designed as a set piece for the players merely to observe, and move around. The players decided that they would attack EVERYBODY. Total TPK ensued. I felt no guilt.
This^^^ all of it
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I have a very similar party... Sorcerer, Cleric, Rogue, Ranger. Basically they have a cleric instead of a monk.
The thing with any encounter builder based off of DMG (Kobold Fight Club is an example, as well as the one here and the one in Foundry VTT) is that the "difficulties" assume something like 6-8 encounters per day. What would be hard in that context is not that hard if you only have one encounter per day. So if I think the party is going to fight only one time that day for some reason, I make it harder.
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.
Yeah, I keep trying to find decent ways of deleting the assumption of 6-8 encounters per day and not breaking the balance between classes that primarily use daily resources (casters mostly) and classes that primarily use encounter or at-will resources, and not coming up with anything I much like.
A good way to look at it and something that I had not considered.
IF the players follow the game (City base homebrew micro-adventure) properly, big IF I know, it will only be a couple of enounters per day which could allow me to up the difficulty level to a degree.
My feeling is, if they don't rest when they should, that is on them.
My party is currently exploring a necropolis in which they have fought a couple of very tough monsters and faced a few traps, one of which almost got them (but saving throw!) and one of which they easily avoided. They should at this point know what they are in for. Last thing we did was they took a short (not long) rest. If they then hit the next encounter short of spell slots, that is on them. I did not tell them what kind of rest to take (or to rest at all).
There is only so much hand-holding I am willing to do. And as I also warned them, at 4th level, IMO, the "training wheels" are off. I took it super easy on them during the first 3 small adventures. Now they are into their first "real" adventure and if they screw up and die or TPK, then that is what happens. Their new PCs can go looking for the old ones' corpses.
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.