Hi everyone. Question about the encounter builder. Last night our group (of 4 players) faced off against a Nightmare Beast. When I entered it into the encounter builder today, it said it was a "deadly" encounter. There were some unusual circumstances though (CRITS were rolled several times by the players). We took the beast down in about 3 rounds, and I think only one player took any damage. My main question though... when trying to determine the difficulty, if the druid uses something like summon creatures (in our case he summoned 4 giant eagles - they critted (as one attack) and he rolled almost max damage. I think it was around 80 points in damage in total! - this happened TWICE!) When using the Encounter builder should you include summoned beasts? (like there's a chance the druid won't cast it, or might pick different animals), or is all that factored into the standard character level of being a druid? TLDR: Our party, with the help of some REALLY lucky dice rolls, took down a deadly encounter like it was nothing. Just luck, or is there a better way to use the encounter builder? * there were some other factors involved too, like 3 other NPCs (They didn't do much damage at all).
The encounter ratings are both extremely approximate, and also scaled for 6-8 encounters between long rests, which is a frequency that few tables come close to. If your players don't have to worry about that many fights, they can take on much more powerful foes.
The summoned beasts don't directly affect the difficulty (they are assumed as part of the druid's capabilities), but the NPCs probably do, unless they're so relatively weak they don't have much effect at all. (And D&D 5's bounded accuracy keeps lower-level characters more relevant than they would've been in prior editions.)
Summoning spells are notoriously hard to balance around, but part of your problem is how you're handling Conjure Animals. It sounds like you're combining all the summoned creatures into a single action block, which would definitely speed up turns, but would also make the creatures' damage extremely swingy (as you've discovered). With the 4 Giant Eagles example, the probability of the Swarm of Eagles getting 2 Crits over 5 attacks is 2.2%; low, but not outrageous. The probability of 4 individual eagles getting 8 crits over 20 attacks is 0.0003%; that is, no joke, over 7000 times less likely. This also applies to the Swarm of Eagles' chance of rolling two nat 1s over the same number of attacks; combining the creatures won't always make them stronger, but it will always bias them towards more extreme results.
Personally I think Conjure Animals is nearly impossible to balance around in a way that's fun for everyone, and I would talk to your player about swapping it out for the much more manageable Summon Beast. That's the way the 2024 rules update seems to be going as well.
In my own game I do some adjustments to encounter EXP targets when my players take summoning spells--basically I assume the summon will always be present and treat it as an extra PC at half the summoner's level--but I don't think all that is strictly necessary. If you change the way you run Conjure Animals (preferably swapping it out entirely for the better balanced version) you should have less drastic lucky breaks in future encounters.
CR roughly translates to .5 the level of a PC. So, if a PC summons a 4 CR monster, they've basically added a 2nd level PC to their party. If a caster in a party has summon spells, it's probably fair to add an extra PC to the party that is 1/2 the level of the monster that can be summoned. (Also, if you don't treat multiple summoned entities as a single block for combat, the game usually grinds to a halt.) In short, evaluating the challenge level of encounters is difficult when a PC has summon spells.
Last, I think a the encounter you described was largely due to (two) critical hits. Personally I don't treat critical hits as double damage because a doubling the damage is a big difference that results from a small difference (of 1) on an attack roll. In other words, doubling damage from critical hits brings too much variance into a game that is supposed to value balance. I have critical hits do 1.5 damage.
I agree that running more than one summoned creature separately is horrible for game flow (that's why, cards on the table, I think Conjure Animals shouldn't exist). But you run into the exact problem OP described if you just make one attack roll and apply it to a mob of creatures; a Giant Eagle does 2d6+3 on a hit with its claws, which means a Swarm of Eagles as described deals 8d6+12 on a hit (and that's leaving out the 4d6+12 beak attack they also get). That's just way, way too much damage to hinge on one attack roll.
There might be a good third-option solution here where the Eagles all move together but attack separately, but I don't know how much time that would actually save.
A 'deadly' fight is not (the descriptions of named difficulty levels would be more accurate if you doubled the encounter budget).
Most multisummon spells are poorly balanced (was conjure animals cast at level 5? Giant Eagles are CR 1. Typically you see giant owls used to go after fliers.. but 64 dpr for a level 3 spell that lasts an hour is kinda of overpowered...).
I agree that running more than one summoned creature separately is horrible for game flow (that's why, cards on the table, I think Conjure Animals shouldn't exist). But you run into the exact problem OP described if you just make one attack roll and apply it to a mob of creatures; a Giant Eagle does 2d6+3 on a hit with its claws, which means a Swarm of Eagles as described deals 8d6+12 on a hit (and that's leaving out the 4d6+12 beak attack they also get). That's just way, way too much damage to hinge on one attack roll.
There might be a good third-option solution here where the Eagles all move together but attack separately, but I don't know how much time that would actually save.
While there are swarms of various beasts, conjure animals summons individual animals, not swarms. At 5th level druid's can summon 2 giant eagles, doing 2 attacks: bite 6 (1d6 + 3), claw 10 (2d6 + 3). If both eagles hit on both attacks (which is very unlikely), that's an average of 32 damage per round. That is a lot, but it's on par with other 5th level caster DPR, e.g., fireball. At 9th level druids can summon 4 giant eagles, which on average does 64 damage per round (again, in the unlikely event that all 4 eagles hit on each of their 2 attacks). That too is a lot, and comparable to the best spells available to other 9th level casters like cone of cold, which does 8d8 damage.
That said, I agree with you that some attack option other than 1 (block) attack roll for all summoned giant eagles' bites and 1 attack roll for all of their claws. Just get yourself a lot of d20s and roll a d20 for each giant eagle's bite and claw attack (4 d20s for 5th level druids, 8 for 9th level druids). (Though at 17th level, a druid can summon 8 giant eagles, and would need 16 d20s!)
Yeah sorry I should've been clearer; I know how Conjure Animals works, I just referred to the eagles as a swarm to differentiate the block attack version the OP described from the standard, individuated version.
The mass dice solution is probably the best way to do it; it's even fairly practical for the 3rd level and 5th level versions of the spell. Just hope the eagles don't get advantage or disadvantage for any reason.
Hi everyone. Question about the encounter builder. ...
Posting before reading other people, someone else probably has said this. If not, it's important, if so I mean it, Important.
The encounter builder is useful for tracking combat only, the how dangerous something is in 5th edition is based on the C/R value vs estimated party strength and C/R is the least consistent metric in 5th edition. a level 1 party should do fine against anything under CR1... in theory only not always, there are many things at or under CR1 that can one shot a level 1 player. Likewise, a CR 20 should be impossible for a party of level 10s... only some players once they hit level 10 can basically destroy anything in the game. As a DM it's your job to give the players a challenge, not to kill them as it is not Player VS DM, this said I usually ease my players into harder and harder challenges until I drop someone to 0 HP (They'll live, or usually do) that spot where one play drops to 0 but doesn't die with a party victory is my sweet spot, and it's hard AF to maintain, I also mix it up with easy challenges to let the players feel strong, so when they face the hard ones they feel like they earned it without being a grindfeast.
Hi everyone.
Question about the encounter builder.
Last night our group (of 4 players) faced off against a Nightmare Beast.
When I entered it into the encounter builder today, it said it was a "deadly" encounter.
There were some unusual circumstances though (CRITS were rolled several times by the players).
We took the beast down in about 3 rounds, and I think only one player took any damage.
My main question though... when trying to determine the difficulty, if the druid uses something like summon creatures (in our case he summoned 4 giant eagles - they critted (as one attack) and he rolled almost max damage. I think it was around 80 points in damage in total! - this happened TWICE!)
When using the Encounter builder should you include summoned beasts? (like there's a chance the druid won't cast it, or might pick different animals), or is all that factored into the standard character level of being a druid?
TLDR: Our party, with the help of some REALLY lucky dice rolls, took down a deadly encounter like it was nothing. Just luck, or is there a better way to use the encounter builder?
* there were some other factors involved too, like 3 other NPCs (They didn't do much damage at all).
The encounter ratings are both extremely approximate, and also scaled for 6-8 encounters between long rests, which is a frequency that few tables come close to. If your players don't have to worry about that many fights, they can take on much more powerful foes.
The summoned beasts don't directly affect the difficulty (they are assumed as part of the druid's capabilities), but the NPCs probably do, unless they're so relatively weak they don't have much effect at all. (And D&D 5's bounded accuracy keeps lower-level characters more relevant than they would've been in prior editions.)
Summoning spells are notoriously hard to balance around, but part of your problem is how you're handling Conjure Animals. It sounds like you're combining all the summoned creatures into a single action block, which would definitely speed up turns, but would also make the creatures' damage extremely swingy (as you've discovered). With the 4 Giant Eagles example, the probability of the Swarm of Eagles getting 2 Crits over 5 attacks is 2.2%; low, but not outrageous. The probability of 4 individual eagles getting 8 crits over 20 attacks is 0.0003%; that is, no joke, over 7000 times less likely. This also applies to the Swarm of Eagles' chance of rolling two nat 1s over the same number of attacks; combining the creatures won't always make them stronger, but it will always bias them towards more extreme results.
Personally I think Conjure Animals is nearly impossible to balance around in a way that's fun for everyone, and I would talk to your player about swapping it out for the much more manageable Summon Beast. That's the way the 2024 rules update seems to be going as well.
In my own game I do some adjustments to encounter EXP targets when my players take summoning spells--basically I assume the summon will always be present and treat it as an extra PC at half the summoner's level--but I don't think all that is strictly necessary. If you change the way you run Conjure Animals (preferably swapping it out entirely for the better balanced version) you should have less drastic lucky breaks in future encounters.
Thanks! Both replies were very helpful.
CR roughly translates to .5 the level of a PC. So, if a PC summons a 4 CR monster, they've basically added a 2nd level PC to their party. If a caster in a party has summon spells, it's probably fair to add an extra PC to the party that is 1/2 the level of the monster that can be summoned. (Also, if you don't treat multiple summoned entities as a single block for combat, the game usually grinds to a halt.) In short, evaluating the challenge level of encounters is difficult when a PC has summon spells.
Last, I think a the encounter you described was largely due to (two) critical hits. Personally I don't treat critical hits as double damage because a doubling the damage is a big difference that results from a small difference (of 1) on an attack roll. In other words, doubling damage from critical hits brings too much variance into a game that is supposed to value balance. I have critical hits do 1.5 damage.
Started playing AD&D in the late 70s and stopped in the mid-80s. Started immersing myself into 5e in 2023
I agree that running more than one summoned creature separately is horrible for game flow (that's why, cards on the table, I think Conjure Animals shouldn't exist). But you run into the exact problem OP described if you just make one attack roll and apply it to a mob of creatures; a Giant Eagle does 2d6+3 on a hit with its claws, which means a Swarm of Eagles as described deals 8d6+12 on a hit (and that's leaving out the 4d6+12 beak attack they also get). That's just way, way too much damage to hinge on one attack roll.
There might be a good third-option solution here where the Eagles all move together but attack separately, but I don't know how much time that would actually save.
There's at least three problems
While there are swarms of various beasts, conjure animals summons individual animals, not swarms. At 5th level druid's can summon 2 giant eagles, doing 2 attacks: bite 6 (1d6 + 3), claw 10 (2d6 + 3). If both eagles hit on both attacks (which is very unlikely), that's an average of 32 damage per round. That is a lot, but it's on par with other 5th level caster DPR, e.g., fireball. At 9th level druids can summon 4 giant eagles, which on average does 64 damage per round (again, in the unlikely event that all 4 eagles hit on each of their 2 attacks). That too is a lot, and comparable to the best spells available to other 9th level casters like cone of cold, which does 8d8 damage.
That said, I agree with you that some attack option other than 1 (block) attack roll for all summoned giant eagles' bites and 1 attack roll for all of their claws. Just get yourself a lot of d20s and roll a d20 for each giant eagle's bite and claw attack (4 d20s for 5th level druids, 8 for 9th level druids). (Though at 17th level, a druid can summon 8 giant eagles, and would need 16 d20s!)
Started playing AD&D in the late 70s and stopped in the mid-80s. Started immersing myself into 5e in 2023
Yeah sorry I should've been clearer; I know how Conjure Animals works, I just referred to the eagles as a swarm to differentiate the block attack version the OP described from the standard, individuated version.
The mass dice solution is probably the best way to do it; it's even fairly practical for the 3rd level and 5th level versions of the spell. Just hope the eagles don't get advantage or disadvantage for any reason.
Posting before reading other people, someone else probably has said this. If not, it's important, if so I mean it, Important.
The encounter builder is useful for tracking combat only, the how dangerous something is in 5th edition is based on the C/R value vs estimated party strength and C/R is the least consistent metric in 5th edition. a level 1 party should do fine against anything under CR1... in theory only not always, there are many things at or under CR1 that can one shot a level 1 player. Likewise, a CR 20 should be impossible for a party of level 10s... only some players once they hit level 10 can basically destroy anything in the game. As a DM it's your job to give the players a challenge, not to kill them as it is not Player VS DM, this said I usually ease my players into harder and harder challenges until I drop someone to 0 HP (They'll live, or usually do) that spot where one play drops to 0 but doesn't die with a party victory is my sweet spot, and it's hard AF to maintain, I also mix it up with easy challenges to let the players feel strong, so when they face the hard ones they feel like they earned it without being a grindfeast.