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Enix18
2010-06-03, 10:21 PM
Greetings, folks!

I was hoping you might be able to helps me with a little issue I've run into while crafting my next campaign. You see, I'm going to be running a West Marches type of campaign soon, and in keeping with the style I plan to incorporate random encounter tables to spice up wilderness travel. Unfortunately, my experience with random encounters is rather limited (read: nonexistent). I'm used to running very story driven campaigns in which each encounter is hand-crafted, and I'm having a difficult time finding a good balancing point for encounters that are much more unpredictable in nature.

Particularly at low levels, the CR system is absolutely borked, and I'm not sure if there's an easy way to compensate for that fact. I know that a level 1 warrior isn't powerful enough to challenge an entire four-man party, but as long as the DMG wants to believe that I'm sort of at a loss. I want to make some generic encounters that can present a small challenge to any combination of players, but without any guidelines I'm afraid I'm going to make the encounters too difficult by overcompensating for clearly lowballed CRs.

I really like the system that Pathfinder uses for determining the overall CR of an encounter, but I don't know if that'll transfer well into v3.5 due to the noticeable difference in power levels between characters in each system. Do you think I could get away with this anyways, or is it just a recipe for TPKs?

More importantly, do you folks have any tips for creating random encounters balanced for a low level (1-3) party? Do you have any advice for working around the absurdity of CR at such low levels?

sonofzeal
2010-06-03, 10:37 PM
CR is borked, but much of that can be worked around pretty easily.

Basically, the listed CRs for pre-statted enemies are usually actually half-decent (with some obvious exceptions in both directions). It's only the rules for generalizing CRs that are completely worthless. NPCs with class levels completely throw it off, as does adding HD or templates. If you're doing any of that stuff, just eyeball it.

Against a decently functional team of four PCs, you can get a decent fight out of a group of four NPCs with NPC class levels, with minimal effort put into gear and feats and whatnot. On the other hand, you can lay down some serious hurt with a single well-tended NPC with PC levels, level-appropriate gear, and an eye for strategy. Pretty much every game I've run has had some NPC or other of equal level to the party who caused them endless pain and made a great running miniboss.



Against a lvl 1 party, I'd use....

- Up to three lvl 1 player-race NPC class characters.
- Up to two lvl 1 Orc Warriors (the extra strength means impressive lethality at this level, handle with care when using 2-handed weapons)
- A single moderately-optimize lvl 1 PC class character, or a single moderately-optimized lvl 2 NPC class character.
- Most CR 1 or less enemies from the Monster Manual except Swarms and things with DR, unless I know the party has the tools to beat those.



(edit) Oh, and a Human Warrior 1 is actually CR 1/2, as NPC class levels are always non-associated. That may explain the suckiness if you missed that.

Enix18
2010-06-03, 10:45 PM
Thanks! Those are actually some really useful tips, as NPC and PC class levels were the main things that I was having problems reconciling with the CR system.

sonofzeal
2010-06-04, 01:13 AM
Some more general tips for CR with PC/NPC classes....


- NPCs can feasibly blow through resources way faster than PCs because their lifespans are so short. This means that an NPC Wizard has more firepower at his disposal than a PC Wizard of the same level. This goes for any NPC with x/day abilities of any sort; they're almost guaranteed to use them, while a PC counterpart may have to conserve or already be out. As a result, any NPC with x/day resources is going to generally be more dangerous than their CR indicates, although of course there's not precise rule here and it all depends how you handle them.

- When outnumbered 4-to-1, even powerful enemies fall prey to "action economy". If the PCs are getting four turns for ever one turn the NPC gets, he better darn well be rocking that one turn or taking serious steps to minimize the PC's actions. An NPC Fighter is probably just going to drop hard against a party of equal-level PCs... unless you even the odds somehow. He'll need to prevent himself from getting swarmed somehow. Terrain is useful. For some NPCs, minions can also do the trick.

- As suggested above, "soft" factors like terrain can have a huge impact on the battle, and that's entirely outside of the realm of the CR system. If enemies are dying too easily, give them a terrain advantage. If the PCs are suffering, let THEM hit the enemy from advantageous terrain or try to set up ambush. PCs get ambushed an overwhelming percentage of the time, so giving them a chance to even the score is often a good thing.

Runestar
2010-06-04, 04:59 AM
You may also want to pay attention to a creature's attacks, and try to go for those with multiple attacks which deal little damage (such as a lizardfolk or grick) instead of a single attack which does a lot of damage (like an orc barb with a greataxe, which deals enough minimum damage to 1-shot a PC). And try to spread out those attacks if possible.

Cyrion
2010-06-04, 09:34 AM
Also, plan some of those random encounters AFTER the initial party is assembled (and has gone through an encounter or two). This will give you a good idea about what they can handle based on character abilities and player style. Go ahead and get your random encounter tables set before play, but then modify them to tailor them to your party.

nedz
2010-06-04, 09:45 AM
One thing I do, with a new party/campaign, is to create some calibrating encounters.

I'll create a set of encounters of varying challange and gradually ramp them up, until I get a good feel for the parties capabilities. You can always save the tougher ones for when they have gone up a level or so.

One thing to bear in mind though is that it will probably take them a little while to work out what they can do, and how best to work together: a new party is rarely as competant as it could be. They will pretty soon, or eventually at least, get the hang of things though.

Its also good to make a few encounters into mini side plots. These can often turn into something more interesting.

I also try to make the initial encounters fit the overall flavour of the areas through which they pass.