Help me help my DM design better encounters.

[Epsilon Rose]

Hey, I was hoping the playground could help me with a bit of a problem. I'm currently in a campaign that's being run by a relatively new DM and he's had some trouble balancing encounters. Most of them have been really easy, but the few times he's deviated that they've been all but unapproachable.

I know part of the problem is that the party is spread over a large range of levels (one 10th, one 9th with a 7th level cohort, one 8th, and three 7s) and an even bigger gap in optimization (on one end we have an ozadrin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?153536-Tooth-and-Tentacle-base-class-PEACH) with a DFI bard as a cohort and a competent cleric and on the other we have a ranger who all but brags about not knowing how to use spells and not having an enchanted bow or much magical gear). This is mostly because there's been a lot of player churn and I'm not sure how much can be done about it, beyond trying to get the extremely low op characters into a better position.

The other, main, problem is his tactics. Most fights occur at melee range in an, effectively, featureless plain. This is exactly the ozadrins specialty and her half-a-dozen, Dragon Fire Inspiration buffed, attacks tend to end things quite quickly. There are only three notable exceptions to this pattern. The first was a story event that never happened, the second involved a ghost at level 5 (were only one of us had an enchanted weapon), and the third happened last session involving a dread wraith in a cavern made of tight corridors. These encounters, of course, resulted in much complaining, which pushed him back into easy mode.

I want to help him design better encounters, both so I can have a more interesting gaming experience and so he doesn't have to deal with as much complaining. So far, I've suggested that he vary his tactics and terrain more and that cr isn't always the best measure of a creatures power. But that doesn't strike me as particularly concrete or helpful advice and it's certainly not very detailed.

Does anyone here have any good advice for learning how to design challenging and interesting encounters or handbooks/articles that might help with the same?

Thank you.

[VoxRationis]

Well, first thing is to ditch the featureless plain. It's a ridiculous setup for a fight in any but very specific outdoor environments (and those are not the sorts of places I would personally care to go to in any case). Have a fight in a hypostyle hall. Assault ramparts. Have a fight around the altar of a cathedral, complete with speaking platforms, pews, the altar itself, and all the accoutrements associated with such a place. When you have to take the terrain into consideration, the fight becomes less about your character sheet (although it's still plenty about that) and a little more about the actual encounter.

[Dimcair]

If the DM is new I think there is only 1 good solution to learn.

That is:

Play at low level and slowly work your way up from there. Use written campaigns to get a feeling for encounters.

Avoid multi-classing or at least limit it to two different classes.


I am not saying you need to start at lvl 1 again, but with lvl 10 you have some sweet spells, making it difficult to balance an encounter so it is a challenge. Especially if the rest of the party is basically lvl 7 (What happened there oO?)

[HammeredWharf]

I know this can sometimes be a controversial opinion, but I don't think levels gaps that big should exist in a 3.5e campaign. I'd start by bumping your group to lvl 9. Next, agree not to use the most broken things in D&D, including Leadership.

[jedipotter]

This is one of them things that a DM learns by real life experence.

Tips:

*A DM should go all out and try to kill the characters in (most) encounters. This is not DM vs Player! It is just foe's acting out in the right way. And it makes for a much more fun game. When the DM just ''um, has bad guys attack or something'', it is dull and boring. When the bad guys ''attack with bloodlust'' it is much more fun. The important part is to have a balanced encounter. Not dragons, ghosts and wraths at 3rd level.....but just goblin warlocks with bolas.

*The DM should feel free to use every thing he can find to make an encounter. This board and others are full of character handbooks, and they work just fine for DM's too.

*Equipment can really spice up and encounter. Goblins with clubs...boring. Goblins with bolas...intresting. Even better goblins with bolas and wolves....

[pwykersotz]

I've found a lot of the basics have been gone over very well by the AngryDM (http://angrydm.com/2013/05/four-things-youve-never-heard-of-that-make-encounters-not-suck/) and Ars Ludi (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/all-categories/) blogs.

[Epsilon Rose]

If the DM is new I think there is only 1 good solution to learn.

That is:

Play at low level and slowly work your way up from there. Use written campaigns to get a feeling for encounters.

Avoid multi-classing or at least limit it to two different classes.


I am not saying you need to start at lvl 1 again, but with lvl 10 you have some sweet spells, making it difficult to balance an encounter so it is a challenge. Especially if the rest of the party is basically lvl 7 (What happened there oO?)

We actually started at level 5. The campaign has been running for a while, but there's also been a lot of player churn. The 9 and the 10 are the only players who have been there since the beginning where as the 7s are relatively new.

Similarly, we're all straight classed, since the dm has a nonsensical rule about not being able to prc until 9 (actually, the cleric might have recently taken sky pledged [he's the 10]).


I know this can sometimes be a controversial opinion, but I don't think levels gaps that big should exist in a 3.5e campaign. I'd start by bumping your group to lvl 9. Next, agree not to use the most broken things in D&D, including Leadership.
The leadership actually has a reason. I made the Ozadrin a little girl, thinking it could be fun to rp an innocent waif who transforms into a tentacle monster and eats people without understanding why people are afraid of her. Unfortunately, that didn't work out in practice. No one seems to be noticeably afraid of her, unless fear effects force them to be, and generally I can't get involved in most other bits of rp, beyond the occasional intimidate and puppy dog eyes. Ergo, I took leadership and created an outgoing bard who will actually have something to say. I'm also hoping the fact that he mostly just stands there and buffs everyone or fires his bow evens things out a bit.


This is one of them things that a DM learns by real life experence.

Tips:

*A DM should go all out and try to kill the characters in (most) encounters. This is not DM vs Player! It is just foe's acting out in the right way. And it makes for a much more fun game. When the DM just ''um, has bad guys attack or something'', it is dull and boring. When the bad guys ''attack with bloodlust'' it is much more fun. The important part is to have a balanced encounter. Not dragons, ghosts and wraths at 3rd level.....but just goblin warlocks with bolas.

*The DM should feel free to use every thing he can find to make an encounter. This board and others are full of character handbooks, and they work just fine for DM's too.

*Equipment can really spice up and encounter. Goblins with clubs...boring. Goblins with bolas...intresting. Even better goblins with bolas and wolves....
Problem is, that only works if the DM already has a basic grasp on encounter strength. Challenging fights where the enemy is trying to kill you and actually has a chance of doing something are fun. Fights where the party literally can't do anything to effect the outcome aren't. It is trivially easy for dm to accidentally design an encounter garananteed to tpk the party while staying within (or even on the easy half of) the cr guidelines. While he could learn by trial and error, frequent and random tpks remove any chance of progressing a coherent plot (barring a Dark Souls type situation where no one stays dead), which is bad if any of us want the story to go anywhere. What's worse, frequent and arbitrary character deaths are likely to lose you players long before you get a handle on the difficulty (particularly if you factor in changing group comp and lower quality players).

Edit:
I've found a lot of the basics have been gone over very well by the AngryDM (http://angrydm.com/2013/05/four-things-youve-never-heard-of-that-make-encounters-not-suck/) and Ars Ludi (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/all-categories/) blogs.

Interesting. I'll have to give those a closer look and pass them on. Given the sheer volume of articles, and their naming schemes, do you have any recommendations on where to start or which articles to read?

[pwykersotz]

For the Angry DM blog, the link is the article I think is most relevant, called "four things you've never heard of that make encounters not suck". Don't be put off by the tone, it's just his schtick. :smalltongue: The followup article is good too, called "How to build f'ing awesome encounters".

Ars Ludi takes a bit longer to go through, but I found one of the most helpful articles to be called Be Interested. Also, focus on the ones that are marked with a yellow star and the ones that are under the categories "The Basics", "Character Creation", and "Adventure Building". Also, while there's a lot of articles, they are generally fairly short, so don't be too intimidated.

[OldTrees1]

Dungeonscape has a good tutorial for encounter design.

It basically reads:
Choose a focus for the encounter(usually a enemy).
Imagine how the focus would be challenged.
Add a defense against the challenge(terrain, meatshields, ...)
Imagine how the focus would be challenged.
Add a defense against the challenge(terrain, meatshields, ...)
Fine tune encounter.