Balancing encounters

[arrowstorm]

As a new DM, I have just finished LMoP and will be beginning my own campaign. I tried to plan the first encounter using an online encounter calculator based on the MM. I then realized that my 5 person level 5 party could take on 37 guards (according to the current CR system). Are there any ways to find balance? As i said, I am a new DM so I can't just feel it out effectively. Does party makeup matter? Anything helps.

[mephnick]

As a new DM, I have just finished LMoP and will be beginning my own campaign. I tried to plan the first encounter using an online encounter calculator based on the MM. I then realized that my 5 person level 5 party could take on 37 guards (according to the current CR system). Are there any ways to find balance? As i said, I am a new DM so I can't just feel it out effectively. Does party makeup matter? Anything helps.

There are lots of different kind of "human" fighters in the MM, just use some stronger ones as you need and say they're vets or captains.

2 Veterans and 4 Guards is a medium encounter, which should be fairly easy. Add a third veteran in for a challenge.

Use http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder and mess around with things.

The CR math really breaks down if you use single monsters or tons of small monsters, so I wouldn't put too much stock into that without some testing.

[MaxWilson]

As a new DM, I have just finished LMoP and will be beginning my own campaign. I tried to plan the first encounter using an online encounter calculator based on the MM. I then realized that my 5 person level 5 party could take on 37 guards (according to the current CR system). Are there any ways to find balance? As i said, I am a new DM so I can't just feel it out effectively. Does party makeup matter? Anything helps.

Hahahaha, awesome. I assure you that your level 5 party almost certainly cannot take 37 guards in a straight-up fight where you just dump them all in a courtyard and start rolling initiative. It is possible that they can take 37 guards in an extended scenario where they bait the guards out into the courtyard and then cut them down in a crossfire while the PCs huddle behind partial cover and rain down Fireballs; in other words, if the PCs are allowed to fight smart (Combat As War). But this can only happen in a realistic scenario where the PCs have an inkling that trouble is incoming and get a chance to take cover--if they are caught out in the open they're essentially toast unless your players are extremely paranoid and uber-prepared, or unless you roleplay the guards realistically with fog of war and morale issues like real humans, in which case the players can maybe break their morale with AoE, etc., even without killing all 37.

After reviewing the stats for Guards, they are now my new favorite overpowered "low-CR" monster, joining the ranks of goblins, shadows, kobolds, and hobgoblins. AC 16 and a great ranged attack at +3 on a CR 1/8 chassis is about as cost-effective as you can get.

As a general guideline to you, the higher-CR the monsters, the easier an encounter constructed with DMG guidelines will be. But you really have to just get a feel for your party. My advice: start small, not trying to be challenging so much as to be realistic: place the number of guards that you think should actually be there from a roleplaying perspective (maybe a squad of a dozen). It will almost certainly be pretty easy for your PCs to punch through those guards if they want to, but that is fine. It will make them feel awesome, and it will give you a better feel for how deadly twice as many guards would be.

(Twice as many guards will inflict four times as much time on the PCs before going down, because it takes twice as long to kill them and they're firing back with twice the firepower. Damage inflicted scales with roughly the square of the number of monsters; this is particularly true if your monsters (or guards) have ranged firepower so they can spread out and not easily be caught by the same AoE.)