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J-H
2016-08-12, 04:12 PM
This is 3.5, but generally applicable.

I've been DMing for about 5 weeks now. I'm running a high-speed game (daily posting, 1 combat round or more per day with 6 players).

In theory, difficult or challenging encounters are supposed to make up ~25-30% of what the party faces, according to the books and encounter calculator. In tabletop, fine, it's 5 or 6 minutes to kill the 5 level 1 orcs. In PBP, it's at best 2-3 days; for a 1 turn per 2-3 days game, the no-challenge encounter that leaves 1 party member 8hp down could take two weeks.

It seems to me that it's a better idea to either delete those types of minor encounters, or gloss over them: "You were attacked by two darkmantles along the way. (dice roll) Party member 3 took (diceroll) 3 damage, but you killed them with ease."

Ninja_Prawn
2016-08-12, 05:20 PM
Disclaimer: I mainly play 5e, which tends to feature swift combats, but even then PbP makes them drag on.


It seems to me that it's a better idea to either delete those types of minor encounters, or gloss over them

Possibly. It depends what kind of tone you're going for. Sometimes I feel it's worthwhile to drag the party through 2 or 3 real-life weeks of pointless combat, just to ram home the importance of avoiding violent solutions. And if you build up a place as being crawling with danger, it falls a little flat if they then waltz through it with nary a fight. Also, it's not that hard to make a 'minor' encounter into something more - such as by using it to reinforce the themes you want to emphasize. That way, even though it takes a long time and/or doesn't put the PCs in serious danger, there's still plenty of room for roleplay and character development to happen in parallel.

It can help even out the limelight as well, since successful PbP games tend to feature a lot of social encounters anyway, and one or two characters are likely to take the lead in those. Obviously it'd be better to make the combats important plot-wise, but that's not always going to be possible.