Building Fair Encounters

[drkillbydeath87]

I'm planning on DMing a small scenario in the not too distant future. However seeing as I'm kind of new to this I'm having kind of a hard time knowing if the encounters I put together will be appropriate challenges to the other players. The DM's guide has some general rules involving CR but... to be honest there's a pretty wide swing in power within enemies of the same CR so I'm not certain on how reliable it'll be. Any tips or suggestions as for what I should be looking to do in terms of minor encounters?

Additionally, there's the matter of trying to balance out custom-made antagonists I have in mind for the mission. I have some ideas for encounters I'd like to use that play out similar to PCs of specific classes. However even moreso, I don't really know how to handle these statistically. I assume in general for a 'boss' character I'd want to err on the side of higher defense and lower offense as that's sort of the convention for the majority of RPG encounters, but I don't really know to what extent.

[Xihirli]

What I like to do with Boss characters is give them very little damage but several ways to inflict conditions. Blind the archer, silence the wizard. Drop the fighter prone and then restrain her.
What's great about that is your boss feels powerful but you're not in too much danger of accidentally killing your players.

If you can adapt your encounters quickly what you might want to do is start off the campaign with a very easy encounter to gauge how well the party works as a team and see their abilities.

[iTreeby]

Generally do not outnumber the players

[the secret fire]

My advice is simply not to worry about building "fair" encounters. Place whatever obstacles you think are appropriate, and let the players figure it out. It's for sure a good idea to give the PCs some sort of warning about the general power level of custom monsters, but if you try too hard to build "fair" and "balanced" encounters, you end up with a boring game in which the party is rarely, if ever, in real danger. There's nothing wrong with PCs facing the real possibility of death, and sometimes having to retreat. You need to have a general idea of what the party can handle, but don't stress about the details. If an encounter ends up being harder than you expected it to be: oh well!

tl;dr - make a world with interesting and potentially fatal things in it and let your players have a real adventure trying to survive and reach their goals. Don't design the setting to revolve around the party's specific power level like some kind of tabletop video game.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Generally do not outnumber the players

For this edition, you can go up to 2x the players, but by using strongly lower CR.

I've found my sweet spot is between 1x and 1.5x or so. Not too many to handle, not so few as to run into action issues.

Xanathars has some good tables for that. They are on the low side, especially if the characters have significant magical items.

[smcmike]

There's nothing wrong with PCs facing the real possibility of death, and sometimes having to retreat.


Building in the possibility of retreat or other alternative resolutions is a good way to balance an encounter that you aren’t sure the players can handle.

One way to do this is to give the enemies an objective that isn’t “kill the PCs.” Maybe they want to grab something and run, and the PCs are merely obstacles for them. Maybe they want to test the PCs, or manipulate them, or have some other reason to want them alive. Maybe they want to be left alone, and are perfectly content to let the PCs run away.

[Doorhandle]

There's nothing wrong with PCs facing the real possibility of death, and sometimes having to retreat.
So long as they're aware retreat is an option. Players can be dim on that point.

What i'll say (thought i'm not a fine hand on encounter balance myself), if you're going to throw something out-of-level at the players, have something else stack the deck in their favor. Maybe they have allies, maybes there's something in the environment that hurts the boss, maybe it's attacks are super-powerful but super telegraphed so the players can just flee. While throwing something massive down their throats and watching them scatter is fun for DMs, it's not so much fun for players.

[EvilAnagram]

Building in the possibility of retreat or other alternative resolutions is a good way to balance an encounter that you aren’t sure the players can handle.

One way to do this is to give the enemies an objective that isn’t “kill the PCs.” Maybe they want to grab something and run, and the PCs are merely obstacles for them. Maybe they want to test the PCs, or manipulate them, or have some other reason to want them alive. Maybe they want to be left alone, and are perfectly content to let the PCs run away.

Both of these are solid pieces of advice. It can be difficult to know what will be too difficult and what they'll steamroll through. Even knowing my players as well as I do, there have been plenty of encounters they surprisingly neutralized in a single round, and a handful they should have handled that nearly killed them. One way to mitigate the swing of tactical mistakes and dice rolls is to give both the PCs and antagonists goals aside from "kill those guys." The goals should be at cross purposes (e.g.: steal the idol v. use the idol to summon demons), but leave room for retreats and escapes. Who knows? Maybe the resolution will be to wait until those guys are done summoning demons, then pay them for the idol.

[Unoriginal]

Even if the encounter is tough, having the enemies flee or retreat is something that should be kept in mind.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Even if the encounter is tough, having the enemies flee or retreat is something that should be kept in mind.

That's very true. It's also true if the encounter is easy.

Some enemies (fanatics, undead, constructs, etc) will fight to the death. Others not so much.

[truemane]

I think I used to do was to simulate the fight myself, with no complex tactics on either side, and have everyone 'take 10' on every roll, and have every damage roll be average. I used to have a spreadsheet that would do this for me automatically.

If everyone just stood there and wailed on each other, and everything was 'average' - what would it look like?

There are then lots of variable on top of that, but that was always my foundation. If the PC's went down, then I knew the strict mechanics were weighted toward the bad guy, and vice-versa.

The advice to keep retreat open as an option, and to have different goals other than 'kill them all' are the best two bits of advice you could pull from this thread. A surprising number of DM's never learn either, and liberal application of both will enrich your games in ways far outside of combat.

[PhoenixPhyre]

As well as being open to unorthodox solutions, such as them actually paying attention to the fluff and negotiating a cease fire. Had that happen once. It made sense in fiction, so we ran with it.

[Demonslayer666]

I'm planning on DMing a small scenario in the not too distant future. However seeing as I'm kind of new to this I'm having kind of a hard time knowing if the encounters I put together will be appropriate challenges to the other players. The DM's guide has some general rules involving CR but... to be honest there's a pretty wide swing in power within enemies of the same CR so I'm not certain on how reliable it'll be. Any tips or suggestions as for what I should be looking to do in terms of minor encounters?

Additionally, there's the matter of trying to balance out custom-made antagonists I have in mind for the mission. I have some ideas for encounters I'd like to use that play out similar to PCs of specific classes. However even moreso, I don't really know how to handle these statistically. I assume in general for a 'boss' character I'd want to err on the side of higher defense and lower offense as that's sort of the convention for the majority of RPG encounters, but I don't really know to what extent.

I highly recommend using an encounter generator. I use the one at http://donjon.bin.sh/5e/random/#type=encounter;n_pc=4;level=1;difficulty=any;envi ronment=Underdark

I learned quickly that my party takes deadly encounters with ease. Start at easy and work your way up.

Keep in mind that if you only have 1 creature, it will fall very fast when they all gang up on it. Have enough targets to spread out the damage. Increasing AC and HP is the best way to make an encounter more challenging (boss) without making it overly dangerous.

[Kane0]

Kobold Fight Club (https://kobold.club) is your friend.

You might also want to quickly google or youtube search interesting encounter design to help provide variety, and the DMG/MM creature building rules to eyeball custom stuff. You can also consult published adventures to get a feel and some samples.

If you're just starting out, its a lot better to start small and work your way up rather than try something super complex that could backfire on you or starting hard that runs the risk of TPKs before you get the hang of it.

[Thrawn4]

I think it is important to show the players that a certain character is powerful, so that they cannot pretent to be surprised if they start a fight.
Also, the difficulty of the fight should depend on the PC's choices: Maybe they can weaken the enemy or find allies. Maybe they can choose between a regular and a high risk/reward approach.

[Malifice]

I'm planning on DMing a small scenario in the not too distant future. However seeing as I'm kind of new to this I'm having kind of a hard time knowing if the encounters I put together will be appropriate challenges to the other players. The DM's guide has some general rules involving CR

CR is largely irrelevant in encounter design.

What you're looking at is XP budgeting. Have another read.

[DeadMech]

Don't be stingy about information. A party that knows who they are fighting, what their abilities are, what their weaknesses are, and with opportunity to prepare will make short work of even the deadliest of encounters. If you think a fight is going to require the party to buckle down, make preparations, and fight smart then it's your job to give them the chance to do so.

[Unoriginal]

Don't be stingy about information. A party that knows who they are fighting, what their abilities are, what their weaknesses are, and with opportunity to prepare will make short work of even the deadliest of encounters. If you think a fight is going to require the party to buckle down, make preparations, and fight smart then it's your job to give them the chance to do so.

Or you could be stingy about informations, because sometime you don't know what you're going to face.

[Amdy_vill]

cr is a bad bar to use. every now and then look at your players character so you know what spell and other abilities they have and give them big hp monster that only died when they use up all they powers or they come close to death. so you can see how much damage they can deal. this will give you an idea of there power and what to give them in fights. Cr is only good in my experience till your part hits 5th level after that do this. also remember your party should feel powerful some time. have them fights an enemy type for 3 or 4 levels back and let them have a cake walk. one this can give them a feeling of progression and you can use this on them for really powerful fights. also a boss should be very powerful and a challenge. most of my boss fights and my dm's boss fights we build so we think there is at less a 50/50 of party wipe. players tend to be better at the game then you so they tend to come out on top even with these odds. there is 2 or more of them usually.

[JoeJ]

That's very true. It's also true if the encounter is easy.

Some enemies (fanatics, undead, constructs, etc) will fight to the death. Others not so much.

Only some undead will fight to the death. Others can have goals that may not require the PCs to be killed. Hungry ones, like ghouls or vampire, might want to take one party member and retreat to a safe place to feed. And some undead might even consider fighting to be a distraction from whatever it is they're trying to accomplish. Getting a ghost to stay in one place long enough for the party to deal with could be quite difficult.

[smcmike]

Only some undead will fight to the death. Others can have goals that may not require the PCs to be killed. Hungry ones, like ghouls or vampire, might want to take one party member and retreat to a safe place to feed. And some undead might even consider fighting to be a distraction from whatever it is they're trying to accomplish. Getting a ghost to stay in one place long enough for the party to deal with could be quite difficult.

Also, mindlessly fighting to the death can be used against them. How long will a horde of zombies chase a taunting mobile monk while the rest of the party walks on by behind them?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Only some undead will fight to the death. Others can have goals that may not require the PCs to be killed. Hungry ones, like ghouls or vampire, might want to take one party member and retreat to a safe place to feed. And some undead might even consider fighting to be a distraction from whatever it is they're trying to accomplish. Getting a ghost to stay in one place long enough for the party to deal with could be quite difficult.


Also, mindlessly fighting to the death can be used against them. How long will a horde of zombies chase a taunting mobile monk while the rest of the party walks on by behind them?

Both of these are very true and I thank you for the counterpoints.

[Demonslayer666]

One thing I forgot to mention was that you should be very familiar with the characters in the party. Know their AC and HP, what AC they are likely to hit, their spells and gear.

[krazedkoi]

My advice is simply not to worry about building "fair" encounters. Place whatever obstacles you think are appropriate, and let the players figure it out. It's for sure a good idea to give the PCs some sort of warning about the general power level of custom monsters, but if you try too hard to build "fair" and "balanced" encounters, you end up with a boring game in which the party is rarely, if ever, in real danger. There's nothing wrong with PCs facing the real possibility of death, and sometimes having to retreat. You need to have a general idea of what the party can handle, but don't stress about the details. If an encounter ends up being harder than you expected it to be: oh well!

tl;dr - make a world with interesting and potentially fatal things in it and let your players have a real adventure trying to survive and reach their goals. Don't design the setting to revolve around the party's specific power level like some kind of tabletop video game.

^ Awesome advice!
Some other great advice in this thread.
1. CR isn't the best guideline
2. Have options other than fight to the death
3. Information is power
4. Don't be afraid to zero a character! Dropping to zero doesn't mean someone is dead, it means they're in danger of dying.

I plan encounters with a specific goal in mind and I make notes about how they handled certain situations.
When I do 'random' encounters I testing the parties ability to deal with different types of threats so that I can better plan my story encounters
- How do they handle groups of smaller mobs? How do they handle larger, single mobs?
- this is especially true when they've just leveled
Smaller encounters are good for burning resources prior to a bigger fight and creating a feeling of pressure
Bigger encounters I aim for a hypothetical body count. Personally, I want two (or more) players to feel like their characters might die (or deal a certain % of total party HP). I don't want to KILL anyone, but the threat of zeroing out a character makes the fight exciting, and when a party squeaks through that tough encounter and everyone goes "whew!!" then there is a greater sense of relief and reward. If my wizard goes "oh man, I'm down to cantrips!" and the barbarian says "I hit single digit hp in this fight!" etc then I did my job, I pushed them and they made good choices and worked well together and made it through a significant challenge.

[Specter]

The basics: figure out what will kill them and knock it down a little.

When in doubt, run a simulation.

[drkillbydeath87]

Apologies for not responding sooner, I've been occupied with other things.

Thank you for your suggestions. Actually now that I think of it, the last time I attempted GMing I was actually a little surprised as to how often the player party sought out non-violent solutions to intended combat encounters. Mostly by getting the upper-hand against enemies and forcing a surrender, although individual strategies would likely depend upon the types of enemies being dealt with (the afforementioned encounters were all with humanoids).

Also thank you for these websites. That should be a good idea to start with a base and then add/subtract things from there.

This only really leaves the second part of my question. I'm not really sure if it'd be better to continue the topic here or start a new one refering specifically to that question, but here goes anyway.

Essentially, if I were to create a custom NPC to serve as a 'boss' encounter, for example, a character with Sorceror or Warlock skills, other than giving them the appropriate spells, what stats should I shoot for?

[iTreeby]

It depends on the level and number of party. Members but you can measure a creatures cr with the monster creation rules and make a deadly encounter with it and enough minions. Make the fight be at the end of the adventuring day and it should be pretty bossy.

[Raphite1]

CR is largely irrelevant in encounter design.

What you're looking at is XP budgeting. Have another read.

Yeah, it’s this. OP I think you’ve missed the relevant section in the DMG for encounter building; I’m afb but it’s on page 81 or thereabouts.

Ignore the comment someone made above about not outnumbering the PCs, that’s completely wrong for this edition.

For your custom enemies, the DMG also has rules for calculating the appropriate CR and XP value for custom monsters, and then you can budget them into the encounters as normal.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I kind of hate using allies. It detracts from the players, especially if you're using powerful foes + powerful allies to balance out.

When there are allies I prefer to handle it one of two ways: either match the allies 1-1 with the players and have the players control them directly, or use a whole mob of them and abstract what their effects are by allowing players to heal, deal extra damage or avoid hits through allied effects. OotA abstracts this by allowing players to avoid 1 hit/round by sacrificing an ally or to heal 2d6 hp every round; it's not a bad system with some tweaking.

[Specter]

Apologies for not responding sooner, I've been occupied with other things.

Thank you for your suggestions. Actually now that I think of it, the last time I attempted GMing I was actually a little surprised as to how often the player party sought out non-violent solutions to intended combat encounters. Mostly by getting the upper-hand against enemies and forcing a surrender, although individual strategies would likely depend upon the types of enemies being dealt with (the afforementioned encounters were all with humanoids).

Also thank you for these websites. That should be a good idea to start with a base and then add/subtract things from there.

This only really leaves the second part of my question. I'm not really sure if it'd be better to continue the topic here or start a new one refering specifically to that question, but here goes anyway.

Essentially, if I were to create a custom NPC to serve as a 'boss' encounter, for example, a character with Sorceror or Warlock skills, other than giving them the appropriate spells, what stats should I shoot for?

If they are going in solo against the party, you want legendary resistance and legendary actions. Even a boss with twice as many levels as the party can be easily thrashed by nova.

If they habe minions, have the minions shore up their weaknesses. If the boss casts, build them as tanks, for example.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If they are going in solo against the party, you want legendary resistance and legendary actions. Even a boss with twice as many levels as the party can be easily thrashed by nova.


To extend--spell-caster NPCs tend to run at caster level ~ 1.5xCR (Mage is CR 6 but CL 9, Archmage is CL 17 and CR 12).

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

And, of course, with a boost if they also have unusual traits in addition to casting. Undead immunities, lair actions, movement modes, whatever.

[PhoenixPhyre]

And, of course, with a boost if they also have unusual traits in addition to casting. Undead immunities, lair actions, movement modes, whatever.

True.

And the advice to only do solos if

* they have CR ~ level + 2-3
* they have legendary actions (at a minimum)
* at higher levels (11+ certainly) they have lair actions and legendary resistances.

Otherwise, give the boss minions and use a lower-CR boss.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

True.

And the advice to only do solos if

* they have CR ~ level + 2-3
* they have legendary actions (at a minimum)
* at higher levels (11+ certainly) they have lair actions and legendary resistances.

Otherwise, give the boss minions and use a lower-CR boss.

You can also run solo boss monsters with environmental hazards or other constraints that require PCs to burn actions. If a four-person party is attacked while sailing a small vessel in a squall and two of them have to continue to manage the sails and avoid running the ship onto Devil Reef, the party's pool of potential actions is slashed in half.

[Maelynn]

I really appreciate this thread, as this is exactly the thing I've been starting to look into a few days ago. So far my findings seem to chime in with the general consensus here.

Thanks also for the links provided. The KFC one in particular.

What I thought of doing, is to write down average hp of my mobs - and then its max hp in parentheses behind it. Instead of subtracting the damage it takes, I was thinking of adding up all the hits and wait for the moment the total crosses the average hp threshold. If the fight seems to be a breeze, well, then they'll have to hit a few more times... up to the max hp if need be. I thought this would help me balance the fight a bit better, as well as make it easier on myself to manage the fight, being a rookie DM. Does that seem like a good idea?

One question I did have that I'd like to toss in here, though. Imagine the party is fighting a group of mobs. The last of them goes down and before the PC's have a chance to heal up, another mob appears. How is the difficulty of that last one calculated, as a separate encounter or as part of the first one? Technically it wasn't around during the first encounter, but the party did use up a chunk of their spell/ability array and lost some hp. Is this last mob therefore harder than it would otherwise be? How do I rate it?

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

What I thought of doing, is to write down average hp of my mobs - and then its max hp in parentheses behind it. Instead of subtracting the damage it takes, I was thinking of adding up all the hits and wait for the moment the total crosses the average hp threshold. If the fight seems to be a breeze, well, then they'll have to hit a few more times... up to the max hp if need be. I thought this would help me balance the fight a bit better, as well as make it easier on myself to manage the fight, being a rookie DM. Does that seem like a good idea?

If the fight is a breeze, more or less max HP isn't likely to do anything beyond dragging it out a few rounds. Better to let it end quickly, let the players feel powerful and move to a new challenge. This idea does have a lot of potential for determining running thresholds, though.


One question I did have that I'd like to toss in here, though. Imagine the party is fighting a group of mobs. The last of them goes down and before the PC's have a chance to heal up, another mob appears. How is the difficulty of that last one calculated, as a separate encounter or as part of the first one? Technically it wasn't around during the first encounter, but the party did use up a chunk of their spell/ability array and lost some hp. Is this last mob therefore harder than it would otherwise be? How do I rate it?

Depends on the timing. If they have to roll initiative a second time, it's a different encounter. And it's not harder than it otherwise would be; not every encounter should happen with the players at full capacity.

[Maelynn]

If the fight is a breeze, more or less max HP isn't likely to do anything beyond dragging it out a few rounds. Better to let it end quickly, let the players feel powerful and move to a new challenge. This idea does have a lot of potential for determining running thresholds, though.

Oh, well it's mostly meant to serve as some sort of training wheels for myself. As long as I don't yet have a handle on how to create a well-balanced encounter, I thought this would give me some leeway.

[Malifice]

Essentially, if I were to create a custom NPC to serve as a 'boss' encounter, for example, a character with Sorceror or Warlock skills, other than giving them the appropriate spells, what stats should I shoot for?

Use the Mage or Warlock NPCs. Theyre already statted up for you.

Give the Mage the ability to Quicken or Empower a spell 2/ short rest. Done.

PC classes are really for PCs only.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Oh, well it's mostly meant to serve as some sort of training wheels for myself. As long as I don't yet have a handle on how to create a well-balanced encounter, I thought this would give me some leeway.

Yeah - I'd err on the side of using an encounter that you think might be on the harder side, then giving the creature average HP and taking a figure (60%?) at which it'll run. Adjust that depending on how difficult the encounter actually is. If you're worried about crushing the party, have it run early; if the party is balanced just right against it, have it stay longer.

[Psikerlord]

Implement some kind of party retreat rule with a cost. Be free of the shackles of balanced encounters.