The elephant in the room with encounter balance (other than the moon druid, literally and figuratively) was that its actually far more difficult to balance things on a spreadsheet than anyone admits. Ive had tables of 3 competant (not even power, just know their abilities and dont waste turns doing dumb shit) players walk over an encounter that 5 'beer and pretzel' players would flee from. Never mind how the same players playing 4 weak subclasses wont be able to handle what the exact same people could being stronger ones. Any discussion about balance that omits this, is, imo missing the forest for the trees and the dmg should teach dms this.
I agree. In 2014 I had a player who was playing a Gloomstalker/Fighter hybrid. And the amount of damage he could do in one round was insane. That made it really hard to have a boss or dragon fight the party without increasing their HP by a lot. I think 2024 has done better to fix that. I actually witnessed player ability recently in that I have another player who played the same class/subclass I did in a previous game. I was a goliath v him being a dwarf, but where he comes from Pathfinder, and I play a lot of 5e, It felt over powered when I played the PC, but didn't feel that way when the other person did. There wasn't even beer involved lol.
I've seen a lot of never DMs kicking up such a fuss over this exact thing without understanding the implications. The limiting of attacks, the ability to only apply smite or strike type abilities once per turn, druid no longer getting 50 HP every time they spend a bonus action, had to happen. Cuz like u said, spread on how powerful a character could be in 5e is so wide
Also team configurations are everything. A grappler, a cleric, a wizard, and a pushing eldritch blast daolock with thorns can lead to the classic cheese grating (and spirit guardians) combos that will significantly outperform 4 well built characters that haven't co-ordinated to the same level their builds and strats. This also plays into weaknesses. This will be geared around 2014 rules (fighters have an improved indomitable that would help them but only once they unlock the feature for ex). Mind Flayer Mind Blasts target int and stun PCs for 1 minute (although they can repeat the saving throw at the end of their turn) with it having a 1/3rd chance of being recharged. Let's say you have a druid, paladin, wizard, and artificer team. There's a solid chance they will have a good number of PCs pass the saving throw. Put this up against a bard, ranger, fighter, and sorcerer and this is likely going to be a dramatically more dangerous match. There's also an awareness of what monsters do that impacts the ease. If you know a troll is weak to fire and poison and have access to fire and poison, the fight will be significantly easier than if you don't know that (or if you know it but your PC wouldn't know it). In a campaign I'm in we are in a part of the campaign which is very hex crawl influenced (The Bowl, a magically irradiated land with strange and bizarre predators) and there's a world of difference when we are fighting them the first time versus fighting the same enemies a second time and are aware of some, most, or all of their features.
@SheBeast-OG I don't think the dice is that random. I think people don't generally understand statistics and they makes it appear that the dice is behaving erratically. So for example, the average person would think that if you have a 50% chance of hitting and and you roll twice you should hit the DC, but you actually only have a 75% chance of hitting because each hit has a 50% chance. Also people tend to have shorter encounters. Encounters with three rounds is going to appear more random than an encounter with 6+ rounds. The other deal is most people think the more dice you roll the higher your result should be. And while technically true, it's important to remember that the more dice you roll the more you will end up at the average result.
For the current party I've been dming for, I've made every boss so far a CR9 monster (removed their resistances) & they're still only lvl4 & not a single one has died yet. But the one I ran before was perfectly fit for cr5 monsters at lvl5, so it is really party dependant
PF2e expects that you are going to heal up to full between encounters...which might be why there is no "recommended" amount of encounters per day, because (minus a few spells) you are supposed to go into every combat fresh and ready.
The thing about 'average' amounts of fights per day is long it takes your table to actually get through combat I cannot remotely fathom more than two fights per day because the overwhelming majority of groups I've played through would never get through a single fight less than an hour, to say nothing of anything more complex than being over level 5. Add two, much less three fights in, and that's the entire session of three hours of pure combat and nothing else.
Obviously you can spread out the adventuring day over several sessions but I think a lot of tables (such as my own) would get heavily fatigued by 6-8 encounters per long rest especially because those days would balloon from everything else we did. Making the encounters harder shortens the number of encounters side steps the "how do you cram 6-8 encounters in" but these combats have to be even more recourse intensive and often lead to players deliberating more on their turns because everything is more lethal. But then people can get fatigued by the 30-1 hour long battles.
You can spread those encounters for multiple sessions AND encounters doesn't just combat they are any scenario that might cause players to spend resources
@@samusamu5342 You certainly can but I do understand the problem with that. Hitting the 6-8 medium to hard encounters (cut it down lower if you are doing even more dangerous encounters) and ideally 2 short rests + lighter exploration, dialogue, bants, and rp without heavy costs can dramatically inflate an adventuring day into 3+ sessions. As per the latter, it's true that it mentions that traps, dialogue, and exploration can replace encounters, these are areas it provides far less support in and these encounters don't really reliably extract the same amount of resources as combat typically does.
@@samusamu5342 For the former, it's a pacing issue. The 6-8 encounter design works best for dungeon crawls and things set up to be structurally similar to it. Part of the reason people favor stuff like gritty realism is they find it easier to narratively justify fitting all the encounters in more spread out. For the latter, it's just that there isn't nearly as much support to making traps, travel, or social scenes reliably use a medium or harder level of combat encounter resources.
I think with regards to pf2e not having rules for encounter/day it is due to the focus points. every class pretty much has a set of per encounter abilities, and you take 10 minutes to refocus between each fight to recharge them. You still have the per day resources (like spell slots) but you should never go into an encounter without at least some of your power even if you run out of spells. Of course some parties might decide to go swing open another door before healing up and refocusing but that is on them.. in which case they learn the hard way that escape is an option or die trying. lol
Ok tell me what we think of this. The ideal encounter number for a given day is 5 BUT 2 of those should be skippable if players make certain choices or use certain skills ideally that uses a resource such as spell slots or wildshape. I figure this way players have an incentive to not be murderhobos (IE diplomatic strategies will use fewer resources than full combat. It also allows players to be creative and uses those resources outside combat.
i was giving some basic advice for how to run combat to someone who just ran their first one shot, most of my advice was about how to make the dms turn take less time so the players can have more spotlight. I recomended the basic 3 monster encounter where you have your boss, your archers, and your minions. If i cast fireball and every monster needs to roll, thats 3 rolls. every archer rolls the same die, and every minion rolls the same die. If a monster doesnt have a cool name, it doesnt get to roll alone. I think 2 stat sheets are best for small encounters, but the encounters where you care about battle formation really only needs 3 stat blocks to feel really cool and indepth.
So glad to hear that it's not just me having to build "deadly" or "absurd" encounters to even have a chance at challenging my players. I've been pushing the envelope over the last few months because I felt my encounters weren't hard enough. I want my players to have that "oh crap" moment where they feel like they might not make it, but then pull through.
In the two instances that I've gone over 10 rounds of combat has been because at least one PC has walked into another room/location and triggered another encounter that ended up extending the original encounter. In one case all three encounters got triggered and the encounter lasted all night.
had this happen a few times. the worst was one i was playing in where the warlock ended up setting off like 4 other encounters while my wizard and the cleric were under a charm effect and could not move until someone freed us (IE we were already in an encounter). How we survived with only one person dying and needing to be revived I do not know. On the bright side we cleaned out that temple of enemies in almost one go lol
@ultrakitten674 yeah I had one group do it twice and I'm just like why are we opening doors in the middle of an encounter lol. One player even sneaked inside by themselves.
While I find the math of the 2014 rules cumbersome, I truly believe the system wasn't as broken as everyone makes it out to be. I ran a several year long campaign at every level from 2-16 specifically to practice encounter building. There were small issues here and there, and it definitely wasn't good at QUICK building encounters... but any time I spent the time using the rules in the 2014 DMG, the encounter balanced almost perfectly. It's not new DM friendly, but I really enjoyed using it.
I really like the guideline about being careful of using monsters with a higher level CR than the party. Don’t start flinging ‘Power word kill’ until someone in the party has counterspell! I like how they have added severity guidelines to the traps and hazards sections, and mention that different effects can alter the severity of an encounter. I would still like to be able to account for environmental / lair effects into the XP budget though. A hobgobin encounter in a forest vs hobgoblin encounter in a swamp with poisonous gas are very different encounters. I’ve found I tend to underestimate how much environmental hazards can shift the difficulty dial on encounters, simply because they aren’t included in the XP budget. Finally - Do we know the assumptions behind 2024 XP budget in terms of characters having magic items? I think the 2014 DMG encounter maths was based on player character builds without any magic items (or feats). That always seemed crazy to me as even the D&D starter adventures drop magic items like candy, and about a 1/3 of the DMG is devoted to magic items. It surprises me how much even +1 armour and weapons throw CR:party level ratios out the window when the whole party has those buffs.
I've only seen the free version of the new encounter building rules, so I hope in the 2024 DMG they give more information on level 1-2 encounters for new DMs because they look pretty deadly using 2014 xp values.
X number of encounters a day is always a bit iffy because some players horde their resources, meanwhile my party's cleric has used 75% of his spell slots before we've entered the dungeon...
The new MM will tell us so much more about how encounters are going to work. I hope they hit a lot harder in melee, as that’s the combat shift for players. The glass cannon idea works well, simply for the fear effect of making players believe combat can be deadly. A trait missing from end of an edition dnd. Mostly from 3e and later. I kind of miss the D4 hit dice of wizards, and how deadly combat used to be. 3rd edition and newer dnd created the martial caster divide, make no mistake. If you’re old enough to have played the 1st and 2nd edition, you know. We have lists of dead adventurers that included lots of wizards, lol.
I haven't had a chance to play with the new encounter rules yet, but they seem to be so much more straight forward than the 2014 rules. I've found the 2014 rules difficult to understand so I've just been using the encounter builder on DDB and my characters, who are on the cusp of 7th level, would walk through most of them without a scratch or self inflicted wounds. The only time I've really felt bad about an encounter was the party had just fought a gorgon and two of them decided to go exploring down a well that was an entrance to a Choldrith/Chitine lair. The rest of the party followed when they didn't return and the whole thing could have ended as a tpk. The only time I told them I figured out a way to get them out of a situation they got themselves into.
If what you're saying is true I'm going to like the new DMG. It is important to remember there are always 2 ecosystems the DM needs to consider for each encounter. 1) the ecosystem in the game encounter, and 2) the ecosystem of the gamers table.
I balance encounters by rounds. If my group deals avarage 20 dmg per round, I use the lazy dungeon master formula and check if those monsters would last 2 to 3 rounds. And the boss I like to give enough life for him to last 6 rounds, sometimes I give them a little more health for them to die in an epic moment
my table is a full table of dms, im one of the lucky ones, and we like to waste resources doing dumb stuff all the time. Because of these type of shenanigans, i tend to like 2 potential combat encounters per short rest and fill in the gaps with long rests. Players tend to have a good sense of how to set up a long rest, even going to the extremes of spending time setting up a camp with traps and trenches all around to make sure that our members who need a long rest can have it and our short resters are full hp to take their watches. When designing these decisions of how many encounters, player psychology is really important to consider.
We really can’t judge until we’ve seen the monster manual. I still can’t fathom why they decided to realest the three books so far apart, the Monster Manual should have been released alongside the DMG, (all three should have been released together) and this is how they’ve always done it is not a good enough answer.
This was the norm for all editions prior to 4th Edition. Even 2014 5th Edition was a staggered publication release. AD&D first edition had 1 year between each book.
my guesses. Probably most important reason # 1: Production and Logistics: Manages production and distribution more effectively. It's a lot of books. That costs a lot per batch. Also, spreading them out helps lessen the sticker shock for some players. Sustained Marketing Momentum: Maintains excitement and buzz over time. Revenue Distribution: Spreads revenue across multiple quarters for better cash flow. Focused Attention: Allows for in-depth discussions and reviews of each book. Alignment with Retail Calendars: Coincides with key retail periods for optimal sales. Testing and Refinement: Enables feedback collection for adjustments in subsequent books. Encouraging Gradual Adoption: Helps players transition smoothly to new rules. Creating Anticipation: Builds excitement and drives pre-orders for future releases.
So they got rid of the multiplier and now anticipate fewer combats per long rest. The more I see about this release the more I feel that it is just an in print errata. And a spell trashing
Dnd Beyond actually already has the new encounter rules built into its system. Its just in the maps section, which is a bit of bummer for anyone not using their maps.
Running DiA with some updated monsters (enhanced devils and demons). Party is level 5, destroys the book suggested encounters in under 3 rounds. Took out a CR 13 creature in 4 rounds. I am "playtesting" the 2024 PHB rules for the PCs and they are punching so far above their level its silly. Even doubling hp doesnt do a whole lot to make things challenging. So far the only real challenge is the amount of damage that NPCs hit for, the 12-14 ac and 50hp doesnt cut it. I really hope the DMG/MM addresses this, or my enthusiasm in running will drop to 0.
This system is easier to use... but the problem is that the xp values were designed for the old method. As a result, the net effect is that single monsters aren't much changed (and, well, single monsters weren't very challenging or interesting in 2014), while groups of monsters are likely to be significantly higher difficulty.
I want to start DMing but I have no idea how to structure encounters so I am going to roll up a number of characters and put them through encounters on a graph paper map, not using it like a chessboard though. I figure I can get used to Dungeons and Dragons again while at the same time fine tune encounters with these new subclasses and abilities. FYI, last edition that I played was Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.
TL;DR I am not saying that you can't sim play and prep and I am not saying that its even a bad strategy for everyone, but you (and anyone with a similar concern about being underprepared) don't need to feel a huge pressure before you start playing and having a good time. (check out one shot quester's evil king and his minions session play through from a few weeks ago, they forgot how rage and reckless attack worked and they still had a good time) I totally understand this feeling. I am just going to point out that unless you really enjoy the solo-sim, this can lead to some burn out and slog. 5e has so much less clutter in it than older editions, so that the "fine-tuning" isn't anywhere near as troublesome. I don't have all of the books and resources, so I homebrew a lot of things to customize my encounters and I also worry that things will be too imbalanced, so what I recommend to you and anyone else who is worried about getting the encounter "properly" set up is to test 'easy' encounters on your players and start playing the game. Get feedback from the players as you figure out what they expect and what their blindspots are. An encounter that the players will surely win to demonstrate a new type of threat is a great story hook moment and lets them "taste" what is too come, then start ramping up the difficulty with the next encounter (I also recommend using milestone leveling so that your experiments don't turn into an xp farm for the players). While you are getting the hang of things during the testing phase take advantage of lower levels to have a "mentor" npc that can come in and save their bacon if you acidently make things to difficult, have the evil king/crime lord/orc chieften capture the players and throw them in prison, attempt to sell them into slavery, strap magic collars on them and threaten them to do something bad or suffer the consequences, have the trolls shove them in a cave and argue about how they are going to cook the hobbits... I mean players etc. The DM lair channel actually has a series of videos about tips for encounter building if you want more advice for planning stage and on the fly adjustments because the reality is we are all learning and their is no requirement for 'perfect' or 'proper' encounters its about having fun. Now I don't know about your personal situation as this is the internet, but I wanted to comment because I know people who have fallen into the trap "perfectionism" when it comes to prepping the game and then seeing everything fall apart. I've had my own tables fall apart because I wan't able to keep up with life and all of the prep work that I was "supposed to do," so with my most recent table (the first one I started dm'ing 5e) I knew I didn't have time for everything and let everyone know that things would fall the way they do and that I wouldn't always be at the "top of my game" and just went with it. I started testing the players like I mentioned, stopped worrying about giving cool names to everything and just did a "prototype" campaign so to speak and we have been meeting an average of 3 times per month for the last 2 years and are still rolling.
I will definitely check out the DM Lair channel, thanks for the recommendation. I don't know if I even want to play Dungeons and Dragons specifically, it's just what I used to play the most. I also have everything you need for Heroes Unlimited, and everything for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness, and everything for Palladium Fantasy.
@@nBasedAce That's great! I'd love to play some other systems, I just have a hard time finding a group willing to try them out and stick with it. Also watching Kelly and Monty playing their Drakenheim campaign (they have a playlist on their channel) is a pretty good model for casual play and encounters XP to level 3 also has some good campaigns that you can watch so you can see other people put things into practice. Critical Role and Dimension 20 have some really good campaigns but they are literally professionals and it can set some unrealistic expectations, but seeing how games actually play out helped me visualize the 'types' of things to do at a table. Good luck! Have fun!
The lack of Long rests can cause Exhaustion points, as well as Lack of food or Dehydration. Hardcore. The player should expect 2 to 5 potential combats per day, unless they are involved in a dungeon crawl. Me, i like exploration and social interactions as well as combat specific Campaigns. Remember: Your Characters are not gods yet. We all need to eat, drink, breathe and take care of our bodies, including you Characters. A hot meal of veggies and dried fish cooked in a saucepan with a fire can help a party plan what strategies they need, come next morning.
I was running a mini boss and was playing around with some numbers to see how challenging but fun I could make it, after the 12th round I literally just did a series of group checks to determine the outcome lol wayyy too long
Do you think that the decision to balance challenge rating for a party without magic items may have played a role in the encounter difficulty being off? How many parties don't have magic items?
After your first couple of encounters, you should be familiar with what your players can handle. You can't calculate how crafty and inventive people can be.. it's one of the beauties of ttrpgs. Throw out cr altogether and create those epic, meaningful battles, math be damned 😊
TLDR edit: Don't worry about encounter balance, but whether encounters have interesting decisions and consequences for the players. This has surprisingly little to do with the difficulty rating of the enemies. Balance is a giant red herring for DM's imo, and the best advice I've heard from experienced DM's (such as Jason Alexander from the Alexandrian Blog) is to simply chose threats thematically appropriate for the scenario, make sure the party has getaway options if things get too tough, and make sure the players have to engage with the scenario and employ new tactics even if the enemies are on the weaker end. Don't worry about every individual encounter being this big epic thing, but rather the sum total experience of the session. With this school of thought it's often *advisable* for DMs to intentionally select encounters that are lower or higher than the players' expected capabilities. The two scenarios you want to avoid (where the need for "balance" is usually invoked) are: 1) A situation where the enemies are such push-overs that the players can clear every fight using the exact same tactics every time and experiencing no consequences for it. 2) A situation where the enemies are so over-bearing that with little warning or chance of surviving the players are killed. What's often overlooked though, is that in each of these scenarios the thing that is "unfun" isn't the difficulty (or lack thereof) of the enemies per se, but the lack of interesting choices and/or consequences on the players end. In general, people will enjoy an encounter that forces/rewards them for thinking of a new approach even if the enemies didn't put them in too much danger. One way to do this is to introduce additional objectives/consequences other than player death (if a prisoner is in the middle of a group of enemies, AOE spam suddenly doesn't work to well, and even if the players aren't under much threat from the enemies, that prisoner might be). Maybe the enemies are so weak that the challenge is *not* killing them so that you can extract useful information or take them into custody. On the difficult end of the spectrum, be sure to telegraph danger and make it clear to players "there is a real chance you may die during this encounter if you approach it head on". Additionally, always try to work an out into encounters so that the encounter becomes less about taking an impossible creature's hit points to zero and more about finding a way to avoid it's special powers/attacks. Once you instill some confidence and creativity into your players, you probably won't even have to think to hard about this, they'll just create the opportunities themselves. Instead of just min/maxing DPS, there are now incentives for players to spec into a "getaway plan". On the other hand, maybe the players will accept the fight and win. Now they feel real cool for defeating a super high level enemy at a low level. Making sure there are multiple paths through a dungeon will also help give players the agency to decide whether a tough encounter is worth the risk. Err on the side of being generous with information so that players can make informed decisions. This is good advice, because "balance" as it is usually presented is very difficult if not impossible to achieve. Every party (even at the same level) is going to have vastly different capabilities depending on feats, magic items, how much players optimized their builds, etc. so a one size fits all solution isn't going to work. Figuring it out on a party-to-party basis will not only be time consuming, tedious, and skill intensive, but all that work will become obsolete as soon as the party progresses a certain amount. Putting too much stock in balance can even make your games more boring, by making every encounter an entry on a painstakingly optimized spreadsheet to use the *exact same* amount of resources/effort *every time* rather than a unique and interesting scenario for the players. After all, eventually players will catch on to how you are "balancing" things and now you are back to the game basically just being solved.
Yeah! I know an experienced DM when I read one! Or at least someone who's taken the right advice. I said some similar things in regard to balance and CR. I've seen so many things since 1977 when I started playing. Stick to the core mechanics and you'll never go wrong. Every group is different, but worrying about "balance" is not what DMs should be focused on.
@@MarkLewis... Thanks for the kind words. Actually a fairly new DM (compared to starting in '77, at least). I started playing D&D on virtual tabletops at the beginning of the pandemic lockdown, and started DM'ing a few months into that. Was fortunate enough to find this advice quickly and my games have benefitted greatly from it.
@@adamgalloy9371 That's awesome.... it takes players and DMs (usually) many years to learn such things, and sadly, many more never do! Have fun in your games.
4:30: WRONG. The 2014 DMG did specified what those 6-8 encounters should be. they should be 6 to 8 medium- hard encounters. Medium. A medium encounter usually has one or two scary moments for the players, but the characters should emerge victorious with no casualties. One or more of them might need to use healing resources. Hard. A hard encounter could go badly for the adventurers. Weaker characters might get taken out of the fight, and there’s a slim chance that one or more characters might die. Those are the guideline given. Now sure a hard encounter could be a trap that will require a dispel magic to avoid, with a fairly high DC and if it trigger the character who fails his saving throw might died, be captured, receive a debilitating condition (petrify) that willrequire more party resource to cure. It could also be a difficult conversation that will require a subtle charm person or subtle suggestion in order to succeed and if you fail might start a difficult fight, or prevent character from using a shortcut forcing them to go the long way around using more ressources. Or it cold be simply a hard fight. But yes the 2014 DMG did define what those 6-8 encounters could be.
How can the new DMG fix encounter balance when we don’t have the new monster manual yet? edit: caveat mentioned at the start, that’s what i get for commenting first lol
Great job. Now I've got Marty Martin, Beetlejuice, and Candy Man hanging out in my house, eating all the food in the refrigerator and generally being insufferable.
CR isn't broken, it's just a guideline to suggested monsters for DMs to use, by their respective power against the PCs level. The beauty of D&D vs (say) Pathfinder is PF is balanced, thus boring, crunchy, and highly repetitive in feel, but especially in tactical play, while D&D is intentionally off-balanced, for more exciting combat potential. Saying it's "Broken" makes it sound way off, and it's just not. Is it a perfect guide? - No, but that's because all DMs don't run the monsters exactly the same and has that flexibility built right into it. Many DMs don't run the monster to their full potential, "Goblins" are a prime example. How many DMs out there use the "Hide" or "Disengage" aspects of "Nimble Escape", especially with a +6 to stealth?! Very few I bet. Was "Strahd" and "Ravenloft Castle" in CoS underwhelming as a BBEG? - That's because you ran Strahd not to his full potential, nor did you use Ravenloft Castle and Strahd's minions to their full potential. Here's why I can prove it... (and I'm not patting myself on the back, the players deserve most of the credit) in the 2 parties I ran CoS for, both said Death House and the final encounter with Strahd was "amazing" and "awesome", (their words not mine. How many people out there HATED Death House, or felt let down by CoS Strahd finale'? Again, many if not most-all. TL;DR: I respectfully disagree, which is rare for me with the Dungeon Dudes.
Guys i love your content but really???? We made this video without the monster manual??? You made this video with so many assumptions youre going to have to just remake the entire thing with potentially ENTIRELY different takes. Ngl kinda clickbaity and i dont use that lightly
Until i see the MM, i will withhold judgment on this new system. I've been around long enough that i "cook with my hands" instead of using a recipe, but i get that newer dms need a system. I still don't think this is it. Theres too many variables to consider. Party make up, magic items, subclass strength, etc. Theres no one way to do this that works for every group. I suppose the new system is a good stepping off point, but dont expect it to be a perfect system.
On the other hand it is pretty much impossible to make "a one size fits all system" when it comes to not just encounters but pretty much all else that requires some part of preparation and decision making And the 2024 definitely seems tomakes it easier to understand how you CAN arrange (and as outdated as an XP may seem it IS a rather easy to understand the difficulty of the encounters your create"
