Encounter Balance, Explained 

Dryads jumping you with shillelagh sounds like the most hood thing of all time lmao

There's also something to be said for encounters that are far BELOW your parties challenge level. Occasionally allowing players to stomp all over a monster that would have sent them running a few levels ago makes your party feel like their new powers matter.

It's not strictly true that early editions of DnD ignored encounter balance. There was an explicit intertwining between dungeon levels and expected / randomly generated monsters in order to facilitate encounters between parties and opposition that was appropriate for their level. Generally fair fights was something Gygax did stress.

If a pinch, you can use the old Shadow of Mordor/War trick : the enemy that felled you is now a general instead of a minion, and you got captured instead of killed. Create story, not math problems

I now need to run a oneshot set in an air conditioned football stadium. Thanks Baron

One of the most dangerous things for a D&D game is when the DM drastically changes the way they run things because they heard that they're not being deadly enough or they're not using up enough of the party's resources per fight. It's actually pretty easy for a single fight to go from pushover to TPK with one roll, whether it's a saving throw or an attack. One of the things that really helps out the Dungeon Master is "fake threat." You can have a really really strong, ludicrously powerful enemy like a beholder, lich, marilith, dragon, or golem running at full sprint towards a party that's woefully unprepared, and surprise everyone when the failstate turns out to be them stealing something from the party that they had no idea was important, and leaving the party alive because "you're not even worth xp."

always good to hear people recognise the first fight of lost mines as an easy TPK. such a good example for a starter set; if a DM learns the game and then realises that was really hard then they can see how much they've learnt

The part about foreshadowing reminded me of the story of 'The 16 HP Dragon' from Dungeon World. Definitely worth a read!

Of course, it's also important to establish the way to escape in a way that's clear to the players. If the players find themselves in a situation they don't see a way that they can win, but they don't know any way to run away, it can be very frustrating for them. Some of my favorite combat encounters have been ones where I was up against terrible odds and barely managed to escape. However, I was able to do that only because I was able to recognize the escape route as an escape route and the DM had given me magic items that enabled it to be used. Whether or not my escapes were how the DM expected me to do so (if it got to that point) doesn't matter, as the DM provided obstacles that could be avoided and escape routes.

This has to be the most comprehensive explanation of the concept of “Combat balance doesn’t exist” I’ve seen outside of the blogosphere. Great video dude 👑

I think many DMs don't necessarily ask the balance question because they want every encounter to be challenging but fair. For me balancing encounters means to make an encounter have the difficulty I envisioned it to have. Specifically I'd be annoyed if the stray goblins I planted as an easy warmup completely devestate the party. Or contrary, the dragon that should be extremely dangerous is a total pushover. And it's hitting that sweet spot that you want from that encounter that can be extremely difficult. Especially if the hints you're sending out about a creature's power aren't reasonably accurate (since this can make your players start to ignore your future hints and is just a massive feel bad).

This is great advice, but I think it's worth reinforcing that you have to set your players' expectations. D&D is often about a heroic power fantasy and a lot of people come in expecting to be Aragorn. Make sure you let your players know that in your game, monsters will be smart, encounters aren't going to be totally tuned to them, and most importantly, that running away is always a viable option.

Another thing that I think has helped the "every combat must be winnable" mindset along is the problem with retreat in D&D. When your speed is X and your enemy's is X+10, escape isn't possible in the turn-by-turn tactical combat. If you want to run away, you're in homebrew territory. Maybe someone tries to distract the monster while everyone else books it out of there. Then there's evading pursuit and what that looks like, and re-joining combat if all that fails. --it's pretty easy for me to see why most players don't ever consider it. It's just not really supported by the rules in an obvious, intuitive way.

"Balanced" encounters also enforce the idea that the game world is adjusted to the PC's abilities and takes away from verisimilitude. When a party expects to meet challenges tailored to their own abilities and dynamic it tends to cause problems and whining about fairness when the battle goes south. It is a lot more engaging to present challenges and create encounters by thinking "what monster could live there" rather than "what CR monster do I want my players to fight this session". Of course, those encounters should be made with the mindset that they could be overcome by more than brawn and retreat is often, if not always, an option. Also, it is not always needed to actively foreshadow the strength of a monster if it has been made clear to the party that unpreparedness is always a recipe for disaster. To use a 5e example, a single 5CR wraith would probably be a nightmare to a level 2 party of four if it attacked them in the middle of the dungeon in a dark, closed room. If the party heard legends of a wraith and actually researched the creature and the dungeon they are visiting before entering it, they could equip themselves with silvered weaponry and try to either lure the wraith in a sunlit area or even better cave in the ceiling of the dungeon with mold earth or similar spells and items, creating a pocket of sunlight that weakens the wraith immensely, making the fight a cakewalk. Communicating with your players the lethality/grittyness of the world and your style of DMing is important in these cases, as many players, especially newer ones, tend to take the core rulebooks as gospel and often expect fights to be "programmed" per the recommended settings in the DMG. Personally, I've found that this style of encounter building is a lot more fun, makes the game world feel more real and enhances suspension-of-disbelief.

100% Some of the best encounters I've had have been when the players have gotten in over their head. You'd be surprised what your players can do if their backs are against the wall.

Good afternoon Dungeon Masterpiece! -- Not to mention, almost every MMORPG for PC since EverQuest has included separate "Zones" that were Level range targeted, so you just fought in regions where your character was fairly capable of handling the monsters. EQ was really cool, it had a "Consideration" system where you could press the letter "C" and "Consider" your opponent before targeting it, and the Chat box would tell you in colored text the difficulty level of the Monster -- Green, Blue, Yellow, Orange or Red. Often any mob Orange or Red required a group or where just outright deadly to anything 4-5 levels lower than the monster.

Well, this makes me happy to have started playing RPGs in the early 80s. I never had my expectations, realism and logic compromised by a game industry aimed at making the players feel good about themselves. I remember my first character got into a fight with a goblin (yes, ONE) and died. I never understood how people could consider goblins a minor nuisance. When I GM players respect any enemy or they face the consequences. Because even low skill values can be dangerous when a "monster" starts thinking, as it should.

all true, just maybe some details: your rock and bushes the enemies can use as cover, the player can also use them for cover. and one more thing that many people forget is the CR system and the encounter builder as presented in the DM assumes: - no magical item - no optional rule (no multiclassing, no feat, no variant human, no grids) - PhB first printing pre errata only (maybe even the fee PhB version with only 4 race and 4 class with 1 subclass each options) - average optimized build (high elf wizard, with high Intellect) - No Tasha optional feature, no Tasha reorganized stat (high elf give +2 dex and +1 int and no even if your high elf got raised by orc he won't get a +2 strength) - No additional race, classe, spell - No Homebrew

Good episode, thanks. I would also include ‘time’ as an element of encounter difficulty… if the party only has a few rounds to defeat an encounter (for plot reasons) then even a relatively easy foe can become extremely challenging.

Another rule for balanced encounters is to allow players complete information - no surprises - and let the players choose when they're ready to attack the monsters. For example, give them a labeled map, or gossip at the local tavern, about the adult red dragon lair in the Windy Mountains. The players will go into the encounter with eyes wide open. If they're underpowered they'll likely die, overpowered they'll not gain as many XPs or level up.

I think this discounts the possibility that GMs want a “balanced” fight for narrative purposes, that tough but doable encounter that punctuates a hard won battle.

Who wants balanced encounters? “For fools rush in where angels fear to tread”

Here's something else to consider: Sometimes running from an overpowered opponent IS the combat encounter. When I think of video games, one of my favorite franchises has been Resident Evil. Resident Evil has had some gnarly challenges throughout it's history, whether it's Mr. X, the T-002 Tyrant chasing you through the RPD as you explore it for the first time; whether it's NEMESIS chasing you through Raccoon City in the original RE3 game, or even the challenge of dealing with Lisa Trevor in the remake of RE1, and at the same time having to deal with enemies like reanimated Crimson Heads and Hunters. The point is, sometimes you have to deal with an enemy you don't have the skills or weapons to handle. An experienced player can take down Mr. X or NEMESIS if they know how these two bosses will act. But inexperienced players will often run, because that's the fear factor of facing those experiments. In point of fact, in the original Resident Evil 3, whenever the player had a choice to consider between combat and non-combat, such as the very first encounter with NEMESIS, the coloring on the screen would invert for something like a minute. If, by that time, you failed to make a choice, you automatically would be forced to fight NEMESIS. And if it was your first time playing the game, you had three weapons to choose from: An M4A1 Assault Rifle, your Beretta M92FS handgun, or a Benelli M3 Police Shotgun. Most players would have run out of ammo with the AR by that point, which left the shotgun and pistol as usable weapons. Could they take down NEMESIS? Yes -- but only after a long combat, and if they did, they were usually out of healing items at that point as well. In Resident Evil 4, I distinctly remember a non-combat challenge where you have to outrun a boulder, Indiana Jones-style. This was a way to give a challenge to the kind of game RE fans were expecting. It also wasn't the last time a "run challenge" was used in the game. The point is, in D&D, you can make encounters that aren't necessarily combat-based that still give EXP. And, you can make them have the suspense and surprise of a combat encounter, all the while foreshadowing a possible encounter further down the line -- especially if you have a character that says, "I want to go back and face that thing we ran from before. We were weak before, but we're a lot stronger now, and we work way better as a team." That is the kind of player I would love to DM, because it not only shows that they care about the game, but that they are immersed in the game. And that is what should be a DM's ultimate goal.

TL;DR for DMs in a hurry: just make sure your players always have a way to run away, and always get a chance to run away. Once they have that, you can throw whatever you want at them, if you made it too difficult there's always the 'pressure relief valve' of running away. And if you make it too easy, you can always make future encounters more difficult. Do that for a while and you'll eventually find the balance that works for your players, whether that be outrageously difficult encounters where the party frequently has to run away, or moderately difficult encounters where they always win but it feels like a close-run thing. (Also, as Barron points out at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Udjpu52o8g0.html&lc=Ugz-TJm4gppjbjtftwp4AaABAg.9bebMEMHlE09bejmNz1Tgb, if you need to rebalance an encounter mid-combat, just fudge hitpoints, it's way less visible than fudging rolls. To make things easier, don't actually track hitpoints, just track damage to avoid tying yourself down to a specific 'boss defeated' damage total. Plus, cumulative addition is easier than cumulative subtraction, for what it's worth.)

You made me remember an issue I had when I first started playing D&D: Considering the potential for geographical alteration shown by even low to mid-tier spells - which can be learned, at the slowest rate, in less than 10-20 years of study -, I’m genuinely shocked that the worlds created in coordination with D&D don’t instantly devolve into constant chaos. Why is everything not horrible due to every other mage deciding to blast a pass through the mountains, make it rain on desert regions, flood neighboring towns by diverting a river, or even bury them under a freak landslide? It just doesn’t make sense to me to have magic THAT powerful, THAT accessible, and the world not be a hot mess for the 10 years it would take to eradicate life on the planet due to people screwing up the natural system…

I would add that when "demonstrating power" to the characters, use damage numbers so that the _players_ know the danger as well. If the players know that a hill giant deals 36 damage to a creature by hitting it twice with its greatclub, the _characters_ will understand this as being an extremely powerful display of strength.

I've always placed verisimilitude above balance. If the players walk into a goblin den, there might be sixty goblins or more in there. If they're *loud* about it, they're going to end up needing to flee (or fight, though I wouldn't recommend it) from those 60 goblins. The ancient red dragon's lair is always there on Mt. Bad Dragon, and the players can go there at any time... But the dragon isn't going to suddenly become a wyrmling just because they went there at level 2.

I've been DMing versions of D&D and Pathfinder for over 40 years, and this fine gentleman NAILED this topic. The summary is pure GMing gold. Staple this video to your encounter prepwork and you will go a long way to making your game more fun and interesting for your players.

Another great video! I play some modern and future settings, i would love to see some ideas of how to apply dnd ideas to those settings. Like, many traps are awfully out of place in an office building, for example. Ive never seen a spike trap outside of accounting...

I enjoy your channel. A very common situation with new players is them trying to tussle with town guards which can be a good learning experience.

I'm glad the "make sure you give them an escape" idea came up. The main problem with comparing something like FNV or Baldur's Gate to a trpg is that games have the advantage of saving. They can explore, get punished for charging in, and load up their save file now knowing what's in store. But trpg players don't have that benefit, unless everyone is willing to walk things back constantly. They need some way to gain information without permanently killing their characters, or else they'll be too afraid to leave the starting town.

I find one of the easiest ways to balance is to plan your encounter as a series of events, rather than bringing every element in up front. Have some additional challenges you can throw at the players, if they are pushing things over. Have some aid ready if they are getting swamped, if you can tie the aid to previous player choices this can feel really good. You don't want to use this approach every time but if you are aiming for hard but doable for an encounter, this can be a great way of doing things.

I have a very similar viewpoint to this, having cut my teeth on 3E D&D to present day (still running d20-based games). I mix both methods, by assuming that the XP value (and thus encounter budget/CR) of the creatures already assume that the creature is in whatever environment or terrain is natural and/or makes sense for the creature, and run the monsters to the hilt whenever possible. I rarely have any player deaths, but I also rarely have players who feel like they aren't being challenged (more often they talk about how threatening the encounters feel).

Straight to the point and simple, actionable advice, I like your style a lot. Keep up the good work!

Fun fact: the example of the spiders fighting the party on a cliff face would affect the encounter difficulty in the CR system. Other situations such as the party being surprised by the enemies, or the enemy has cover but the party does not, is supposed to increase the Encounter Multiplier table on page 82. For reference, I am referring to the "Modifying Encounter Difficulty" section later on pages 84-85. This doesn't affect how much exp the monsters are worth, but it shows in a numerical format how well the encounter can punch above its weight if it has secondary factors that benefit the hostile NPCs and not the party (or vice-versa).

Very well put. Really liked this one. I've always been of the mind that every encounter doesn't (and shouldn't) be challenging. Instead I've usually peppered in a very challenging encounter with several lower level ones. Even when the characters are 6th or higher (going by 3.5/Pathfinder 1E) I would still use a band of goblins or kobolds. Occassional pair of orcs or some other low level thing. I like doing this to raise their spirits and make them feel strong. Eventually they meet up with something significantly more powerful and then they find themselves being more cautious. And it's like you said, it's not the the enemy is overly powerful themselves it's location. I also look at what an encounter is. Technically the term itself is just that, and encounter. It doesn't even have to be confrontational. It can be as simple as just passing by something. One of my friends ran an Eberron game long ago and our party was wandering in Xen'drik. We came to a clearing where a storm giant happened to be passing by. A few members wanted to fight him but me and the rest were like- let's not!. We saw him walking in one direction, he didn't see us so we took off in another direction. That is an encounter. It was a neat learning experience for me too. It did a few things for me. It kept me on my toes, and let me know that we could in theory come across anything. Even stuf that would completely destroy our party. The main thing that happened is it made the world feel alive and lived in. Not just a series of places where monsters or other things are waiting to be taken down by adventurers. This is what I strive for. immersion. I don't use challenge ratings at all. I put in what I feel fits the local, and that thing will have a reason for being there. Even if it's as simple as they are travelling to somewhere and happened to stop for a rest or something. I aim to make the world feel real and lived in. So you may meet a small group of gnolls when travelling plains, but you could also just as easily get surprised by a burrowing bullette or several ankhegs. I remember an encounter I pitted against some players long ago. They were I believe 7th or 8th level. (it's been a while don't recall exactly), but they found themselves in the mansion of a vampire. It was their quest but they didn't realize just how powerful he was until the combat started. One was a fighter theif, another was a cleric, and I don't recall the other players (or if there were any). But the vampire was not any vampier. He was a Ravenloft ancient vampire with a magic item that boosted his damage reduction. This guy had 30 damage reduction/silver & magic) to which they didn't really have any thing that could really hurt him. It was when the cleric dropped and the vampire picked up the cleric in one hand (cleric was wearing full plate armor) and held him while swinging a great sword in the other hand at the other player to really demonstrate his strength, that they realized how truly F'd they may be. They did have some warnings, from townsfolk, and througout the vampire's mannor they went to about how old the vampire could be, but they ignored those if I recall. But the vampire was also overconfident. The cleric had a domain that allowed him to be healed when he fell to 0 or below. So to be theamatic, while the vampire held him in one hand hacking away at the other player the cleric in a dramatic way became enveloped in light and then cast a heal spell on the vampire forcing him to fall into his mist form. (I run things like this differently in mist form the vampire dropped his gear- all of it). They recovered and were able to eventually track the vampires coffin and stake him before he could fully heal up and come back after the group. The raw power of the vampire scared them, especially after they found out how strong he really was. But it was a very satisfying victory to know they had gone against something this powerful and were able to come out of it alive. And with some pretty sweet loots if I do say so myself. The armor and sword the vampier had were magical. They also got the (I believe it was a necklace) that increased the vampire's damage reduction. It worked for anything with natural damage reduction (even barbarians). It was a good time.

Personally, while this video does ring true, as a new DM when I’m asking about encounter balance it’s because I don’t have a grasp on whether the enemies I’ve picked out are a major threat to the party or not, so I can’t communicate that to them, because I don’t know.

Most of your content is pure DM gold! I started designing a sandbox campaign a few months ago and this channel as well as the How to Be a Great GM channel have been next tier. I would recommend the both of you collaborating because I think you have perfectly complementary approaches.

Another great video, Baron! Yeah, I remember during my earlier attempts at DMing I was always so worried about encounter balance, but it's one of those things that you learn to not care about too much. Both for the reasons you list in this video, but also simply for the fact that experience gives you pretty good insight on what will be balanced for a fight just by looking at the numbers, abilities, etc. Also the fact that you can always adjust combat encounters during the combat encounter, perhaps by throwing in some more enemies, or reducing the hitpoints of the monsters.

Surprise by one party or the other (or both) is also a huge factor especially in 1e and 2e.

Gothic 1 and 2 are great examples of using difficulty as a way of guiding the experience without taking player agency. Also, Ben from Questing Beast has a great video called "Combat as war, not sport" or something like that.

love that the "dryads" tendril hair lined up perfectly with your house plant.

Another great concise video. Thanks. Also great advice on giving major threats, but adequately foreshadowing them.

The quality of your videos is absolutely insane.

Balancing encounters is a newbie thing. Pros just ball park it. Makes for a vastly superior experience from start to finish.

My players encountered an Afrit at level two. This is a large fiend that is resistance to most damage that is not caused by magical weapons is in the shape of a very very large bird, like large size creature. My players do not have magical weapons yet. They figured out a way to negotiate a temporary truce with the Afrit. It won't last forever but they bought themselves time

Excellent video, but I did have one point to bring up. The games without a leveled world/encounter balance usually have a save or respawn system. Running into New Vegas deathclaws, the worst possibility is you'll die and load a previous save, with at most 15 minutes lost. The same for most other computer games with similar design. In 5e, with many monsters having a move speed higher than PCs, opportunity attacks and debilitating saves, by the time the party might even be inclined to run away, there might be little opportunity to do so without half of them ending up dead

Great explanation! This is something I've been thinking about and somewhat struggling with for a while now.

Excellent point at the end. I have to remind my players regularly of the realism of options when things get tough, that not everything can be solved or beaten. I never considered its video game programming but that makes a lot of sense.

This channel is so wonderful and helpful!!

I’m really beginning to like your channel. I’ve gotten some flack for posting it on old-school gamers on Facebook. Several were in denial… Told me I was trolling. Which I basically face palmed. Keep it up I love it

Yep, almost, had to pull back from, TPKing my party at the LMOP cave entrance. 2 goblins vs 4 Level 2 PCs. It took 10 rounds for the party to kill them.

I always tpk with goblins in lost mines. The text specifically tells you how to run them and the terrain they are encountered in is incredibly advantageous to them.

Glad to see I'm not the only one to think like that. Thanks for the tips on threat and surviving.

I like that a picture of Vraska, a gorgon in Magic The Gathering, was used whenn he was talking about Dryads

As a counterpoint to the video (which I by and large agree with), I'm personally less concerned with creating "encounter balance" and more about presenting a crafted experience that provides the expected amount of threat. If I have tools that give me accurate assessments of an enemy's combat prowess (in an average environment) I can more easily build encounters to match my desired experience goals. If I want to tweak the environment (making it easier or harder for the enemy) I at least have a consistent baseline. 5E is poor at providing the baseline, which has caused me to have to adjust on the fly more than I'd like. I'm an experienced GM; I can do it, but something that I'm looking forward to in the revised edition are better tools to build an encounter that I want that is more predictable.

the DMG does specify that encounter difficulty must be adjusted if the monsters have terrain advantage

This is very useful, thank you!

A metric like CR is still useful to give the _DM_ an idea of the threat a monster poses when populating his world, i.e. what to put in the "hard encounter" slots on their random tables. I've been using a system that doesn't have good difficulty metrics (no hit dice even), and an encounter that I thought would be tough by the game's guidelines ended up being very easy. Some sort of threat measurement is still valuable; just don't use it to create balanced encounters.

my game masters always made it very clear when things are incredibly dangerous. Even the lack of information is enough to make Charles go down your spine. You don’t have to tell them, you can just make it abundantly clear they don’t know. Does the same thing i’ve had some newer players do the same complaint you mentioned. Torch I looked at them confused.

I love this video, thank you so much. My DM ran the goblins of Phandelver like a spec ops ambush. I, the Fighter, was taken out in the first turn of combat and only survived due to a Nat 20 death save. Everyone else *barely* survived. Our DM was used to running high-level combats against us. Anyway, his bad rolls and our use of cover (and the fact that we didn't fully enter the optimum ambush area, because Fighter ain't falling for that shit) saw us through. So... You are correct, those goblins are sufficiently deadly to TPK any level 1 party, so long as the DM uses them tactically, but bad rolls can save the party.

One issue with comparing lack of encounter balance from TTRPGs from digital RPGs is that once you die on Baldur's Gate 1, you can reload the game. If you die on a TTRPG, most of the time, that character is gone, unless your party get to escape. It's why on Darkest Dungeon, dying is fine, because replacing a character is easy and simple.

I feel like I'm taking a course on this stuff its pure gold

dnd did have balance systems before 3rd edition, sure it's not the exact same 1-to-1 form of balance as with CR where every fight was accounted for but it was still built with balance in mind. monster difficulty was tied to dungeon levels, tables had weak monsters such as goblins, kobolds, skeletons etc... as for the first dungeon level and modules were made for parties of a certain level and composition in mind "This module is specially designed for a party of seven to nine characters varying in level from 5th to 7th. It is very important that the party balance good fighting ability with strong spell casting ability. Clerics will be especially important in this adventure." "This module has been designed to allow six to nine player characters of first level to play out many adventures, gradually working up to second or third level of experience in the process. The group is assumed to have at least one magic-user and one cleric in it. If you have fewer than six players, be sure to arrange for them to get both advice and help in the KEEP. For example they should advice from a friendly individual to "stay near the beginning of the ravine area, and enter the lower caves first" "This module is designed for 6-8 characters of 4th to 7th level. The party should contain a balanced mixture of races and classes. Typical party composition would be two or three fighters (or rangers or paladins), at least one cleric, a magic user, and possibly a druid. ... The party should possess somewhere between 35 and 45 levels of experience. All members of the party should possess one or two magic items, such as a scroll, potion, weapon, wand, or ring." so we now know that players were expected to know hard the challenges were depending on how far they venture out from whatever their starting area of safe zone was and most games with any form of a balance measuring stick (including dnd from 3e onward) do have guides for different levels of desired difficultly so while game balance wasn't in its current form it still existed with the only exception i can think of is wilderness encounters i also have to clarify there might be some crossed wires here because "encounter/challenge balance" (combat or otherwise) mean different things to different people, some might view it as any winnable encounter regardless of difficulty, or they're any encounter with a 50/50 chance of success or failure, or they're challenges in a specific difficulty level (always average or extreme etc...), or even any encounter with a deliberate challenge level, making unwinnable combats balanced because they're meant to be unwinnable

Buldar's Gate First Map...upper middle Right of the map IF you go there you will run into a Hill Giant who will simply stomp your party. AD&D 2ed Modified My Campaigns you may be guarding a 1 - 2 wagon merchant group and get jumped by 30 bandits. or you might only run across 4 - 6. This is just how im feeling at that time with the players attitude at that moment. Also I do use Cursed Items in game: Common lvl (1 - 4 lvl cleric/mage can remove) , Uncommon (5 - 8 C/M), Rare (9 - 12 C/M), Legendary (13 - 16 C/M), EPIC (17 - 20 C/M) and GOD CURSED ! you have to ASK that God to Remove the item from your character (Good Luck) I had a Dwarf War level 4 when he got a Belt of Iron Golem Mass (you weigh 2 1/2 TONS (5,000 POUNDS)) Epic Level Curse, then I found a Full Suit of Dwarven Adamite Barbed-Spiked Full Plate GOD CURSED ! The back story on it was a Dwarven king became apprenticed to Moriden God of the Dwarves and Smiths. He spent his years learning all he could then stold the Secrets of how to make Adamantium only to get caught in his new armor. The god placed a Curse on it: Only Dwarves can wear it, 1 - 10 Ft INSTANT DEATH, 11 - 20 Ft Save vs Death or DIE (fail) Fall into a Coma for 1 Month (Pass) , 21 - 30 ft Save vs Spell or pass out for 2d6 Hours (fail) 1d6 hours (pass), 31 - 40 ft Save vs Spell Pass out for 1d6 Hours (fail) 1d6x10 Minuets (pass), 41 - 50 ft Save vs Spell or loose -10 init., - 4 Con/Str/Dex, - 2 Int/Wis (fail) from vomiting, cramps and a migraine -5 init., - 2 Con/Str/Dex, - 1 Int/Wis (pass). This Armor is called the Armor of Eternal Stench! The Greed of the Kings Stench will drive off ALL others Dwarf/Man/Elf or Beast can stand it. A (classic) Dwarven Thrower He ALWAYS returns to his hammer after he is tossed. A Ring of Vampiric Regeneration, Ring of Water Breathing, Ring of Storage: 3m Cubed, Ring of Comfort. Cursed Boots of Running and Jumping (Uncommon) there were a few more magic and cursed items he had. My GM got a book on Cursed Items and made the Mistake of Forgetting PLAYERS WILL USE ANYTHING YOU GIVE THEM IN WAYS YOU NEVER MENT for them to use that way. Nothing like 4d20+24 DMG from a Flying Armored/Spiked Dwarf BIO Weapon flying at that Adult RED DRAGON that was to be your boss only to have it KILLED in the FIRST Attack ! REMEMBER ANYTHING WITH IN 10 FEET IS AUTO KILLED ! He turned into a VERY Lonely Dwarf wandering the Wilderness killing orcs and the likes. REMEMBER IF you Giveth you need a reason to Taketh away. Besure on WILL this be to powerful or not for my group.

I am an old DM so I don’t balance encounters. I present situations to my players who deal with them in someway either in combat, RP or by retreating. A balance encounter perpetuates the idea of the world revolving around the PC’s instead of them being apart of a living world. Good video and topic Cheers

This has led many players today feeling that every encounter that they come across can be defeated in combat and they are expected to come off victorious. Because "the DM would never throw an encounter at us that we can't overcome"

I design encounters in accordance with the story. the way the characters interact with the environment and npc's, determines the disposition of the opponent. this doesn't mean evil needs to be fought or good has the party's best interests in mind. I let the players method of interaction determine the direction of each encounter. thus, everything doesn't need to die and turn the party into murder hobo's.

This is good stuff for making sure encounters aren't too hard, but what about balancing encounters for high-level players that aren't too easy? Any ideas on how to make arenas that aren't easily surpassable by spells like _fly, invisibility,_ and _dimension door?_ I know quantity of monsters is a big aspect because of action economy, but I really want to make the arenas the focus of how difficult encounters are.

I ran a 0-level character funnel where three players had 4 characters. They had to escape the dungeon while being attacked by wandering monsters and being hunted down by a zombie ogre. They only had about 1-4 HP, so if this ogre so much as sneezed at them, they were dead. Instead of running away when he showed up, they lit the room on fire, trapped him in a corner and just wailed on him with improvised weapons. They had to strategize and position all their party members so they could maximize damage while avoiding it themselves. Five characters still died in the end, but it goes to show that even if you have a massively unbalanced encounter, it drives players to seek alternate methods of approaching the problem, which is great.

Great takes! I definitely think video game influence has misled a lot of players into thinking they're super-duper-chad right out the gates. Humbling them is like going to Vegas; you have to learn to enjoy loosing a little, or you'll go off the deep end and lose it all.

This is good information to take in. I've been trying to balance my PF1e encounters for five 13th level players. I'm always so damn worried about killing them that I think I make the encounters both too easy and not much fun for me as the DM, especially since I'm the kind of person who really enjoys combat.

Thanks for sharing

It’s like learning any game, when you first start you don’t know all of the capabilities. The Lazy DM has some awesome Tools that work very well to adjust on the fly. The return of the Lazy dungeon master, the DM companion, and the DMs workbooks is awesome adjustments.

As a player you can really take two approaches: assume you can win every fight, or assume that any fight can be a TPK. Players cant see CR, HP, modifiers; they have no way to tell if they're out of their league unless it's stupidly obvious (level 1 dragon) Running 5e as written, unless the DM gods out of their way to let the party flee, there's not a good way to escape combat. Attacks of opportunities with slowly grind you down as you flee, or a PC will go down too fast that the choice comes down to leaving them for dead or keeping the party together to fight to the death and try to save them.

YES! SO MUCH YES! I have been yelling at people for years about how you shouldn't be sticking to CR's like they're gospel and that challenge comes more from the situation as a whole than individual stat blocks. Plus, in my view, nothing is more boring than fighting a CR appropriate encounter in a flat 40ft by 40ft air conditioned room with no discernable features. At that point I may as well just pull up an rng and use that to figure out who would win the encounter.

Just play an Artificer to wreck all Encoubnters by playing a "Ghostbuster". Prepare 2 Bags of Holding that get inserted into each other as 2 of your Infusions, activated by pulling a rope or kick the Trigger to it to be farther away than the Range of the following effect. Having a Group of them is more fun as now you can Eldritch Blast with Grasp and repel the target towards it. Have some means of teleport away when forced to activate it directly. Done.

My players in Phandelver got smart. They beat the bug bears in the manor by drawing them out to the nothic chokepointed the enemy to the bridge, and convinced the nothic to help them with its necrotic gaze.

One of my first times DM'ing for my friends I had created a DMPC to help them through my shaky encounter building. They were handily dealing with the threats making my DMPC redundant and it was giving my players a false sense of confidence and so when they got captured by some rebels, my players were acting pretty flippant despite having loaded guns pointed at their heads. So after one of my players said something stupid, they were suddenly peppered with the hot bone and blood from my DMPC's head as one of the rebels pulled the trigger. It was remarkable how quickly that got them to catch on to the gravity of their situation lol

I had a campaign almost a decade ago. The party of 5 started out at 3rd level. Our first encounter was 4 highwaymen & 1 dog. A bandit captain. 2 veterans. 1 thug, with a pet mastiff. First time I ever ran away. The DM claimed that was exactly the lesson she wanted us to learn.

re: lost Mines, the first goblin encounter is something I caution all new DMs about. The adventure is a great intro for new players, but it can be really difficult for new DMs

I've tried a number of different balancing techniques, in the past. My current campaign, that I've been running for about a year, is based on as much randomness as possible (or want to deal with). This is taught me and my players that balance is not all that important, and how to handle vastly out of balance moments.

I think the concept of encounter balance has been misrepresented a lot. Not just here but by many other youtubers and GMs. Usually what's it being presented as is "we want both sides to be perfectly equal", while in reality, when players complain about imbalanced encounters, what they usually mean is that they thought they didn't have a chance. i.e. Rocks fall, everyone dies. Or a bit less memed, having your level 1 party fight an elder red dragon. Players generally speaking just want to feel like their failure was their own doing, not just bad luck or an unfair encounter. But in many cases, they also want the encounter to make them feel a certain way. Matt Colville has a very good video on "Surrender" in which he explains that "the players come to the table to play D&D. they didn't show up to run away from things". These players most likely want challenges that test their strength and make them feel powerful. Unlike challenges in for example the Dark Souls video games, which are meant to test your patience and make you feel weak and vulnerable. You can most certainly have such challenges in D&D, but I've seen few GMs actually go into this topic when talking about difficulty. I usually really like the mentions of video games in you videos because I see a lot of TTRPG players pretend like they are somehow superior for playing TTRPGs instead of video games, even though the 2 have a lot in common and especially today, get a lot of inspiration from each other. However I think you missed a very important point for this video. Video games treat death/failure completely different, at least in most cases. In every example that was mentioned here, yes there are difficult if not practically impossible encounters in all of these. However if the player does happen to fail..... *reload save game*. Some games even have death as such an expected and trivial thing, that they just respawn the player somewhere relatively close. Even games that are notorious for being difficult (the Souls series) have you barely lose a thing. And some games even have it built into the core game loop where death does have you start over, but now with additional upgrades. The way a video game handles death/failure, has a massive impact on how balanced the encounters in that game tend to be. So when thinking about difficulty in your games, keep these in mind. What does purpose does "Challenge" have in your game? What does purpose does "Failure/Death" have in your game?

I think it is worth exploring that communicating threat gets harder as levels rise. The monster that slays the elite palace guard in a single hit is a Do Not Fight threat at level 1, but at some point that just signifies a *tough* fight and later just a call to action. Working out a description that 10th or worse 15th level characters should pause or flee from takes work, especially once PCs start slaying the things they once ran from

3.x was not designed for all encounters to be approximately on par relative to the players. There is even a table in the DMG showing how encounters are supposed to range from 5 levels below the players to 5 levels (or more) above the players. But wotc got hammered by the community for their early modules that actually followed that table spread, so they adapted to what the community asked for.

Good evening Dungeon Masterpiece, i agree with your points, the balance of an encounter depends on many many factors and no matter what you do it won't be perfect, but the 5e DMG explains that certain factors makes the encounter easier or harder, like cover or dangerous terrain, but many dm's forget that. The 3e DMG goes even further, it judges the difficult based on party composition as well, like: - many encounters in sequece are harder without healer - Undead are easier with a cleric or paladin - encounters with large hordes of monsters are harder without AoE spells, etc In the end all we need to know as dm's is: this encounter will be a piece of cake or it will tpk my party? And is this what i want to present to them? Thanks for the videos and i see you in the next 😊

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With the abundance of new class and racial ability combinations, balance becomes even more and more impossible as there are so many variables. The other issue here is that many 5e adventures are predicated on a fixed plot and finishing encounters is often required to continue the plot... further stressing the need to create a balance and thus leading to this mindset. There's also a risk of escalation - I've seen this happen a few times. DM scales game to players. Players know how to game the system and choose powerful 'builds' (ugh, I hate builds) and trounce the DMs plans. The DM then feels the need to 'up' the challenge. The next thing you know it becomes sort of an arms race.

While this video's tips are probably obvious to most veterans, it's always great to hear your explanation and research on the matter, sir Baron. Nicely done.

Great video that I hope all DM's learn form.

Player tactics is also an issue. Our group has often noticed that it is no problem to dispatch of a Big Bag one or two levels above the group average but a handfull of gobbos five levels bellow the group average can give us a TPK.

I have my first campaign as dm coming up soon, and the first encounter I have planned is for a caravan the party will be with get ambushed by bandits. For context, starting at level 3 with 7 players and against 6 bandits and a bandit captain. I plan on each bandit being able to use racial traits. It would start with a tree falling onto the front carriage, stopping the caravan where archers then start to shoot from the top of a nearby ledge while in half cover. If they start to take shots, the strongest of the 3 archers will take a step back to where they are out of view and prepare a trap for when the party gets close. When the party begins to enter the hideout for these bandits, the archer will spring the trap having rocks fall on the first couple people to enter. After this, it will be a fight against whatever archers are left on a nearby ledge, 3 more close range bandits and the Dragonborn bandit captain with a great axe who will get teleported behind the party by one of the other bandits that is a spring Eladrin. I feel like this will be a decent challenge for a first encounter.

Terrain and circumstances absolutely makes and breaks encounters, arguably even more than luck. I've had a barbarian disarm a corrupted celestial of a power 5 CR above the entire party level, grapple it, drag it away from its weapon, and dunk it in lava. Having shrubs to hide in and the party needing to rest without armor made it so six goblins and a worg were harder to dispatch at level 4 than nine goblins in an open room at level 2. The important thing to note is that creatures should be played as the creatures. Goblins are chaotic, and unless wrangled by a forceful leader that can coordinate focus-fire tactics will likely stick to taking pot shots at whoever is closest just to keep them away. Hobgoblins on the other hand are far more regimented, and will absolutely eviscerate a party if they fall into a strategic blunder as they will likely plan attacks based around the area they intend to fight in. Ultimately though, sometimes all you can do is foreshadow. "No one goes into the swamps, whatever's in there is so bad it's got the gators moving closer to town, and if the gators are scared, no one in their right mind is gonna argue with 'em." Party decides to go to the swamp? They were warned, they'll get warned again "you find some absolutely massive footprints, whatever this is has to be one or two full sizes bigger than anything you've fought so far" and it won't be my fault if the random encounter for the area is the Froghemoth I wanted to set loose on them eight levels later when it'd be fair. I might even fudge the encounter opening by having it already eating a creature or two, so it won't be super motivated to chase down the party to the ends of the earth for food, and actually have retreat/escape be an option. But even then, players can get into "if it can bleed" mindsets, and that's their choice.

I started DMing 24 years ago and I totally agree. Because playing dnd or any other rpg is all about fun. Well, that can mean anything. Is it fun to smash through a bunch of Goblins as a high level char? Yes, of course.....from time to time. Is it fun to fight a dragon close to a tpk? Yes, of course.....from time to time. There is in my oppinion no need for a perfect encounter balance so the system used doesn't need to be perfect. It must be inaccurate to allow for funny encounters. One of my favorite moments as a DM came, when my high level group fought an entire army of kobolds, the paladin cutting his way through the enemy on his steed while the wizard flung fireball after fireball, the ranger and the rogue sniping at orc captains and the warlock.....well doing warlock things😂. There was no thread to the party all but we sll enjoyed it.

I agree with most of the video, however, you are incorrect in your statement that 3e was the first D&D edition to introduce a concept of encounter balance. 3e introduced Challenge Ratings to supposedly make it easier to calculate balance (in my opinion, they failed), but older editions had guidelines for estimating how tough an encounter would be for a party based on the hit dice and abilities of the monsters. In my experience, TPKs usually don't come from encounters that are WAY above the party's abilities, they more often come from encounters that are just a little too tough combined with bad luck. As you said, players usually know that their level 1 party is no match for an elder dragon and will try to flee or negotiate. However, they might take on a group of orcs that outnumbers them three to two, and not live to regret the decision.

In the show my name is Earl, Earl observes of Randy that sometimes he takes a long road to get to a simple thought.

This is some great stuff.

When people say "balanced encounter", they always talk about a scenario where the PCs will pretty much always win but it has to feel like it was "balanced" and close. Which really isn´t balanced at all.

As a DM who runs a 3.5 game, the system is definitely tough to work with when it comes to encounter building and the absolutely broken CR system, especially problematic is the fact that in 3.5, exp is a resource. Sure it’s one thing to retool encounters like you’ve described, but if I have players who need exact exp values so they can craft magic items I as the DM am incentivized to default to the CR system. Great video as always!

The only balance i do anymore for my combats, is to make sure the enemy cannot just outright one shot a player with anything but a crit. Has worked so far! I put creatures in environments where they could be expected, and offer warnings to what may be down there. More complex fights I also offer hints. I've even been using smarter creatures, and humanoids, that use tactics, and not holding back as much as I used to. Has been a lot of fun for me, but a learning experience for the group! (They all had warnings I was making changes, and they need to start playing a little smarter!) It's been interesting, and I don't think the Monk is going to survive much longer due to poor decisions and positioning. If the fight has narrative components added it to, and risk / reward acceptable to the group, the players will find a way. Hopefully..... I'm pretty sure mine will all fight to the death over a copper coin even though it's been stressed nearly every session retreat is an option. When laying out the map include cover, elevation, and potentially hazards the players can use also will help sway things in their favor. Providing them with knowledge beforehand will also help. Knowing something is weak to something, such as the sun, and see if they can come up with a plan to lure it.