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Yes, this does not make sense. Players advance in level more quickly when they have what are supposedly equivalently hard combats against fewer foes as opposed to more foes. I recommend Gobelure's thread on how to modify the encounter design guidelines to fix this problem, so that you don't...

It's certainly true that a party will take more than twice as much damage on average from 2 monsters of CR X as one monster of CR X. But to replicate the official guidelines, you don't need an equation to estimate the damage a party will take from a group of N monsters of CR X. You just need...

I think it was noticed in Gobelure's thread that his system seems to indicate that encounters are a bit easier than the official encounter guidelines. And certainly it's possible that the numbers need some tweaking. Since the definition of an Easy encounter isn't constant across levels in the...

If this were true, then Gobelure's system would be unable to replicate the results of the regular encounter system when applied to creatures of the same CR, since it does not use an encounter XP multiplier. But this is not true, and one way to see this is that Gobelure's system does (pretty...

The original encounter design guidelines are flawed and overstate encounter difficulty when you have monsters at different CRs, as you've noticed. The update to the DM Basic Guide from November looks much the same except that it recommends ignoring the encounter XP multiplier if the monsters...

A later post in Gobelure's thread details how to account for the XP issue: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?367697-Encounter-difficulty-how-to-fix-it/page3&p=6405378&viewfull=1#post6405378

An implication of the “encounter XP multiplier” used to determine encounter difficulty (but not XP rewards) is that monster power does not scale as quickly as XP does. So a “1,000 XP budget” will tend to result in a harder encounter when you use a lot of low XP opponents rather than one 1,000 XP...

I generally roll far under half damage. When I roll 12d10, I usually roll between 42 and 52. For this reason, I decided recently to use average damage just to prevent all my encounters from being pushovers! Highly recommend this for anyone else with the same bad luck.

The original encounter design guidelines are flawed and overstate encounter difficulty when you have monsters at very different CRs. I haven't looked at the update to the DM Basic Guide from November in detail. It looks much the same except that it recommends ignoring the encounter XP multiplier...

The original encounter design guidelines are flawed and overstate encounter difficulty when you have monsters at very different CRs (and the "XP multipler" is a clunky concept that makes designing encounters difficult). I haven't looked at the update to the DM Basic Guide from November in...

The original encounter design guidelines are flawed and overstate encounter difficulty when you have monsters at very different CRs (and, as you mention, also make designing encounters difficult). I haven't looked at the update to the DM Basic Guide from November in detail, but it looks much the...

The original encounter design guidelines are flawed and overstate encounter difficulty when you have monsters at very different CRs. I haven't looked at the update to the DM Basic Guide from November in detail, but it looks much the same. I recommend Gobelure's thread on how to modify the...

Skill bonuses need to scale faster for trained characters to feel substantially better. One simple solution on the PC end is to double ability and proficiency bonuses to skill checks. Then the DCs need to be raised somewhat (but not as much as the increase on bonuses of skilled characters).

Inspiring Leader gives lots of temporary HP especially at level 1 and if you have a large party and no one else has the feat it is probably the strongest feat you can take at level 1. Note that you can pick up medium armor + shields with a 1-level multiclass (I've seen a level in Cleric...

The encounter design guidelines are very flawed and overstate encounter difficulty when you have monsters at very different CRs. I haven't looked at the update a week ago to the DM Basic Guide in detail, but it looks much the same. I recommend Gobelure's thread on how to modify the encounter...

How about: for monsters, when they critical hit give them average damage on either all of the dice (if you don't typically roll for damage for monsters), or average damage on just the bonus dice (if you do typically roll for damage for monsters). For PCs criticals are unchanged. This makes...

I must have been thinking of a level 3 party fighting Cyanwrath. My same basic point applies: the XP curve is very steep from levels 1-6, so you won't be much ahead of the level curve by having 33% extra XP (and you need to survive those early encounters to do so, extra healing potions aren't...

This doesn't work because the XP curve is very steep at low levels (I believe the module starts at level 3). Getting an extra 33% experience for a party of 3 versus 4 does little to level a character more quickly. You need to gain 1,800 XP to go from level 3 to level 4 and need to gain 3,800 XP...

I favor point-buy but I like that this helps avoid imbalance. I see two issues with this: first, the best of, say, 5 sets of ability scores is frequently obvious and everyone will pick it. Then everyone has the same set of stats. Second, characters are going to have quite a bit higher stats...

It seems quite weak. What if it got 2 attacks (with a bonus action) for 3d12 damage each, and on a critical hit the target has to make a Con save or be stunned for a round (until the beginning of the caster's next turn)? With an 8th level slot it critical hits on a 19-20, with a 9th level slot...