So with all the talk of game balance of late, something that keeps coming back up is the notion that players that get to rest more often and fight less encounters in a day will find challenges easier than a party that gets the full 6-8 encounters.
So the real question is: Well how much more can a party take on?
So we could start with a simple premise: What if the DM just pushes the entire daily adventuring budget into a single encounter. Aka its expected the party will go hog wild, throw every bit of juice....and be completely spent by the end. So what would that look like in terms of challenge?
So lets take 4 level 7 characters. They have a daily adventuring budget of 20,000. So here are some example challenges that would fit their entire budget. I had to go a bit under or over much of the time, as often adding just one more of almost any monster just shoots the encounter XP way up.
If this produces reasonable results it might be the way to go for people who just want to do 1 "big combat" a day, and help them understand what you really need to throw out to challenge such a party.
So the real question is: Well how much more can a party take on?
So we could start with a simple premise: What if the DM just pushes the entire daily adventuring budget into a single encounter. Aka its expected the party will go hog wild, throw every bit of juice....and be completely spent by the end. So what would that look like in terms of challenge?
So lets take 4 level 7 characters. They have a daily adventuring budget of 20,000. So here are some example challenges that would fit their entire budget. I had to go a bit under or over much of the time, as often adding just one more of almost any monster just shoots the encounter XP way up.
- A Demilich (CR 18)
- Two Young Red Dragons (CR 10) - 17.7k
- 3 Githyanki Knights (CR 8) - 23k
- 4 Mind Flayers (CR 7) - 23k
- 5 Flesh Golems (CR 5)
- 8 Black Puddings (CR 4) - 22k
- 200 NPC Guards (CR 1/8)
If this produces reasonable results it might be the way to go for people who just want to do 1 "big combat" a day, and help them understand what you really need to throw out to challenge such a party.