D&D 5E Encounter Building: Revised XP Threshold by Character Level Table

[CapnZapp]

For me, a combat needs a reason for existing.

I definitely include "story" or "world verisimilitude" as very valid reasons, so it's not that I can't have Easy fights.

But that doesn't remove my misgivings about the entire encounter structure assumptions of the DMG. Who in their right mind would want to waste their afternoon on a series of combats that individually present no challenge? That's right, I question the entire idea that the goal of a combat should be to see whether you can defeat it without spending too many limited resources. Especially since the game doesn't even lift a finger to make the recharging of said resources itself a challenge! (If most official adventures enforced hard limits on things like hit points, spell slots and long rests, much like D&D Online does, it would be a whole different story)

So. The central reason is "challenge". A combat needs to present, at some level, a challenge, or you could just as well save time and simply narrate "you kill them, you find no loot, let's move on".

This doesn't mean every combat needs to be Deadly (for any definition of that term). But it does mean I have very little to add in a discussion about quantifying terms like "Easy" "Medium" and "Hard". I just want to relabel them into "No challenge", "Minimal But Still Way Too Little Challenge", and "Some challenge" and refocus the discussion:

This is no videogame where resolving a long string of easy encounters has its entertainment values and doesn't take too long (think Diablo or Torchlight where an endless stream of easy challenges becomes almost meditative). The correct question IMNSHO isn't "how much xp makes an Easy encounter" but "how to merge Easy encounters into something that's actually worth my players time"...

But since this would amount to exactly the type of post I myself loathe (and too frequently am subjected to) where a poster barges in and questions the entire premise of a thread, I will simply leave this here, and ask that you do not reply (in this thread at least).

 

[Staffan]

Hard encounters are listed as having the possibility of things going badly, and with a slim chance that one or more might die.

Deadly encounters are listed as possibly being lethal for "one or more characters." To me, a 50/50 chance of TPK seems to fit a deadly encounter quite nicely, regardless of party size.

Now if you interpret "one or more" to mean "one or two," then I can see where you're coming from. I just think "one or more" implies possibly more than two -- maybe even everyone.

There's a very big difference between "one or more may die" and "50/50 chance of TPK". For my money, a 10% chance (or thereabouts) of a single PC dying qualifies as Deadly.

There are really two issues at hand. One is that people commonly look at a fresh party unloading everything they have at an encounter, and judge difficulty based on that. But that's not really how the game is intended to play - most days, you'll be having multiple encounters that wear you down. After the fifth Medium or Hard encounter in a day, with only one short rest in there, you're not so hot anymore.

The other is that "deadly" is the highest "difficulty setting", and the game could use one or more above that. Perhaps renaming the current "deadly" to "risky", and then add "deadly" (high risk of PC death) and "lethal" (will almost certainly kill at least one PC, possible TPK) beyond that.

 

[dave2008]

But since this would amount to exactly the type of post I myself loathe (and too frequently am subjected to) where a poster barges in and questions the entire premise of a thread, I will simply leave this here, and ask that you do not reply (in this thread at least).

You don't get off that easy!

Actually I think your post is relevant to the discussion. Beside the fact it just seems like semantics (tome at least) to call something "no challenge" vs "easy", the issue I see in your comments is twofold:

1) Some people/ groups do find a string of easy encounters entertaining and / or integral to the story

2) What is "medium" or a moderate challenge for your group may in fact be "deadly" for another group.

The idea is to develop a set of guidelines that is flexible and can be adjusted by DMs for their group. The table is just a starting point. Ideally the complete guideline would have recommendations for how to adjust them based on group composition, tactics, and play style. I would also want to include recommendations for # of combats per day. If the revised table is accurate for 6 encounters per day, here is how you modify for 3 encounters per day or 1 encounter per day. That type of thing.

 

[dave2008]

The other is that "deadly" is the highest "difficulty setting", and the game could use one or more above that. Perhaps renaming the current "deadly" to "risky", and then add "deadly" (high risk of PC death) and "lethal" (will almost certainly kill at least one PC, possible TPK) beyond that.

I could see expanding the table, but I could also see a simple explanation in the text of the guidelines on how to modify the XP budget for greater or lesser threats.

I'm not sure if adding a 5th category gets us much when I think we really need to spend time explaining how these categories apply to individual groups. If "deadly' is already a TPK for my group, than adding a "Lethal" category doesn't do me much good.

 

[CapnZapp]

There's a very big difference between "one or more may die" and "50/50 chance of TPK". For my money, a 10% chance (or thereabouts) of a single PC dying qualifies as Deadly.

There are really two issues at hand. One is that people commonly look at a fresh party unloading everything they have at an encounter, and judge difficulty based on that. But that's not really how the game is intended to play - most days, you'll be having multiple encounters that wear you down. After the fifth Medium or Hard encounter in a day, with only one short rest in there, you're not so hot anymore.

The other is that "deadly" is the highest "difficulty setting", and the game could use one or more above that. Perhaps renaming the current "deadly" to "risky", and then add "deadly" (high risk of PC death) and "lethal" (will almost certainly kill at least one PC, possible TPK) beyond that.

This makes me realize the issue is that the guidelines doesn't seem to take into account which "gear" the PCs go into.

By this I mean, that a given encounter could well be "deadly" (for some value of that term) if the characters stick to fighting with one arm tied behind their backs. I mean, preserving resources and relying mostly on "at wills".

But in reality, any such encounter will be transformed into a much easier one, since why on earth would characters risk a PC death when that risk can be all but eliminated by the party gearing up? (using consumables, using spell slots etc)? Except for the lowest levels, a party possesses enough resources to have several gears. Using a few spell slots, a few consumables, perhaps some short-rest class abilities is still a far cry from the ALL OUT NUCLEAR NOVA HIT THEM WITH EVERYTHING WE'VE GOT gear.

I don't mean that a "deadly" encounter should need that final "nova gear".

But there's a fundamental mismatch in expectations in labeling encounters "hard" or "deadly" when (except on lowest levels) this is very much something the players can and will transform into something much easier, or "managable".

The only recourse is if the game strictly controls resource renewal. But in a game with no mechanical checks on rests and free access to rope tricks and magnificient mansions, I simply don't see it.

I can't see at all a situation where the players tell themselves "oh this is going to be a tough one - remember we must pull this off and kill all the goblins without spending any resources!!" This simply never happens in my game.

As it is, there is practically no such renewal control in published adventures. This makes me focus on making each individual encounter its own challenge. This leads me to the following four proactical categorizations of an encounter. I'll enumerate them with no labels for the moment, to avoid focusing the discussion on the labels.

Furthermore I'll use "effort" to mean resource expenditure. That is, tactics that do more than use at wills, plentiful renewable resources, movement and such. Even without any extra "effort" the goblins don't kill themselves, you still need to go through the motions of actually playing the encounter.

Cat I: it's immediately apparent (to the players) this encounter need no "effort" to remain undeadly
Cat II: there is some initial tension that might make a player (or three) expend some effort, before the tension evaporates and it's clear the encounter really needed no effort
Cat III: this encounter will need some effort, or there is a risk of losing a character (however briefly) by death or other incapacitation (more severe than round-by-round paralyzation that is).
Cat IV: this encounter has all the trappings of a challenging encounter, and the most prudent course of action is either to retreat immediately (possibly using spells to cover that retreat) or to go all-out.

You see? The actual difficulty isn't really the important metric here. If for no other reason than most encounters can be transformed into less than "deadly" encounters by player decisions. (At least my highly tuned party would generally require triple-deadly encounters to ensure they actually stay deadly, even if the players do everything they can to manage and minimize that risk).

I can't rid myself of the feeling there's a veneer of self-deceit over the entire DMG guidelines, talking about encounters as "easy" or "hard" as if that's an actual difference. The reality is that both encounters can be obliterated by the party. Its much more interesting to consider whether the first encounter might be a category I encounter while the second might be a category II.

All the really interesting parts of the equation have been left out: player decisions to expend or withold resources and the difficulty with which you regain these resources (rests, buying or looting new potions etc).

Whenever we talk about "deadly", we must first ask ourselves "does this presume the party chugging along in first gear, or does this include the party switching to megadeath gear?"

I posit NO encounter can or should be called "deadly" unless assuming the party switching out of first gear. Making the DMG idea of hard and deadly being a mere multiple of easy a theoretical construct. Yes, an encounter might be "hard" if it uses three times as much monster xp as an "easy" one, but only if you assume the characters spend as few resources. Since that never happens, the entire table is a theoretical construct with no bearing on practical play.

This is why I feel the DMG guidelines to be so hopelessly useless and directly counterproductive to new DMs.

 

[dave2008]

All the really interesting parts of the equation have been left out: player decisions to expend or withold resources and the difficulty with which you regain these resources (rests, buying or looting new potions etc).

Whenever we talk about "deadly", we must first ask ourselves "does this presume the party chugging along in first gear, or does this include the party switching to megadeath gear?"

The DMG does hint at resource expenditure in the description of labels, but it could/ should be more explicit.

This is why I feel the DMG guidelines to be so hopelessly useless and directly counterproductive to new DMs.

That is why I started this tread, to discuss how to make them better. I think the next thing I will do is update the definitions of easy, medium, hard, and deadly, including more information about resource allocation at the minimum. I would like to include information about tactics too, but that may be a different section.

EDIT: I also need to review the UA article and see what improvements it may have made.

 

[CapnZapp]

You don't get off that easy!

Actually I think your post is relevant to the discussion. Beside the fact it just seems like semantics (tome at least) to call something "no challenge" vs "easy", the issue I see in your comments is twofold:

1) Some people/ groups do find a string of easy encounters entertaining and / or integral to the story

2) What is "medium" or a moderate challenge for your group may in fact be "deadly" for another group.

The idea is to develop a set of guidelines that is flexible and can be adjusted by DMs for their group. The table is just a starting point. Ideally the complete guideline would have recommendations for how to adjust them based on group composition, tactics, and play style. I would also want to include recommendations for # of combats per day. If the revised table is accurate for 6 encounters per day, here is how you modify for 3 encounters per day or 1 encounter per day. That type of thing.

I am not denying either 1) or 2). Especially 2) - of course even the most minmaxed characters can be turned into minced meat by a trivial encounter if in the hands of young players that has never experienced a roleplaying game ever before and thus are completely oblivious to even the most basic of rpg survival rules (i.e. stick to one and the same tactic even if you personally would have chosen a different one; never split the party; focus your fire, etc)

Let me only speak for myself - what I would need to even consider a table useful would be the table author clearly stating for which assumptions the table is meant to be used:

There needs to be a clear choice between assuming players being able to (pretty much) rest at will, and assuming there are constraints in place (whether by story-induced time restraints, self-imposed restraints or whatever doesn't matter). Do note that for the most part, the rules might assume the second, but published adventures certainly don't. Since the game assumes the latter, I suggest the former.

I consider an assumption of an 3-4 encounter adventure day vastly more practical than an 6-8 encounter day. For one thing, even in the theoretical extreme case of players playing it ultra-safe and resting as soon as they've used up any resources the former is still only 2-3 encounters off, while the latter remains 5-7 encounters off. A considerable difference. (While this is purely theoretical, I guess my point is that since the game doesn't meaningfully discourage players from resting, an assumption of 3-4 encounters might come close to a practical limit of 2-3 challenging encounters; while an assumption of 6-8 encounters will still be off by a significant degree)

Furthermore, since the DMG assumes "easy mode" in all respects, I feel your table should not do the same. Guidelines that are meant to actually make veteran players playing reasonably well-tuned PCs sweat a bit would be much more useful as a complement to the DMG ones.

Except for one thing: I honestly don't know what you can gain out of all this, except perhaps the personal satisfaction from a well-executed thought experiment.

After all, if you target the group where veteran DMs run veteran players, you're also targeting the group which doesn't need DMG guidelines and wouldn't look at your efforts.

I mean, if you could force WotC to have its designers look at your resulting table when they design the next adventure, it would be highly interesting, but since that is unlikely... well.

What we can hope for in the meantime is that WotC really is pulling out the stops for Yawning Portal dungeon #7, making it actually deadly and not merely "carebear deadly".

 

[CapnZapp]

The DMG does hint at resource expenditure in the description of labels, but it could/ should be more explicit.



That is why I started this tread, to discuss how to make them better. I think the next thing I will do is update the definitions of easy, medium, hard, and deadly, including more information about resource allocation at the minimum.

Well... my point is that easy, medium and hard all come across as "easy", but with varying levels of resource expenditure.

Which is why I would prefer not using those labels.

Instead of "hard" (say), perhaps it should be called "taxing", since it isn't really percieved to be hard. It just so happens that after the fight, the players realize they've used up some resources.

As for difficulty there is only "non-challenging" (I like "trivial" myself) and "challenging" (and perhaps "deadly" if that is reserved for something much more deadly than 10% risk of single player death*)

Labelling resource expenditure is really what it is about, and there I'm arguing we should use more appropriate labels. Not easy and hard, but low and high (resource expenditure). Or "taxing" as I suggested earlier. Or whatever that can't be confused for a label on difficulty.

A rough example:

• Instead of "easy" we could... well, actually I want us to drop this completely trivial and uninteresting category. This isn't even an encounter, it's a speed-bump. (meaning it might still be an explore or social encounter, just not a combat encounter)
• Instead of "medium" let's use "non-challenging with low to no resource expenditure".
• Instead of "hard" let's use "non-challenging with medium resource expenditure".
• Instead of "deadly" let's use "non-challenging with high to nova resource expenditure; challenging with low to medium resource expenditure".
• Instead of "double deadly" let's use "challenging with medium to high resource expenditure".
• Instead of "triple deadly or more" let's use "ensured challenging at any level of resource expenditure".

This assumes the following:
a. parties generally decide themselves when and where to regain resources. That is, being prevented from resting is the exception to the rule. Meaning it's perfectly alright to prevent rests, only that the table doesn't assume it. DMs retricting rests need to take this into account rather than the other way around (that DMs not adding story based time restraints having to adapt the table's guidelines).
b. it assumes half as many encounters as the 6-8 "norm", partly because of a. HOWEVER, it also assumes
c. encounters will generally be challenging except when there is a reason to include a non-challenging encounter (for storybased reasons, for world verisimiltude reasons or other). That is, merely including a string of non-challenging encounters for no other reason than to see if they can leech of some resources is NOT the norm, and DMs including them will have to adapt (rather than the other way round).

Zapp


*) which could be the basis of a rant all by itself. Since D&D does retain a certain modicum of swinginess, I would ask "what fight does not retain a small risk of one character dying??". A fight that doesn't include even the smallest risk of actual character death (at levels where raise dead is available) must be a complete pushover.

 

[CapnZapp]

PS. I forgot

d. It also assumes parties of a certain level of efficiency. Not necessarily supertricked out builds with highly optimal tactics, but at least that the lowest levels of disorganisation and ineffective builds has been polished off by not-entirely-green players

 

[dave2008]

Let me only speak for myself - what I would need to even consider a table useful would be the table author clearly stating for which assumptions the table is meant to be used:

There needs to be a clear choice between assuming players being able to (pretty much) rest at will, and assuming there are constraints in place (whether by story-induced time restraints, self-imposed restraints or whatever doesn't matter). Do note that for the most part, the rules might assume the second, but published adventures certainly don't. Since the game assumes the latter, I suggest the former.

Would one table with advice on modifying it suffice or do your really think there needs to be multiple tables for multiple assumptions?

I consider an assumption of an 3-4 encounter adventure day vastly more practical than an 6-8 encounter day. For one thing, even in the theoretical extreme case of players playing it ultra-safe and resting as soon as they've used up any resources the former is still only 2-3 encounters off, while the latter remains 5-7 encounters off. A considerable difference. (While this is purely theoretical, I guess my point is that since the game doesn't meaningfully discourage players from resting, an assumption of 3-4 encounters might come close to a practical limit of 2-3 challenging encounters; while an assumption of 6-8 encounters will still be off by a significant degree)

I agree with the assumption of 3-4 encounters, but I haven't decided if I want to take that base assumption or provide advice about revising encounters when that is what you do. I agree that it is a better, more flexible, and more easily tune-able starting point, I just haven't decided how far I want to stray from the conceits of the game.

Furthermore, since the DMG assumes "easy mode" in all respects, I feel your table should not do the same. Guidelines that are meant to actually make veteran players playing reasonably well-tuned PCs sweat a bit would be much more useful as a complement to the DMG ones.

Well my table already assumes an XP budget almost 2x the DMG by the time you get to 10th level (and increasing from there). I think it is good baseline to start with and then provide guidance to adjust the XP budget based on party composition, resource allocation, tactics, and expected number of encounters per day.

Except for one thing: I honestly don't know what you can gain out of all this, except perhaps the personal satisfaction from a well-executed thought experiment.

That is pretty much it, maybe with the hope someone will find it useful.

After all, if you target the group where veteran DMs run veteran players, you're also targeting the group which doesn't need DMG guidelines and wouldn't look at your efforts.

No, I am definitely not targeting veteran DMs, though I hope they might find it useful. I guess I assume veteran DMs are like me and don't use encounter building guidelines. I didn't have them for the 1st 20 yrs of being a DM and when they popped up in 4e (I didn't play 3e) I just ignored them and pretty much DM'ed like I always had.

The hope is that it would be useful for anyone who needs help building an encounter.

I mean, if you could force WotC to have its designers look at your resulting table when they design the next adventure, it would be highly interesting, but since that is unlikely... well.

What we can hope for in the meantime is that WotC really is pulling out the stops for Yawning Portal dungeon #7, making it actually deadly and not merely "carebear deadly".

It will be interesting to see whether or not they nerf some of these for sure. However I personally don't care that much about what WotC publishes, at least adventure wise. I bought HoDQ, RoT, ToEE, OotA, & SKT for the setting info, encounter locations, and the monsters - not the adventures themselves and whether or not they are deadly. If I buy Yawning Portal it would be the same reason. That being said, i rarely use dungeons, so I might pass on this one.