D&D 2E Evaluating Difficulty of an Encounter?

[Marc_C]

Getting ready to play AD&D2e for the first time in 21 years.

How do you determine the power level of an encounter in 2e?
Do you compare HDs of the monsters to the level of the PCs?

 

[Fanaelialae]

I haven't run 2e in many years, but back when I did I would simply eyeball it. I wouldn't recommend using HD, as that can be misleading. The XP value of a creature is closer to its overall threat, although even that isn't a perfect metric.

 

[R_J_K75]

Do you compare HDs of the monsters to the level of the PCs?

I dont remember any recommendations for encounter building but I do recall that I and other DMs did just use HD as a guide. Other than that though I do remember it was a crap shoot at times.

 

[Sithlord]

It’s 2E you do it somewhere between “wing it” and “not giving a damn”

Have fun

 

[Mort]

Take a look at Chapter 11 of the 2e DMG which is all about building an encounter.

Table 55 (in Chapter 11) talks about what level of the dungeon to place a monster - based of off the monster's XP. It's really rough but will at least give you an idea of encounter difficulty. You can sort of use the XP as an encounter budget. But as others have mentioned you'll have to eyeball and wing it a lot.

Another thing to keep in mind - 2e characters don't have access to near as much healing as 3e and orders of magnitude less than 5e - so keep that in mind when pacing the adventure.

 

[Voadam]

For me it was a lot of eyeballing, with HD as a big factor and things like save or die, save or suck (like ghoul paralysis), applicable important defenses like the party having no magic weapons that can affect a monster, and energy drain also being big considerations.

 

[Lanefan]

Trial and error.

And even when something looks like it'll work fine, the dice might have other ideas.