WOIN Encounter Building Guidelines

Morrus · Jun 11, 2018

I get asked this most every day, so a sticky thread seems appropriate. I'll continue to edit this thread as things occur to me.

Things To Remember
WOIN is a tactical game. It assumes that you and the monsters will be using tactics. Using tactics can make a weak opponent decimate a powerful one.

This means using cover, crossfires, aims, feints, LUC dice, higher ground, exploits, exchanging damage dice, etc. If you don't use those (or worse, if one side does and the other doesn't) then you're going to struggle in combat. Using tactics can make a weak opponent decimate a powerful one.
Attack weak DEFENSES, not strong ones. Most monsters have at least one weak DEFENSE. If you're attacking a brute in melee or shooting at a speedster, you're doing it wrong. The game requires you to think about how to attack your foe.
Remember, your max dice pool is the maximum size of your initial ATT + SKILL + GEAR dice pool. Your exploits, positioning, LUC, etc. are all applied on top of that.
Don't forget to exchange dice for damage, and to get damage upgrades when you can.

Maximum Dice Pools (MDP)
MDP gives you a rough guide to a PC or monster's power level sans tactics. This isn't your PC's grade, it's their maximum dice pool. As a rule of thumb:

Equal total MDP on each side makes for a medium encounter; unlikely a PC will die. However, a single monster 3 MDP higher than the party is deadly. Including that in the mix will turn that encounter into a deadly one.
Monsters lower than the party MDP are trivial. Use when you want PCs to show off and heroically dispose of bad guys with ease. If you ant your PCs to feel awesome for a bit, do that.
One MDP higher is medium. The PCs will win, use some resources, but won't die.
Two MDP higher is difficult. Use for a leader with some lower monsters.
Three MDP higher is deadly.
As always, tactics completely sway this.

Micah Cael · Aug 22, 2018

Thanks for this. As a beginner GM I appreciate having these reminders on hand.

hirumachico · Apr 9, 2019

Super helpful, looking forward to the continued edits as things occur to Morrus. One question, how do numbers of foes typically affect these broad MDP guidelines? For example, how does a PC team of 2 competent special forces types (e.g. grade 10, 7d6 MDP, akin to Stonebridge and Scott in Strike Back) stack up against high numbers (6,8, 10 or more) of lower MDP foes (say 5d6 MDP)? I know you stated that tactics count, but might you have a broad rule of thumb that suggests the impact of numerical superiority sans tactics? Thanks again for any advice you can give on a tricky subject for fledgling GMs like me.

Flips · Apr 10, 2019

In my experience, if the foes are 2 or more MDP below the PCs, they will have a very hard time being effective without really using a lot of tactics (higher ground, cross fire, etc.)

hirumachico · Jun 22, 2019

Reading this again as I prepare for running my first ever WOIN game tomorrow. I now see something I missed before: "Equal total MDP on each side makes for a medium encounter." My emphasis added, I missed that I should be adding all of the total MDPs together. Therefore a boss villain at 8d6 and his 4 henchmen at 5d6 that equals 28d6 vs. my PC team of 4 x Grade 10's (7d6 each) equals 28d6 is the evenly matched scenario, which means a medium encounter. And as long as the totals of MDPs are closely matched this is a medium encounter. But if I were to modify my prior example by adding one additional 5d6 MDP henchman or just making the boss villain an 11d6 instead of an 8d6, the PCs are facing a deadly encounter. Just want to be sure I've got the concept right. Thanks for reading (and hopefully setting me straight).

Morrus · Jun 22, 2019

hirumachico said:
Reading this again as I prepare for running my first ever WOIN game tomorrow. I now see something I missed before: "Equal total MDP on each side makes for a medium encounter." My emphasis added, I missed that I should be adding all of the total MDPs together. Therefore a boss villain at 8d6 and his 4 henchmen at 5d6 that equals 28d6 vs. my PC team of 4 x Grade 10's (7d6 each) equals 28d6 is the evenly matched scenario, which means a medium encounter. And as long as the totals of MDPs are closely matched this is a medium encounter. But if I were to modify my prior example by adding one additional 5d6 MDP henchman or just making the boss villain an 11d6 instead of an 8d6, the PCs are facing a deadly encounter. Just want to be sure I've got the concept right. Thanks for reading (and hopefully setting me straight).

5d6 monsters vs 7d6 players are trivial. The match total assumes the MDPs are roughly equal.

Drekin · Apr 20, 2020

What impact does numbers advantage have on this?

Lucas Yew · Apr 18, 2022

Wouldn't having "equal" total MDP on each side make it a 50% win rate scenario (assuming equally eager usage of tactics on each side), especially if the average MDP of each participants are close enough?

Suskeyhose · May 11, 2023

Lucas Yew said:
Wouldn't having "equal" total MDP on each side make it a 50% win rate scenario (assuming equally eager usage of tactics on each side), especially if the average MDP of each participants are close enough?

It's generally assumed that the players will be a bit more highly optimized than NPCs, which is why NPCs get built in the really sketchy way that they are, so equal MDP will favor the players generally.