[Playtest 2] "Encounter" Building

[GX.Sigma]

Look closer at the DM guidelines for encounter building. It has rules for building easy, average, or tough encounters based on party level.

What the hell happened to all that "adventuring day XP budget" stuff they spent the last few months talking about? That sounded pretty good to me. Are we back on encounter-based design again?

It even goes on to say that you can't design an adventure around a daily XP target. Which I guess makes sense, but... What the hell?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Yeah, it's odd. Maybe they did not get the numbers worked out for the daily allotments -- or discovered they didn't work after all.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I tweeted at Mike Mearls, and this was his response:

@GX_Sigma @Wizards_DnD No, should be a daily overall spend with some guidance for how many critters to throw at party per battle.

Followed shortly thereafter by:

@GX_Sigma @Wizards_DnD Ah, I see - the guidance points at encounters because that's the key test point for now.

So I guess the encounter focus is just for this phase of testing.

 

[Libramarian]

They've copied some sections on encounter design and rewards almost word for word from the 4e DMG. Yuck.

The system that the game gives to the DM to design adventures is really the engine of the game. The player option doodads that everyone else is arguing about are chrome. The adventure paradigm is what makes the game. And this playtest has made it clear that they're going for the same basic experience that 4e offered -- a series of encounters mathematically engineered to be beatable by straightforward assault, where the players have very little ability to influence the rate of XP gain and therefore feel little pride or sense of accomplishment at levelling up in itself. Stoopid-easy to DM but computer games (esp. the Elder Scrolls games) do it better.

Easy to DM isn't good enough. The game has to be really fun to compete with other forms of gaming. This style of adventure is not.

 

[howandwhy99]

The system that the game gives to the DM to design adventures is really the engine of the game. The player option doodads that everyone else is arguing about are chrome. The adventure paradigm is what makes the game. And this playtest has made it clear that they're going for the same basic experience that 4e offered -- a series of encounters mathematically engineered to be beatable by straightforward assault, where the players have very little ability to influence the rate of XP gain and therefore feel little pride or sense of accomplishment at leveling up in itself. Stoopid-easy to DM but computer games (esp. the Elder Scrolls games) do it better.

I had previously felt like average XP advancement was actually somewhat fast and the PCs were largely overpowered to their enemies.

Now I'm thinking that was their *weak* build and this is their high. (I hope)

My only guess is the HP total drop is the compensation.

 

[KidSnide]

They've copied some sections on encounter design and rewards almost word for word from the 4e DMG. Yuck.

Any time you see almost word for word copying from a prior edition in a playtest packet, there is an excellence chance that you're looking at temporary filler text. Temporary filler text is a particularly good conclusion when it reflects the design of a previous edition and contradicts a stated design goal of the new game.

-KS

 

[FireLance]

They've copied some sections on encounter design and rewards almost word for word from the 4e DMG. Yuck.

The system that the game gives to the DM to design adventures is really the engine of the game. The player option doodads that everyone else is arguing about are chrome. The adventure paradigm is what makes the game. And this playtest has made it clear that they're going for the same basic experience that 4e offered -- a series of encounters mathematically engineered to be beatable by straightforward assault, where the players have very little ability to influence the rate of XP gain and therefore feel little pride or sense of accomplishment at levelling up in itself. Stoopid-easy to DM but computer games (esp. the Elder Scrolls games) do it better.

You got all that from a set of guidelines on how to design easy, average and tough (but not overwhelming) encounters?

Maniacal laugh. Manaical laugh.

(ahem)

I'm sure that being able to build good encounters in no way reduces your ability to make good adventures, or challenges that reward the players' creativity, or sandbox adventures where the PCs set their own goals and seek out challenges.

No, seriously. I mean it.

Easy to DM isn't good enough. The game has to be really fun to compete with other forms of gaming. This style of adventure is not.

Right. Everyone knows that everyone has exactly the same idea of what fun is at all times.

Manical laugh. Manaical laugh.

(ahem)

Actually, I think a truly great game system would allow each group to use it in pursuit of whatever it considers to be fun, whether it is simple, low-risk hack-fests, or more demading games that require creative thinking and/or careful resource management to overcome challenges. Even better, it would allow the players to switch between any game style at-will (or at least, per encounter ). Variety and adaptability keep a game interesting, IMO.

 

[I'm A Banana]

At the moment, it looks like One Day's XP Total is about equal to 4 Average Encounters (660 per PC @ LV 1).

Honestly, I'm working on running my Monday game, and the encounter design stuff is getting in the way of my style pretty heavily, so I'm using a day's XP and to Gehenna with the nay-saying in the rules.

"Since you can’t predict the path your players will choose through an adventure, you can’t really design an adventure around this daily target"

Oh yeah? Friggin' watch me.

 

[ComradeGnull]

Look closer at the DM guidelines for encounter building. It has rules for building easy, average, or tough encounters based on party level.

What the hell happened to all that "adventuring day XP budget" stuff they spent the last few months talking about? That sounded pretty good to me. Are we back on encounter-based design again?

It even goes on to say that you can't design an adventure around a daily XP target. Which I guess makes sense, but... What the hell?

I would tend to think that anything that was actively under discussion between the last packet and this one is probably going to show up in the next packet, not the current one. I suspect that their approach is to get discussions started about theoretical goals and get some feedback, write some content that reflects what they get out of those discussions, and then throw it over the wall for feedback.

Anything where the designers and the customers are just now having discussions about what things should kinda sorta maybe look like is probably 1-2 months away from being ready to playtest.

 

[Balesir]

At the moment, it looks like One Day's XP Total is about equal to 4 Average Encounters (660 per PC @ LV 1).

Honestly, I'm working on running my Monday game, and the encounter design stuff is getting in the way of my style pretty heavily, so I'm using a day's XP and to Gehenna with the nay-saying in the rules.

..and the encounters your players end up having will still be easy, average or tough. Honestly, what is it with GMs apparently wanting to be ignorant of the likely difficulty of the situations they present to the players? Nothing says you can't present scenarios of almost certain death (or of trivial cakewalkism) if you really want to - but why do some folk want to be surprised by that sort of thing? I don't get it.

"Since you can’t predict the path your players will choose through an adventure, you can’t really design an adventure around this daily target"

Oh yeah? Friggin' watch me.

Well, I would read that as "Since you can’t predict the path your players will choose through an adventure, you can’t really design an adventure around this daily target and expect things to actually pan out that way". As long as you don't expect things to necessarily pan out according to your plan, I'd say you're golden using the daily amounts. What the actual value is of using them I would say is highly debatable, but I would say you are quite free to do so, regardless.