Help me balance my old school encounters

[fletch137]

My current OSR game of choice is ACKS, but this is a hurdle I had trouble with even back in my 2e-playing days.

How do you know what is and isn't an appropriate challenge for a group of characters of a certain level? Can I just accept that an equal HD monster in the encounter numbers listed in the monster guides is defeatable? Fer instance, ACKS shows bugbears as 3HD and are encountered in groups of 2-8. Does that mean a group of 3rd level characters will have a fair chance of fighting 2-8 of them?

What about higher HD monsters? An ancient dragon, per ACKS, has 18**** HD, but the character levels cap out at about 15.

I get that part of the old school charm is "you go in the wilderness, you takes yer chances," but I'm also trying to pace the challenges a bit. What kind of guidance is there in judging challenges in these OSR games?

 

[dd.stevenson]

I leave it up to the players. Feed them a scout or two of the main creature type, and then make it clear (if they do their recon homework) about how many more there are out there. If the players charge in, then it's balanced as far as I'm concerned.

Basically, I give them a fairly honest appraisal of what's out there, and them let them hang themselves with the rope I give them.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Can I just accept that an equal HD monster in the encounter numbers listed in the monster guides is defeatable?

No. HD (at least up through 2E) is fairly disconnected from what 3E would call the Challenge Rating. High hit dice monsters can be very easy to kill. Low hit die monsters can have a lot of attacks or special abilities that make them tremendous threats that are not indicated by sheer hit dice.

An ancient dragon, per ACKS, has 18**** HD, but the character levels cap out at about 15.

Dragons are actually a good example of how HD are not a good metric to use by itself to gauge the degree of challenge. A large, ancient red dragon in 1E has 11 hit dice and 8hp per die, but a small party of 11th level PC's should not likely consider one to be a tremendous threat. The mechanics of the game multiplies the ability of player characters as they increase in level to take on ever greater numbers of opponents and increasingly massive and powerful singular opponents. That last one can be especially problematic because "Boss fights" become more difficult to make them work.

I get that part of the old school charm is "you go in the wilderness, you takes yer chances," but I'm also trying to pace the challenges a bit. What kind of guidance is there in judging challenges in these OSR games?

Almost none. In AD&D you'd probably do best to compare PC ability against actual experience value which at least takes into account not just raw hit points but special attacks and defenses.

The Old School way, however, was mostly just trial and error anyway. You throw it at the players and see if it sticks. If they handle it too easily then you mentally note that next time you need more of those monsters, or different tactics, or just note that they're a lesser threat. There are just so many variables though - not just monster hit dice but how well you roll those hit dice, whether you or the players are rolling better or worse for your attacks that night, how much magic item equipment the PC's have, what spells the casters actually try to use, how aggressively and intelligently you run the monsters, etc. Prior to 3E the game just wasn't built to follow a mathematical formula at all.

 

[the Jester]

My current OSR game of choice is ACKS, but this is a hurdle I had trouble with even back in my 2e-playing days.

How do you know what is and isn't an appropriate challenge for a group of characters of a certain level? Can I just accept that an equal HD monster in the encounter numbers listed in the monster guides is defeatable? Fer instance, ACKS shows bugbears as 3HD and are encountered in groups of 2-8. Does that mean a group of 3rd level characters will have a fair chance of fighting 2-8 of them?

What about higher HD monsters? An ancient dragon, per ACKS, has 18**** HD, but the character levels cap out at about 15.

I get that part of the old school charm is "you go in the wilderness, you takes yer chances," but I'm also trying to pace the challenges a bit. What kind of guidance is there in judging challenges in these OSR games?

Let the pcs choose how many and what foes to fight, for the most part.

"There's a goblin village over there... Let's go!" leads to a fight with, you know, a village's worth of goblins. "Let's scout... hm, we could take out that small hunting party instead" is probably wiser.

I'm not sure about ACK, but in old-skool D&D, pc potency can vary enormously within the context of one class and level, so I'd imagine you have to do a lot of eyeballing.

 

[steeldragons]

How do you know what is and isn't an appropriate challenge for a group of characters of a certain level?

It's old school. Simply put...you don't.

The players figure out if they can handle something or not. Running away is not a bad thing when necessary.

Your job, as DM, is to make adventures that "make sense" not "encounters that are balanced." The players' job is to get their characters through the adventure alive and, preferably, evils thwarted and bags of treasures thrown over shoulders.

I get that part of the old school charm is "you go in the wilderness, you takes yer chances," but I'm also trying to pace the challenges a bit. What kind of guidance is there in judging challenges in these OSR games?

Again, none. Throw an encounter at the party...if it's too easy, make the next one harder. If it's too hard, the onus is on the players to get their PCs the hell out of a bad situation alive!

Make the next encounter easier if you so choose...and if it makes sense for the place/situation/adventure you are running.

You say you know the old school way [good!]...but then want to not do that ["pace the challenges"? "balance" the encounters?!]...Soooo, I'm not sure there is any guidance to offer.

 

[krayzdave]

i huge thing not to miss is player creativity in terms of problem solving. because there is no defining metric on matching players to encounters, much more of the game is dependant on how creative the players are. a creative team of players can get a lot done, even at low levels.

i know this doesn't help at all. but i think it is a good point not to miss. if you have particularly creative players, you should err on the tougher side of encounter building. if not (and that's not a bad thing) err on the easier side.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

My current OSR game of choice is ACKS, but this is a hurdle I had trouble with even back in my 2e-playing days.

How do you know what is and isn't an appropriate challenge for a group of characters of a certain level? Can I just accept that an equal HD monster in the encounter numbers listed in the monster guides is defeatable? Fer instance, ACKS shows bugbears as 3HD and are encountered in groups of 2-8. Does that mean a group of 3rd level characters will have a fair chance of fighting 2-8 of them?

What about higher HD monsters? An ancient dragon, per ACKS, has 18**** HD, but the character levels cap out at about 15.

I get that part of the old school charm is "you go in the wilderness, you takes yer chances," but I'm also trying to pace the challenges a bit. What kind of guidance is there in judging challenges in these OSR games?

I don't know about OSR, but old school D&D did give XP values for monsters, and those went up with the challenge. Unfortunately, these weren't transparent. Between varying group sizes and varying stat rolls, all you could do was "guess".

The best technique is probably to start with "easy" encounters and ramp up the challenge until you have an idea of what your PCs can handle.

 

[Kinak]

I have to agree with [MENTION=6683099]dd.stevenson[/MENTION]. If they know what they're getting into, it's balanced. If they have a chance to escape, it's balanced. If they could have known what they were getting into by putting in a little more effort, it's balanced.

Basically, as long as you aren't killing them in one turn in an ambush, you're in the clear. And even then, if they're warned about the beast that killed them all in advance, you're probably fine.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[howandwhy99]

My current OSR game of choice is ACKS, but this is a hurdle I had trouble with even back in my 2e-playing days.

How do you know what is and isn't an appropriate challenge for a group of characters of a certain level? Can I just accept that an equal HD monster in the encounter numbers listed in the monster guides is defeatable? Fer instance, ACKS shows bugbears as 3HD and are encountered in groups of 2-8. Does that mean a group of 3rd level characters will have a fair chance of fighting 2-8 of them?

What about higher HD monsters? An ancient dragon, per ACKS, has 18**** HD, but the character levels cap out at about 15.

Challenges are defined by class power level of groups. You'll want to rate your PCs in all measures and when players (and therefore PCs) don't show up, you'll probably want to warn newbi players to stick to easier challenges due to their current lack of forces.

ACKS should be telling you how to rate creature challenges like Bugbears. HD is a combat stat and comes into balancing combat challenges, but variable HD (like most D&D uses by class) matters when determining group combat ability.

I get that part of the old school charm is "you go in the wilderness, you takes yer chances," but I'm also trying to pace the challenges a bit. What kind of guidance is there in judging challenges in these OSR games?

Isn't there any in the books? There should be.

I suggest balancing challenges by the ability of the players to reach them. To reach 2nd level challenges, on average, they need to get to a 2nd level area via a 1st level one. Think Dungeon Levels except not just foes and not only the layer cake design most folks use. Discovering secret passages to more (or less) challenging areas comes from actual discovery of them. Knowledge of them is a form of treasure for the PCs. Knowing they are out of the depths, so to speak, is also part of the game, but you should note how forces on different levels treat secret passages and what a power group from a weaker one encroaching on their territory will result in. Secret passages should begin as they are: places to hide and escape with. Later they might be used by the PCs at higher level as shortcuts past easier levels or their first entrance into tougher ones. 1-way chutes to lower levels should be rare and short IMO.

 

[Libramarian]

See Appendix C of the 1e DMG.

Also: make weak encounters matter by making HP and resource attrition matter, and make tough encounters less likely to lead to a TPK by giving the players warnings and outs, like very powerful but rare magic items that the PCs will only want to use when they're desperate. (I think of these like "ejection seats")