D&D 5E What style of encounter design is 5th going for?

[Argyle King]

The two editions of D&D I am most familiar with are 3rd Edition and 4th Edition. Those two editions of D&D have some very different ideas about encounter design. When looking at the currently available DM rules for 5th Edition, I see what appears to be a mix of 3rd Edition and 4th Edition. So, all things considered, I'm a little confused concerning what style of encounter design 5th is going for.

The rules for 5th seem to suggest that one creature of a CR equal to a party's level is a medium difficulty encounter. That feels like 3rd.

The rules for 5th also give XP budgets for building encounters and that feels a bit like 4th. One of the aspects of 4th that I really liked was the encounter ideals of having more creatures involved in a combat. I liked having more moving pieces.

I'm still unsure which style 5th is trying for, and the rules aren't always clear either. I know the encounter building rules are still being worked on, but -even considering that I'm looking at a very early version of the rules- a few things turn out rather odd and at times the rules even conflict with themselves.

An example of something turning out odd is figure out than an encounter against 4 Riding Horses would be difficult and use up most of the XP Budget for the Adventuring Day. In comparison, Hoard of The Dragon Queen features several encounters with rather large groups of kobolds, and that is apparently considered suitable.

I'm trying to get a feel for what style the game is leaning toward, and what mindset a DM should be in when designing encounters and adventures. Personally, I like the idea of simply building what makes sense given the situation and the world, but my past experience with other editions is that method doesn't typically work well, and the reasons for why it doesn't work depends upon which edition I'm running. I'd like to have a better understand of what 5th is trying for when it comes to building encounters, and, while I understand the rules, it's occasionally hard to gather what the intent is.

 

[MerricB]

In comparison, Hoard of The Dragon Queen features several encounters with rather large groups of kobolds, and that is apparently considered suitable.

HotDQ was also designed with the monster stats in flux, so there are several encounters there that are, quite likely, too hard for the PCs. Monsters got a lot deadlier between the early playtest and the actual release.

Basically, you have to ignore a lot of the way you created encounters in 3E and 4E. In 3E, single monsters or pairs of monsters generally made up the best challenges. A lot of lower-level monsters didn't work at all, because their AC/attack bonuses were just too low. Hordes of lower-level monsters are a real threat in 5E, because of bounded accuracy: they can hit and damage the party!

Likewise, 4E went on a "one monster for each PC" baseline, while also having (to a lesser extent) the problem that monsters a couple of levels away from the party often being not that fun to fight. Lower-level monsters weren't that bad, but higher-level monsters, especially soldiers, could turn very grindy: the party just couldn't hit them!

Because of bounded accuracy, you can use a much greater range of monster levels in 5E. There are two things that might make an encounter too tough:
* A really dangerous monster. This is why the Challenge Rating is so important - note that the definition of the CR isn't "this uses 20-25% of resources" but rather "this is what a well-rested party can face and not suffer any casualties". Big difference.
* Lots of monsters. Parties can absolutely get swarmed, which is why the XP balancing works on the # of monsters used.

So, 5E deals with the major problem of 3E combat (out-levelling monsters) with bounded accuracy, while maintaining part of 4E's "more monsters are fun" ethos.

Personally, I think that the guidelines for encounter building aren't entirely accurate at the extremes, especially at very low levels, and we'll need to see a lot more play before we're sure what they are!

Cheers!

 

[GX.Sigma]

At some point, Mike Mearls described the encounter-building advice as "make your dungeon with whatever makes sense, then, if you really care, you can go back and find out how tough each fight will be."

Of course, he's been saying stuff like that for years, and the encounter building guidelines in the basic PDF look exactly like 4e's system.

 

[ExploderWizard]

A whole lot of encounter design depends largely on what type of campaign you are running and the role of monsters generally speaking, in that campaign.

If your campaign is kind of linear with strong plot elements then the PCs may find themselves in quite a number of unavoidable planned encounters. Care is required when constructing these and challenge levels need close attention. The DM largely controls pacing and thus has a greater responsibility for ensuring the adventures aren't too deadly assuming the PCs don't overdose on stupid tactics.

If your campaign is more of an open sandbox then the PCs kind of explore where they wish. Here it is fine to populate the world with whatever makes sense. Some challenges may be beyond the PCs abilities and they may have to avoid or flee such encounters if they want to survive. There is no linear progression preventing this or keeping them from completing an adventure if they do so.

Once you know what general campaign style that you want to run, you can focus on the encounter design that is most suited for it.

 

[Argyle King]

A whole lot of encounter design depends largely on what type of campaign you are running and the role of monsters generally speaking, in that campaign.

If your campaign is kind of linear with strong plot elements then the PCs may find themselves in quite a number of unavoidable planned encounters. Care is required when constructing these and challenge levels need close attention. The DM largely controls pacing and thus has a greater responsibility for ensuring the adventures aren't too deadly assuming the PCs don't overdose on stupid tactics.

If your campaign is more of an open sandbox then the PCs kind of explore where they wish. Here it is fine to populate the world with whatever makes sense. Some challenges may be beyond the PCs abilities and they may have to avoid or flee such encounters if they want to survive. There is no linear progression preventing this or keeping them from completing an adventure if they do so.

Once you know what general campaign style that you want to run, you can focus on the encounter design that is most suited for it.

I prefer games which are less linear. I haven't had the best results with using D&D for that in the past.

If I had to choose between 3e or 4e ideals for encounter design, I would prefer the 4e approach of more
creatures. There are times when the party facing one creature makes sense
but I prefer that to be reserved for special occasions. As a general rule, I don't like
the party of 4-5 to be facing one or two hobgoblins as the normal expectation.

 

[Rhenny]

So far, I've found 5e pretty flexible. I've been able to make very easy, quick encounters that can be run very easily with Theater of the Mind, and I've been able to create longer, more tactical battles that take 7+ rounds to resolve.

#1 concern is make sure you understand how the # of enemy multipliers work. If any one PC is attacked by 2 or more creatures, the encounter becomes pretty dangerous for that PC at least (especially if they have low or average AC).

Spells against the party (and area of effect attacks like breath weapons) also become pretty dangerous.

Of course, lower level mobs can be handled by AoE spells, but sometimes that's not enough (and of course spellcasters may get to a point where they don't have those resources anymore).

The one big difference between 5e and 4e is that in 5e, the designers intended adventure design to use the adventuring day as the basis for developing adventures, not encounters.

Depending on DM, and the ability to take short rests (1 hour long rests that restore some of the fighter mechanics for example), the game can play as a gritty, fear combat, kind of game (for games where resting is rare), to more heroic kind of game (for games where resting is more frequent). Although, at 1st level and 2nd level to some extent, the game is definitely more gritty/deadly than 4e (kind of like earlier versions of D&D).

I hope this helps.

 

[Argyle King]

A whole lot of encounter design depends largely on what type of campaign you are running and the role of monsters generally speaking, in that campaign.

If your campaign is kind of linear with strong plot elements then the PCs may find themselves in quite a number of unavoidable planned encounters. Care is required when constructing these and challenge levels need close attention. The DM largely controls pacing and thus has a greater responsibility for ensuring the adventures aren't too deadly assuming the PCs don't overdose on stupid tactics.

If your campaign is more of an open sandbox then the PCs kind of explore where they wish. Here it is fine to populate the world with whatever makes sense. Some challenges may be beyond the PCs abilities and they may have to avoid or flee such encounters if they want to survive. There is no linear progression preventing this or keeping them from completing an adventure if they do so.

Once you know what general campaign style that you want to run, you can focus on the encounter design that is most suited for it.

I prefer games which are less linear. I haven't had the best results with using D&D for that in the past.

If I had to choose between 3e or 4e ideals for encounter design, I would prefer the 4e approach of more
creatures. There are times when the party facing one creature makes sense
but I prefer that to be reserved for special occasions. As a general rule, I don't like
the party of 4-5 to be facing one or two hobgoblins as the normal expectation.

 

[KidSnide]

At some point, Mike Mearls described the encounter-building advice as "make your dungeon with whatever makes sense, then, if you really care, you can go back and find out how tough each fight will be."

Of course, he's been saying stuff like that for years, and the encounter building guidelines in the basic PDF look exactly like 4e's system.

I think the point is that 5e (like Mike Mearls) doesn't care how you build your encounters.

If you want to grab a single opponent, that's fine. If you want to carefully construct an encounter out of creatures of multiple levels, that's OK too. You can even send in the baddies in waves, if that meets your fancy. Alternatively, if you want to populate your dungeon level with one day's worth of enemies who are encountered in whatever order, that's a good choice also. Or, if you want to let beasties wander where they may and leave it up to the PCs to decide whether to fight or flee, that's hunky-dory too. The goal here is an inclusive edition that is capable of supporting a variety of styles and tools for designing adventures.

Now, we can criticize whether the 5e tools aren't good enough in one of these areas, but there's no question that the goal is to support all types of encounter designs.

-KS

 

[GX.Sigma]

I think the point is that 5e (like Mike Mearls) doesn't care how you build your encounters.

If you want to grab a single opponent, that's fine. If you want to carefully construct an encounter out of creatures of multiple levels, that's OK too. You can even send in the baddies in waves, if that meets your fancy. Alternatively, if you want to populate your dungeon level with one day's worth of enemies who are encountered in whatever order, that's a good choice also. Or, if you want to let beasties wander where they may and leave it up to the PCs to decide whether to fight or flee, that's hunky-dory too. The goal here is an inclusive edition that is capable of supporting a variety of styles and tools for designing adventures.

Now, we can criticize whether the 5e tools aren't good enough in one of these areas, but there's no question that the goal is to support all types of encounter designs.

-KS

Sure the game can handle it, but what I'm saying is that there only seem to be rules for 4e-style encounter building (currently).

 

[KidSnide]

If you want to grab a single opponent, that's fine. If you want to carefully construct an encounter out of creatures of multiple levels, that's OK too. You can even send in the baddies in waves, if that meets your fancy. Alternatively, if you want to populate your dungeon level with one day's worth of enemies who are encountered in whatever order, that's a good choice also. Or, if you want to let beasties wander where they may and leave it up to the PCs to decide whether to fight or flee, that's hunky-dory too. The goal here is an inclusive edition that is capable of supporting a variety of styles and tools for designing adventures.

Sure the game can handle it, but what I'm saying is that there only seem to be rules for 4e-style encounter building (currently).

I call your attention to "Simple Encounters" on page 56 of the DM basic rules 0.1 for 3.x style one-monster encounters, "Multipart Encounters" and "The Adventuring Day" on page 58 for waves and "populate your dungeon level" rules. And, of course, the "players decide if they want to fight or flee" approach doesn't really require rules, although it seems to be described in the first sentence under "Encounter Difficulty" on page 56.

-KS