dave2008
Legend
Clarificaiton:5e's encounter building has at best a shaky foundation. CR as a system has always been inconsistent and seemingly eyeballed for about 3 seconds before someone goes "Yeah CR 7 seems about right". Certain 3rd level spells having the power of 5th level spells because they're "iconic" to encourage players to take them, when enemies also use them, makes it even worse. Simple or complex is irrelevant as far as I'm concerned, the important thing is that they function as intended. Being tied to CR for encounter building due to backwards compatibility is I suspect one of the most difficult challenges for the system, and thus one of the things I'm most curious about from a system wide perspective and not just fun character building.
The encounter builder in O5e (DMG) uses XP not CR. Though that does bring up a point I think could use a deeper explanation. A good encounter builder provides a clear baseline assumption and then explains how to adjust things when your group deviates from the assumptions.
I find the RAW O5e encounter works well for one of my groups which has very little magic items (O5e was build on the assumption that magic items are not required) and is not very strategically or tactically minded. Which seems to be the default assumption of the O5e encounter builder, but that is never explained. However, once you get out that default the accuracy of the encounter builder diminishes. IMO a encounter should:
Clearly define:
- Assumed party size
- Assumed party equipment
- Assumed party tactical ability (DM too)
- Assumed party strategic ability (DM too)
- Assumed party class composition
- The degrees of difficult and what they reference (at full start or assumed amount of attrition)
- How to adjust the guidelines for a group that deviates from any of 1-5 above.
- Provide guidance on how to adjust the guidelines based on experience (ex: if your encounters, for whatever reason, are to tougher than the encounter guidelines suggest, what should you do to modify them)
Last edited: