D&D 5E 5e on Hard difficulty

[clearstream]

Please see the table below, with the following notes

1. It provides budgets not floors: so add foes up to the budget (rather than over the floor)
2. It doubles the XP used to size each encounter, to achieve a more challenging game (by challenging, I do mean likely to result in dead characters)
3. Because of that increase, it recommends also increasing the XP for characters to advance levels
4. The suggested Advancement rate also increases "days" spent in the "sweet spot" - levels 5-10 - by a fifth

Building Encounters
Encounters are categorised as attritional or lethal. Both types can result in PC death, but attritional encounters are not likely to do so unless preceded by other encounters. On average, characters should be able to handle 2 attritional encounters between short rests and 6 between long rests. Lethal encounters consume more resources, so count each one as equal to three attritional encounters.
The table lists an XP budget per PC based on their level. To build an attritional encounter, sum the budgets in that column for each PC in the party, and then add creatures to the encounter up to a maximum of that total (applying adjustments per the DMG). To build a lethal encounter, do the same using triple the attritional XP as the maximum. (For convenience the Lethal column lists those budgets.) The “Daily” column provides an XP budget per PC per adventuring “day”, for planning a series of encounters that characters might face between long rests. (For example, a group of might face a dozen small attritional encounters.) Increased encounter budgets are likely to result in characters gaining XP faster, so a DM might choose to increase the XP needed to gain each level to that suggested in the Advancement column.

[TABLE="class: grid, width: 500"]
[TR]
[TD]Level[/TD]
[TD]Attritional[/TD]
[TD]Lethal[/TD]
[TD]"Daily"[/TD]
[TD]Advancement[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]100[/TD]
[TD]300[/TD]
[TD]600[/TD]
[TD]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]200[/TD]
[TD]600[/TD]
[TD]1200[/TD]
[TD]600[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]400[/TD]
[TD]1200[/TD]
[TD]2400[/TD]
[TD]1800[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]600[/TD]
[TD]1800[/TD]
[TD]3600[/TD]
[TD]6600[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD]1200[/TD]
[TD]3600[/TD]
[TD]7200[/TD]
[TD]13800[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]1350[/TD]
[TD]4050[/TD]
[TD]8100[/TD]
[TD]35400[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]1700[/TD]
[TD]5100[/TD]
[TD]10200[/TD]
[TD]59700[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]2000[/TD]
[TD]6000[/TD]
[TD]12000[/TD]
[TD]90300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]2500[/TD]
[TD]7500[/TD]
[TD]15000[/TD]
[TD]126300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]3000[/TD]
[TD]9000[/TD]
[TD]18000[/TD]
[TD]171300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]11[/TD]
[TD]3500[/TD]
[TD]10500[/TD]
[TD]21000[/TD]
[TD]225300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]12[/TD]
[TD]4000[/TD]
[TD]12000[/TD]
[TD]24000[/TD]
[TD]267300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]13[/TD]
[TD]4500[/TD]
[TD]13500[/TD]
[TD]27000[/TD]
[TD]315300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]14[/TD]
[TD]5000[/TD]
[TD]15000[/TD]
[TD]30000[/TD]
[TD]369300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]15[/TD]
[TD]6000[/TD]
[TD]18000[/TD]
[TD]36000[/TD]
[TD]429300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]16[/TD]
[TD]7000[/TD]
[TD]21000[/TD]
[TD]42000[/TD]
[TD]501300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]17[/TD]
[TD]8000[/TD]
[TD]24000[/TD]
[TD]48000[/TD]
[TD]585300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]18[/TD]
[TD]9000[/TD]
[TD]27000[/TD]
[TD]54000[/TD]
[TD]633300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]10000[/TD]
[TD]30000[/TD]
[TD]60000[/TD]
[TD]687300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]25000[/TD]
[TD]45000[/TD]
[TD]90000[/TD]
[TD]747300[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Behind the scenes, I did a lot of number crunching to figure out what this could look like. The end result is pretty simple - multiply the old "daily" XP by two and then divide it by 6 for attritional encounters and 2 for lethal. With a bit of smoothing to give more usable numbers. It should take about 1 "day" of encounters for PCs to level from 1 to 2, and again from 2 to 3. It should take 2 "days" to go from 3 to 4 and 4 to 5. Then 3 "days" for each level on up to 10. After 10, it should take 2 days for each level up to 16, and then back down to 1 day again. That follows the same curve yielded by the original values. It keeps players in tier 2 longer, and whereas in theory a character could level from 1-20 in 33 "days" of adventuring. Using these values it takes 39.

Note that this isn't intended to result in PCs always doing 6 attritional or 2 lethal encounters between long rests. Rather it is a guide to what they should be able to handle managing their resources (albeit, in a more challenging game!) Think of the budgets as an encounter fund: there's no pressure to spend the whole lot! It's simply a guide to sizing encounters, with values chosen to balance challenge, resource management, lethality and character advancement rate.

 

[dave2008]

Thank you for making a new thread for this. I will get back to you soon with some more thoughts, but my first question is:

1) If I understand correctly, these are both supposed to result in a challenging day of encounters, it just depends on whether it is 6 or 2. Is that correct?

 

[clearstream]

In setting my design objectives for the above, I needed to define "lethal".

Lethality
Characters might face a score of truly lethal encounters over their career (from level 1 to level 20). Each such encounter is expected to offer a 1:10 risk of death. Lethality is affected by performance, so that skilled players may experience half that chance of dying while unskilled players experience double. Naturally, attritional encounters are less lethal—perhaps 1:100—but characters could face well over a hundred of them. On average such encounters could kill a character a dozen times over. Very often, powerful revivification magic puts them back on their feet. When that isn’t available, they’ll need prudence, skill and luck to survive.

These rate could be OTT. I'd like them to be visible so that they can be talked about, and to use them as a guide to what I intend to see happening over encounters. If I sense a far higher rate occurring then I can tune the budgets down. If too low, the opposite. Death here is not permanent death. It is going down and failing three death saving throws. 5e has what look like quite well considered revival magic. From Spare the Dying, to Gentle Repose which dove tails into Raise Dead. To Resurrect and True Resurrect (and the subtle and not so subtle differences between them). Reincarnation is also a possibility. It appears fairly well costed and anecdotally appears under utilised by DMs. Concretely, I'm assuming no revival in tier 1. Revival one time in two in tier 2. Two times in three in tier 3. And three times in four in tier 4. My understanding is that this is far, far higher than anyone is using. The alternative is to reduce the chances of death, or reduce the number of occasions those chances are experienced.

[Edited to fix the hectically unsurvivable "survival" rates. Reduced attritional death rate from 1:24 to 1:100. Reduced lethal death rate from 1:4 to 1:10.]

 

[clearstream]

Thank you for making a new thread for this. I will get back to you soon with some more thoughts, but my first question is:

1) If I understand correctly, these are both supposed to result in a challenging day of encounters, it just depends on whether it is 6 or 2. Is that correct?

It's intended to be more flexible than that, hence the daily XP budgets. The budgets are what you might spend up to, while staying within an objective of either mechanically attritional or mechanically lethal. This diverges from approach of the DMG Encounter Difficulty thresholds. Instead of floors (spend more than this) it's a ceiling (spend less than this). You could have a dozen attritional encounters in a day. And some "days" the whole budget needn't be spent.

As a DM, I want to be able to size encounters to tell me roughly (without having to run the encounter!) is anyone likely to die? Am I over doing it? Will this be fairly easy? I really don't believe we need four thresholds for that! After all, anything easier than attritional is going to be safely not lethal (barring player ingenuity).

I probably need to express all that better

 

[Dan Chernozub]

You do understand that deadliness revolves around the conditions of combat more than it does around XP values (often misplaced) of the combatants?

 

[snickersnax]

How are worlds not teaming with level 20 characters, especially long lived races like elves?

 

[dave2008]

It's intended to be more flexible than that, hence the daily XP budgets. The budgets are what you might spend up to, while staying within an objective of either mechanically attritional or mechanically lethal. This diverges from approach of the DMG Encounter Difficulty thresholds. Instead of floors (spend more than this) it's a ceiling (spend less than this). You could have a dozen attritional encounters in a day. And some "days" the whole budget needn't be spent.

As a DM, I want to be able to size encounters to tell me roughly (without having to run the encounter!) is anyone likely to die? Am I over doing it? Will this be fairly easy? I really don't believe we need four thresholds for that! After all, anything easier than attritional is going to be safely not lethal (barring player ingenuity).

I probably need to express all that better

I didn't mean to insinuate it was a strict 6/2. My point was the DMG has you determine the type of encounter difficulty: easy, hard, deadly and really daily thresholds are sorta separate from that (thought not really). It seems to me, you are explicitly tying the encounter budget with the daily budget.

One thing I think this lacks is something [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] discussed in the thread I told you about before: what type/level of challenge is an attritional or lethal encounter? Here is what I worked up after making the tables in my previous thread. A you can see I had plan on making three sets of tables. I think it has to many levels of challenging, but you get the idea:

Creating a Combat Encounter
When creating a combat encounter, let your imagination run wild and build something your players will enjoy. Once you have the details figured out, use this section to adjust the difficulty of the encounter.

Combat Encounter Difficulty
There are five categories of encounter difficulty that determine how challenging an encounter should be.

Trivial. A trivial encounter is non-challenging with little to no resource expenditure. It is a speed bump and mostly important for story or roleplaying engagement.
Minimally Challenging. In a minimal encounter the characters may expect to lose some hit points and spend a minimum of short or long rest resources, but they should complete the encounter with no casualties or major resource use. This encounter is rendered trivial with a minor increase in resource expenditure.
Moderately Challenging. In a moderate encounter the characters can expect to lose significant health resources (hit points and/or healing) and spend up to a quarter of their short or long rest resources. This encounter can be rendered minimal with an expenditure of additional resources.
Challenging. In a challenging encounter the characters can expect to lose about a third of their health, long rest, and short rest resources to escape. A character death is possible, but not likely. This encounter can be rendered moderate with an expenditure of additional resources.
Extremely Challenging. In an extreme encounter the characters can expect to lose half of their health, long rest, and short rest resources if they want to escape with their lives. A character or characters death is a real possibility. This e

Evaluating Encounter Difficulty
Use the following method to gauge the difficulty of any combat encounter.

1. Determine XP Thresholds. First, determine which table to use: Basic, Standard or Hardcore, refer to the description under each table. Then determine the experience point (XP) thresholds for each character in the party. The XP Thresholds by Character Level tables have five XP thresholds for each character level, one for each category of encounter difficulty. Use a character’s level to determine his or her XP thresholds. Repeat this process for every character in the party.
...

*Basic: Tables with this label assume a group is using the basic rules: no feats and no multi-classing. In addition, this table assumes the group consists of four characters: one cleric, one fighter, one rogue, and one wizard, or a similar.

**Standard: Tables with this label assume a group is using the full PHB: feats and multi-classing. In addition, this table assumes the group consists of four characters: one cleric, one fighter, one rogue, and one wizard, or a combination of similar diversity from multi-classing or class selection.

**Hardcore: Tables with this label assume a group is using the full PHB: feats and multi-classing. In addition, this table assumes the group consists of four characters: one cleric, one fighter, one rogue, and one wizard, or a combination of similar diversity from multi-classing or class selection. It also assumes they character have access to level appropriate magic items and that the players are optimizers and power gamers.

...

All this is to say, I would to find a way to marry a version of my encounter descriptions with your daily attrition / lethal model. But maybe that is overly complex.

 

[dave2008]

Just wanted to add that the colored text, especially the blue, is hard to read when you are using a black background like me.

 

[dave2008]

[/COLOR]
[TABLE="class: grid, width: 500"]
[TR]
[TD]Level[/TD]
[TD]Attritional[/TD]
[TD]Lethal[/TD]
[TD]"Daily"[/TD]
[TD]Advancement[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]15[/TD]
[TD]6000[/TD]
[TD]18000[/TD]
[TD]36000[/TD]
[TD]429300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]16[/TD]
[TD]7000[/TD]
[TD]21000[/TD]
[TD]42000[/TD]
[TD]501300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]17[/TD]
[TD]8000[/TD]
[TD]24000[/TD]
[TD]48000[/TD]
[TD]585300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]18[/TD]
[TD]9000[/TD]
[TD]27000[/TD]
[TD]54000[/TD]
[TD]633300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]19[/TD]
[TD]10000[/TD]
[TD]30000[/TD]
[TD]60000[/TD]
[TD]687300[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]20[/TD]
[TD]25000[/TD]
[TD]45000[/TD]
[TD]90000[/TD]
[TD]747300[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
.

Since it seems the biggest complaint with encounter difficult is at high level, I'm going to start at the top. At level 20 you are saying 90,000 XP for a daily budget. That is way to low for what I would call "hardcore" gamers. It is less than 4 pit fiends for the whole day. I don't think 4 pit fiends (straight out of the book) would provide much of a challenge as it is only 3-5 rounds of combat for such groups.

So that begs the question, who (what type of group) is your table for? It may be more accurate for the basic or standard (from my previous post) group, but the hardcore group will laugh at it.

 

[dave2008]

I guess my general thought about your table is:

1) The DMG encounter guidelines work (roughly) for the "basic" group. Your table may be to much for them (not sure)

2) The DMG encounter guidelines stop working around levels 7-10 for the "standard" group. I think your table may work for thrm (with some tweaking maybe - I still the higher levels need work)

3) The DMG encounter guidelines stop working around level 5+/- for the "hardcore" group. I don't think your table works very well for this group. The daily budget and lethal values are to low.

Finally, I don't think "Lethal" is a good name. Once again as CapnZapp has pointed out, a hardcore group can beat an extremely deadly encounter, it just cost them more resources. It is not about how lethal the encounter is, but how much it cost the group.