Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Adjusting Difficulty
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Xeviat" data-source="post: 9499100" data-attributes="member: 57494"><p>Hi everybody!</p><p></p><p>I often see people say that 5E is too easy, so I wanted to share a little system I made back while running a long 5E game. For reference, each adventuring day in game tended to have 3 deadly fights with a short rest in between, but sometimes I'd swap 1 deadly fight for 2 hards or 3 mediums. Generally that is.</p><p></p><p>But this isn't about the adventuring day, I just wanted to explain the conditions this was used under. What I wanted to show is a player level adjustment metric.</p><p></p><p>The 2014 DMG monster creation system suggests that a creature's CR should be adjusted up or down based on how much higher or lower it's Attack and AC are compared to the expected. It takes +2 Attack and +2 AC together to increase a creature's CR by 1, or -2/-2 for -1 CR. Thus, giving your PCs +2 attack and AC effectively reduces the monster CRs by 1, or increases the PCs effective level.</p><p></p><p>A +1 weapon is an uncommon magic item, as is a +1 shield (I know armor is higher, but just go with me), and +2 would be rare. So 2 rare items would increase a PC's level by 1.</p><p></p><p>We can then assign a numerical value to magic items based on their rarity:</p><p></p><p>Common: 0.5</p><p>Uncommon: 1</p><p>Rare: 2</p><p>Very Rare: 3</p><p>Legendary: 4</p><p></p><p>Add up the player's magic items. Single use items, like potions and scrolls, count as 1/4th. For every 4 points a PC has, increase their effective level by 1 when determining encounter difficulty.</p><p></p><p>For instance, at level 12, each PC had 8 points of magic items (each had a very rare and a rare and a smattering of other things, they were a little decked out since the campaign was based on a 3E campaign). That increased their effective level by 2. So I used the encounter level calculator line for 14th level.</p><p></p><p>This little metric also served as a nice way for me to ensure I was keeping the PCs relatively balanced among each other in their magic items. It's hard not to be jealous if one player keeps having all the random magic items especially suit them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Xeviat, post: 9499100, member: 57494"] Hi everybody! I often see people say that 5E is too easy, so I wanted to share a little system I made back while running a long 5E game. For reference, each adventuring day in game tended to have 3 deadly fights with a short rest in between, but sometimes I'd swap 1 deadly fight for 2 hards or 3 mediums. Generally that is. But this isn't about the adventuring day, I just wanted to explain the conditions this was used under. What I wanted to show is a player level adjustment metric. The 2014 DMG monster creation system suggests that a creature's CR should be adjusted up or down based on how much higher or lower it's Attack and AC are compared to the expected. It takes +2 Attack and +2 AC together to increase a creature's CR by 1, or -2/-2 for -1 CR. Thus, giving your PCs +2 attack and AC effectively reduces the monster CRs by 1, or increases the PCs effective level. A +1 weapon is an uncommon magic item, as is a +1 shield (I know armor is higher, but just go with me), and +2 would be rare. So 2 rare items would increase a PC's level by 1. We can then assign a numerical value to magic items based on their rarity: Common: 0.5 Uncommon: 1 Rare: 2 Very Rare: 3 Legendary: 4 Add up the player's magic items. Single use items, like potions and scrolls, count as 1/4th. For every 4 points a PC has, increase their effective level by 1 when determining encounter difficulty. For instance, at level 12, each PC had 8 points of magic items (each had a very rare and a rare and a smattering of other things, they were a little decked out since the campaign was based on a 3E campaign). That increased their effective level by 2. So I used the encounter level calculator line for 14th level. This little metric also served as a nice way for me to ensure I was keeping the PCs relatively balanced among each other in their magic items. It's hard not to be jealous if one player keeps having all the random magic items especially suit them. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Adjusting Difficulty
Top