adventure design

[punkorange]

When you guys come up with custom stuff, do you try and stick with the whole "14 encounters and you level, encounter level should be avg party level, blah blah" or do you mostly do stuff off of the top of your head?

 

[Crothian]

Neither, I plan out what I want but I ignore the 14 encounhters. I place the encounters UI think should be there and don't base them off of character level or what the other encounters are.

 

[Mark]

When you guys come up with custom stuff, do you try and stick with the whole "14 encounters and you level, encounter level should be avg party level, blah blah" or do you mostly do stuff off of the top of your head?

I think there is a misunderstanding in how this works. I DO set up adventure arcs as 14-15 encounters (or double that for larger arcs) BUT (and here is where I think the misunderstanding erupts) a level is only in the offing for players if they optimize ALL of the 14 encounters, and that rarely happens. Often little side trek adventures in between the regular arcs are necessary, or some wandering encounters on the way "back to civilization", or once back in town, can be a good way to round out the level for your group. DMs are not obligated to give out full experience for every encounter if the players haven't earned it. Sometimes dumb luck gets a group past something (maybe worth partial experience), or a wrong turn that works out in their favor helps them avoid something that they unknowingly happen to pass up (I rarely give any for such blind serendipity). I think it is important for experience points to be rooted in the gaining of actual experience.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I don't give XP by encounters in my campaign. All XP gained is a combination of story awards, roleplaying awards, problem-solving awards, and just general "You showed up, and this is roughly how fast we want the group to advance" baselines.

 

[S'mon]

I guess I aim to have PCs level up in a certain number of sessions - in my last campaign ca 2-3 sessions, so XP was about 50% over base (standard monster XP + journal/story XP & other on top), in current game 3-4 sessions so aiming for total award to be around 300/level/session. CRs are a guide as to whether monsters are likely to kill PCs, in my last game I'd run 12th level PCs through a 10th level or 14th level scenario depending on what fitted though. Generally speaking I have an environment design approach - this area is 'low level'/not so dangerous, this one mid-, this one high-. So PCs have a chance to adventure in an area of mostly suitable CRs/ELs, but of course they can always choose to seek out encounters far beyond their level if they wish. And a high-EL area may also contain lots of weak encounters but if EL is 8 or more under party level I'll typically just mention those as part of the scenery - "defeating several goblin bands, you..."

 

[a_kirby_ball]

I also don't base exp of encounters. I think the exp per session is the better way to go, it makes this more manageable and lets non-combat chars not feel so bad for saying "lets go around the goblins, guys" which often translates to 'sorry you didn't get those extra 30 exp you needed'

 

[S'mon]

I also don't base exp of encounters. I think the exp per session is the better way to go, it makes this more manageable and lets non-combat chars not feel so bad for saying "lets go around the goblins, guys" which often translates to 'sorry you didn't get those extra 30 exp you needed'

Successfully avoiding the encounter with the goblins is usually 'overcoming the challenge' and so should give XP per the standard rules. Whether it gives full XP depends on the circumstances, I wouldn't normally give more than 1/2. But you don't need to kill things to get XP in 3e, you just need to overcome challenges - hence Challenge Rating not Combat Rating. I think it's fine to eyeball this so you give more or less XP depending on what was achieved during the session (with base 300/level for a typical session), but just giving a flat per-session award would seem a little stale & boring IMO.

 

[DragonSword]

I rarely use the 14 encounters at all. My campaigns are very free, and PCs basically run into as much crap as they like, or run away from it. I introduce hooks and things that they can either pick up on, or leave alone, but other than that, I do little planning on actual adventures or encounters, besides "It'd be cool if the party was ambushed right now by...". For XP I usually just say, ok, take this much xp for that.

 

[Buttercup]

When you guys come up with custom stuff, do you try and stick with the whole "14 encounters and you level, encounter level should be avg party level, blah blah" or do you mostly do stuff off of the top of your head?

If you're asking how people award experience points, I just tell my players they've leveled when I think it's time to level. I admit this wouldn't work with all players.

If you're asking how to design encounters so you neither bore nor TPK the party, the CR information found in the MM (or other monster books) is your friend.

I tend to use a limited palatte of monsters, and just give them levels and/or templates to increase their difficulty.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I also give the PCs less than the stated XP in the DMG for encounters they defeat, although unlike some of the other DMs, I never give them more than half. This is partly because the PCs are very good at taking care of difficult encounters, so if I did give full XP, they would level up once every few battles (for instance, if they fought a group of equally-levelled NPCs 4 times, in my opinion the most interesting sort of battle, they would all get more than enough XP to reach the next level if nothing is done about this, and since NPCs generally have half the magic gear of PCs, the PCs have a strong edge in a fight against equally-levelled NPCs), if they were working at it. As it is, they still level up in fewer than 14 or 15 battles , although that may be because there are relatively few battles lately, broken up by exploration and exposition.