Balanced encounters - yesterday vs. today

[Glyfair]

[Sblock]Yes, but it is a balrog ghost, and not a combat encounter: it just asks for the characters' coats and hats, and if attacked, it leaves indignantly through the wall. Full writeup:
A1 50' X 70' X 40' H Butler Bertalan, Balrog Ghost, politely asks to take wraps - indignantly leaves through wall if refused. Three mouldering corpses by outside door.
Now the text doesn't state Bertalan will not counterattack; however, the fact that no HTK (hits to kill) are listed points towards an interpretation that the designers were thinking along my lines.[/sblock]

Yeah, but the PCs don't know that

 

[Shadeydm]

The vast majority of AD&D adventures were designed for a party of six to eight characters not todays standard of four.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The OP pointed out that people often promote AD&D as having no advice or focus on encounter balance. And this simply isn't true. Period.

I agree. I've never seen anyone promote AD&D as having no advice on encounter balance, but rather a different type of balance than the "good adventure design" in the 3.X DMG promotes. "People often promote AD&D as having no advice or focus on encounter balance" simply isn't true.

 

[Raven Crowking]

It reads like you are suggesting I've changed the rules of evidence. Is that what you are saying?

No, I am saying that your examination for encounter balance, and what level of PCs could reasonably end up facing what monsters was not up to your usual standard. If you missed that a party of 1st level PCs could easily end up facing a minotaur, and owlbear, and three grey oozes in short succession, then your analysis in this case is flawed.

IMHO, anyway.

RC

 

[Quasqueton]

Could someone point me to where in the AD&D DMG, it defines what a balanced encounter is?

There is no exact notation in the AD&D1 DMG on what a balanced encounter is, to my knowledge. There is advice on balanced games and dungeons, and looking at the charts we can see how that would break down into an encounter.

AD&D promoted the concept that the DM should provide a "balanced" campaign (that is, not a killer game, nor a Monty Haul game)

Yes.

but then left it up to the DM as to how that was achieved.

Mostly, yes. There are guidelines/hints in the form of the charts for random dungeon generation. The Fiend Folio and Monster Manual II expand these charts. This is all an unfortunate, and poorly executed way of telling/helping DMs create balanced encounters.

When I go back and read some of my old Dragon magazines, I find the designers (EGG, Mentzer, etc.) warning DMs not to screw up game balance by fiddling too much with the RAW. Gygax also gives this warning in the DMG. Unfortunately, I only find these articles and paragraphs later, after these kinds of threads.

In Dragon #101, September 1985, Frank Mentzer has an charticle titled, "Plan it by the numbers, a system for tailoring challenges to the characters". In this he charts out, in detail, how to judge the challenge level of an encounter compared to the party of PCs. One small table in the article looks eerily similar to the chart in the D&D3 DMG.

Let's look at the encounters in The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.

This module was designed for six to eight characters of 6th-8th level, although it can be challenging for characters as high as 10th level. However, if more than four 9th-10th level characters are used, monster encounters will have to be strengthened to balance the party's strength.

It should be noted, though, that the cover of the module says, "An adventure for character levels 6-10."

The original tournament scenario of this module had six characters:
Characters Levels
Half-elven fighter/magic-user/thief 4/4/5
Elven fighter/magic-user 4/9
Halfling thief 9
Human fighter 8
Human cleric 7
Dwarf fighter 6

Now, the encounters in the Lost Caverns:
First Level
Room 2: 20 stirges - Monster Level II says 5-15 stirges
Room 3: 1 clay golem - Monster Level VIII says 1 clay golem
Room 4: 8 mobats - Monster Level III says 1-8 mobats
Room 5: 1 lurker above - Monster Level VII says 1 lurker above
Room 6: 7 pech - Monster Level IV says 5-20 pechs
Room 7: 5 giant cave crickets - Monster Level I says 1-8 giant cave crickets
Room 8: 6 green slime - Monster Level VI says --- green slimes (?? what does "---" mean on the chart?)
Room 9: 4 trolls - Monster Level VI says 1-3 trolls
Room 10: 1,000 normal bats - Monster Level I says 10-100 normal bats - this is kind of a weird encounter - more of an environment than monster
Room 11: 16 cave morays - Monster Level III says 4-16 cave morays
Room 12: 2 formorian giants - Monster Level VII says 1-4 formorian giants
Roomo 14: 6 piercers - Monster Level II says 1-4 piercers
Room 14: giant snapping turtle - Monster Level ?? - can't find this (is 10 HD)
-- Geez, this is getting much longer than I expected -- nearly *every* room has a monster encounter.
Room 15: 2 cockatrices - Monster Level V says 1-2 cockatrices
Room 16: gorgimera - Monster Level VII says 1 gorgimera
Room 18: 4 dao - Monster Level VIII says 1 (10% chance of 2-5)
Room 20: 6 lacedon-ghasts - Monster Level IV says 1-4 ghasts
Room 21: 3 xorn - Monster Level VII says 1-3 xorn
Room 22: 1 marid - Monster Level IX says 1 marid (Note: this is not a combat encounter, it can be a non-encounter [the marid is in an enchanged sleep] or can help the PCs [if they dispel the magic and ask for aid])
I might do the second level of the dungeon at a later time.

So, on this first level of a dungeon for characters level 6-8/10, there are encounters:
Level I x1
Level II x2
Level III x2
Level IV x2
Level V x5
Level VI x1
Level VII x4
Level VIII x2
Some of these encounters are at the upper end of their numbers, but still, that's how the level system was designed.

Quasqueton

 

[Raven Crowking]

So, on this first level of a dungeon for characters level 6-8/10, there are encounters:
Level I x1
Level II x2
Level III x2
Level IV x2
Level V x5
Level VI x1
Level VII x4
Level VIII x2
Some of these encounters are at the upper end of their numbers, but still, that's how the level system was designed.

If Monster Level mapped to character level as CR does in 3.X, then your analysis would be spot-on. However, it does not. A level 1 party meeting a ML I monster doesn't necessarily need to use 1/4 of its resources; it might not even need to use any. Or there might be a fatality. The level 6 party that assumed it could "take" any ML VI monster it met had a short career indeed.

As you say, "that's how the level system was designed"....and it was not designed to hold your hand.


RC


EDIT: BTW, you can always determine ML by checking XP Value and then indexing it on the ML chart in the DMG....so you shouldn't have any difficulty with the giant snapping turtle.

 

[gizmo33]

Because this thread doesn't exist in a vacuum. MANY other threads exist on the topic. Possibly hundreds. I urge you to seek them out.

Why? So I can stop being able to comprehend what people write? Why take a bunch of statements that don't mean what you say they do and then claim they mean that because some other post somewhere says what you think they mean? Either quote the relevant part of that person's thread, or don't quote them at all. It's misleading, and probably erroneous, to attribute an opinion to someone's post that doesn't make it.

And that's par for the course with the edition wars, because I've often had the feeling when explaining things to either side that I was arguing with someone that wasn't listening to me, but instead was rehashing an argument that they had with someone else.

The cited sentiment has been expressed ad nauseum at these forums and elsewhere. Often in the context of the hyperbolic "3x sucks because it requires balanced encounters and AD&D never had rules for this!"

Then, you can either find a post that actually says that. Or you can say "I've seen something like the following: " and would like to talk about it. But quoting four people at random that aren't saying that and claiming that it's what they mean makes no sense to me.

No. I'm talking about the list of monsters indexed by level in the MM2 (I think it's MM2, anyhow, memory fails me at the moment. That said, I know that they do exist). It's not a wandering monster table.

Well, I've never seen a "monster by level" chart anywhere in 1E. And I mean LEVEL. Now if you mean dungeon level then both the DMG and MM2 have those charts, but neither is intended to include all monsters. The MM2 went with a format that dispensed with the dice rolls and just listed the monsters, but it was the same basic thing as what was in the DMG.

And there's also a question of how to translate character level to dungeon level. I have a hard time believing, as my Tiamat example illustrates, that Level X meant what CR 10 means in 3E. Of course it doesn't mean the level of the dungeon either because there's a seperate chart that maps the chart level with a dungeon level.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I have a hard time believing, as my Tiamat example illustrates, that Level X meant what CR 10 means in 3E.

To my recollection, if you read the text in question, it is explicit that the term "level" is used in several ways in the game, and that these ways should not be taken to mean the same thing.

RC

 

[gizmo33]

To my recollection, if you read the text in question, it is explicit that the term "level" is used in several ways in the game, and that these ways should not be taken to mean the same thing.

Well yea, that's what I was saying too. But what does "level" mean at the top of those charts? It doesn't mean dungeon level, because that's already covered in a translation chart on the facing page. It doesn't mean character level AFAICT because not only Tiamat, but the Arch-Devils and Demon Princes also show up on the Level X chart.

So the kind of level it means isn't clear to me. Furthermore, it's only dungeon monsters that are listed on these tables. Basic conclusion (that I think we agree on): it is an extreme stretch to the point of being false to say that "1E had the same thing as 3E as far as CR/EL rules".

 

[Raven Crowking]

Basic conclusion (that I think we agree on): it is an extreme stretch to the point of being false to say that "1E had the same thing as 3E as far as CR/EL rules".

I would certainly agree with that!

My comment was meant to support your position.