Balanced encounters - yesterday vs. today

[gizmo33]

Don't rely on Internet message boards to give you a good (or even adequate) idea of what anything in the D&D3 rule books actually say. Just think about how Internet message boards screw up the facts of AD&D1 rule books.

The main source of my opinions on 3E culture is what 3E advocates themselves say about what their priorities are. If time and time again I see postings like "I won't have the whole dungeon attack the party because that's way beyond the appropriate EL", then that's not a matter of some 1E grognard bad-mouthing 3E. It's a 3E person themself telling me how they think. I'm not saying that I always react badly to considerations of balance, I'm just saying that I see those sorts of considerations in what 3E people write about the game (both on the internet and in 3rd party published material) FAR more than the other considerations (versimiltude, and it's close cousin "random chance").

Granted, if I'm going to have some retro-1E cultural experience in reading a certain section of the 3E DMG, then that's cool . But I'm wondering if my point about culture doesn't still stand because my experiences of what it seems like is important to 3E people on the internet aren't going to change. What I'm talking about is the overall effect that the 3E material has had on the way people play the game - and that to me is very much what the point of the quotes in the OP was about. It's a very difficult thing IMO to get at because one cannot just take a passage out of a particular book (either 1E or 3E) and necessarily draw a conclusion about what is important to 1E/3E gamers.

 

[gizmo33]

If anyone's getting an impression that 3E is any more geared toward compartmentalized encounters, it sounds more a function of DM laziness to me than a function of the edition.

Speaking of impressions, the impressions I get from some of the 4E design notes I've seen contradict this.

3E material could be responsible for the prevelance of compartmentalization in a number of ways. Firstly, the written material and examples given of encounters could make this implicit assumption. Most DMs probably learn to design dungeons from other published dungeons. And secondly, the complexity of the rules (and things like the power curve) can increase the difficulty of running non-compartmentalized adventures. As an extreme metaphor - if I say a spoon is a bad tool with which to dig a hole, and someone tells me I'm lazy, we're probably both right.

The 4E design notes posted on the internet imply strongly that one of the goals of the new system is to open up the game to make non-combat encounters more interesting. Rather than assume that the lack of such encounters in the game is a matter of DM laziness, they seem to recognize the role that the rules have in the way people play the game. This principle, IMO, is not edition dependant, and I think the rules and material for each edition bears some responsibility for the way that people play the game.

 

[Raven Crowking]

That's nothing new with 3E. The encounter areas barely interact in Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth and that's quite a hodge-podge of monsters introduced from the MM2.

In the 3E DMG, the subject of static vs dynamic adventure sites is brought up and, I think, it helps illustrate why encounters are often compartmentalized: they're easier to design and run.
If anyone's getting an impression that 3E is any more geared toward compartmentalized encounters, it sounds more a function of DM laziness to me than a function of the edition.

Well, I won't say that you're wrong.

I will say that the 3e and 1e advice about designing adventures is different, though, and that the 3e advice leads more to discrete encounters while the 1e advice leads to encounter areas.

I will also add that it is far easier to keep your 1e stat blocks on a few pages (sometimes on a single page) to save yourself from flipping back and forth when moving monsters from encounter area to another.

There is a difference between saying that one addition has X and another has Y, and saying that while both have X and Y, the emphasis on those factors has shifted from one edition to the other.

RC

 

[MerricB]

Hmm. In actual 3e adventures, you get quite a few encounter areas that have a note, "fighting here will alert area X" or suchlike. The idea of intelligent play of monsters is still very active. 1e briefly touches on it with some great examples in AD&D, and then some excellent examples in the adventures - but not all of them.

It should be noted that there's a great difference between adventure design where it is touched upon (very briefly) in AD&D, and how it is displayed in AD&D adventures.

I don't think AD&D has much actual advice for adventure design. Certainly it has a lot of aids for dungeon design, but that is a different beast.

Just with regard to monster levels: one great difference between 1e and 3e is how long a monster remains a credible threat. In 3e, one of my least favourite features is how AC balloons: From 16 at 1st level to 30+ at 10th level. In AD&D, a 1st level fighter may have a AC of 3, and at 10th level of... -2! Certainly there is a much lesser gap in defensive power, which makes even the lowly orc a credible threat at high levels (if in high enough numbers to withstand the fireballs, of course).

Cheers!

 

[Tarek]

Quas, my comments were based on my direct experience with the game under skilled gamemasters for both 1st and 3rd editions, and on reading many of the published modules.

Implications are never stated directly... that's why they're implications. However, I do note that in many of the WotC published adventures, particularily these latest hard-cover issues, the presentation of each encounter is set separately from the game map and from other encounters in the area. Some of them even say, outright, "This creature knows the party is coming but won't go forth and confront them even though it could (should?)."

 

[billd91]

Implications are never stated directly... that's why they're implications. However, I do note that in many of the WotC published adventures, particularily these latest hard-cover issues, the presentation of each encounter is set separately from the game map and from other encounters in the area. Some of them even say, outright, "This creature knows the party is coming but won't go forth and confront them even though it could (should?)."

Some may say that they won't go to a fight elsewhere even if they could, but that's a judgement based on the individual situation and how the designers want that particular encounter to play out.
There are plenty of other examples in which possible encounters will move about if fights break out nearby. I've got a couple of those Delve-format adventures myself and can find plenty of references to nearby encounter being triggered in other areas where PCs get into fights or linger too long.

 

[Quasqueton]

Since I had already gathered this information, I might as well put it out for view. (Hate to do work and then just let it sit unused.)

* * *

Let's look at the encounters in Slave Pits of the Undercity

. . . has been designed for six to eight characters of moderate levels (4 to 7).

The pregen tournament characters at the back are:
Characters Levels
Dwarf fighter 6
Human fighter 5
Human ranger 4
Human cleric 6
Halfling thief 5
Human magic-user 5
Human illusionist 5
Half-elf cleric/fighter 3/3
Elf fighter/magic-user 4/4

Interesting to note that there are 9 pregens for a dungeon designed for at most 8.

Now, the encounters in the the Slave Pits:
First Level
Room 3: 8 ghouls, 2 ghasts - Monster Level III says 1-4 ghouls, so this encounter is about ML IV
Room 5: 1 giant sundew - Monster Level VII says 1-4 giant sundews
Room 6: 4 orcs, 1 doppleganger - Monster Level I says 7-12 orcs, Monster Level V says 1-3 dopplegangers
Room 7: 6 orcs - Monster Level I says 7-12 orcs
Room 8: random stuff
Room 9: 1 wight - Monster Level VI says 1-4 wights
Room 10: 2 basilisks - Monster Level VI says 1 basilisk, so this encounter is about ML VII
Room 12: 23 orcs, 2 fifth-level assassins, 1 fifth/fourth-level fighter/cleric - something about ML VII?
Room 14: 4 harpies - ML IV?
Room 16: 10 orcs - ML I
Room 16a: 1 fourth-level fighter - ML ?
Room 16b: 1 orc, 1 doppleganger - ML V
Room 18: 1 sixth-level cleric, 3 third-level fighters, 1 troll, 1 fourth-level assassin - ML VI
Room 19: 10 stirges - ML II

So, on this first level of a dungeon for characters level 4-7, there are encounters:
Level I x3
Level II x1
Level III x0
Level IV x2
Level V x2
Level VI x2
Level VII x3
Some of these encounters are kind of complicated to figure the level for.

So, I found nothing on the first level (of two) in this tournament module that is overwhelming for the party level and number it was designed for. Most of the encounters are in the Monster Level IV to VII range, just like the cover says.

Quasqueton