Balancing double-encounters?

[Otterscrubber]

I like having back to back encounters, its good for pacing an epic fight.

What I don't like is PCs running out of encounter & Dailies and having no options aside from spamming At-Wills.

Most recently I just gave everyone back their encounters at the halfwaypoint, along with a free surge for anyone bloodied.

Worked fine and the PCs took down the pair Lvl+2 with just a little bit of difficulty.

Our DM did pretty much the same thing, minus the recovery of second wind in our last adventure. We had never run 2 fights in a row and it got a little ugly. He is not a very forgiving DM so when he told us we get to have our encounters back we knew we were in for trouble

 

[Katana_Geldar]

Why not having one overall initiative order? Should be easier without any drawback, I guess.

Because, the two encounters started at different times. One was meant to be combat, one became that way when one of the players rolled a 1.

 

[DracoSuave]

That would make them seperate encounters then, and so would be handled as such, with the short rest in between.

That said, having 2 waves of 1000 xps worth of monsters is actually less dangerous to the party than 1 wave of 2000 xp worth of monsters.

 

[Jack99]

That said, having 2 waves of 1000 xps worth of monsters is actually less dangerous to the party than 1 wave of 2000 xp worth of monsters.

Which is what I said in the OP - However, how much less dangerous are the two waves. Obviously more than 1000 xp, but less than 2000 xp. Are we talking 1500? 1750? 1900?

That's what I wanted to know if anyone had some thoughts on.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Which is what I said in the OP - However, how much less dangerous are the two waves. Obviously more than 1000 xp, but less than 2000 xp. Are we talking 1500? 1750? 1900?

That's what I wanted to know if anyone had some thoughts on.

No. It would be more than 2000 xp. It cannot be less than 2000 xp.

If the first one is 1000 xp and the second one, given a short rest, is also 1000 xp, then having the second one without a short rest MUST be >= 1000 xp.

So, the assumption shouldn't be trying to gauge the lessened difficulty of back-to-back 1000 xp fights (with respect to a 2000 xp fight), but whether a single 2000 xp fight is even an accurate baseline. It's not.

So, instead gauge the first fight at 1000 xp and then increase the second one (virtually) based on how many resources the party lost or you expect them to lose in the first fight. Did they spend one third of their surge capability? If yes, then clearly the second fight difficulty will be greater than the expected normality of 1000 xp.

 

[Mengu]

No. It would be more than 2000 xp. It cannot be less than 2000 xp.

If the first one is 1000 xp and the second one, given a short rest, is also 1000 xp, then having the second one without a short rest MUST be >= 1000 xp.

I'm getting weirded out here because both sides of the argument seem true. If you have a 2000 xp encounter, fighting a bunch of creatures at the same time, and then you decide to send half of them in first, and half of them 6 rounds later, that MUST be <=2000 xp since they are not being fought at the same time.

I think this sort of scaling is hold over mentality from 3.x. The xp budgets are clearly an approximation already. Terrain, monster synergy, current PC condition, and the rock paper scissors aspect of certain PC roles vs monster roles can all vary the difficulty of an encounter. DM experience should essentially tell you what your group can and can't handle, and will have fun with. Other than that, the numbers don't really matter too much, as long as we don't deviate too far from the "average encounter" guidelines.

 

[Fanaelialae]

The xp of the encounters never changes. You either have two encounters individually worth 1000 xp (for a total for 2000 xp) or a single 2000 xp encounter.

It's only the level of those encounters that change based on how you establish them. You might have two individual encounters with a short rest in between, at level +0. Alternately, you could combine those encounters for a level +4 encounter. Finally, you could use the second encounter as a second wave near the end of the first encounter, which I would estimate at around level +2 (assuming no other special factors that might need to be taken into consideration, like surge draining creatures).

 

[Nichwee]

I'm getting weirded out here because both sides of the argument seem true. If you have a 2000 xp encounter, fighting a bunch of creatures at the same time, and then you decide to send half of them in first, and half of them 6 rounds later, that MUST be <=2000 xp since they are not being fought at the same time.

I think this sort of scaling is hold over mentality from 3.x. The xp budgets are clearly an approximation already. Terrain, monster synergy, current PC condition, and the rock paper scissors aspect of certain PC roles vs monster roles can all vary the difficulty of an encounter. DM experience should essentially tell you what your group can and can't handle, and will have fun with. Other than that, the numbers don't really matter too much, as long as we don't deviate too far from the "average encounter" guidelines.

Imo it would be 2000+XP.
If they were two sperate 1000XP encounters they would = 2000XP so with less recovery time they should be at least 2000XP (as I2K said).

The counter arguement is also valid - they = 2000XP but you don't have to handle them all at once - but it doesn't take into account that the 2000XP encounter would be a Level +X+Y, while the other way is 2 Level +X.

Two lower encounters don't use up the "encounter resources" the DM has as much as a single high level encounter does (as the DMG has guides on how many high level encounters should happen).

Also as the players don't get to know they are doing a 2000XP encounter in one go they will do things like use encounter abilities more carefreely (this is basically a "Terrain" advantage for the DM - as he/she knows that the rest isn't as nigh as it seems, it is basically a trap to spring on the players).

Also when dealing with a 2000XP encounter the players have more things to hit with AoE/minion popper abilities, as well as knowing to sustain dailies if they will remain useful - but if the DM gives the players a minutes rest they "drop the dailies" as end of enounter has happened, and they want to rest, but then wish they had known to keep them running.
A 1 minute fight, 1 minute rest, 1 minute fight is much tougher than a 2 minute fight is if any "Until end of encounter"/"Sustain" effects get used.

 

[Jack99]

First of all, thanks all for the feedback so far.

No. It would be more than 2000 xp. It cannot be less than 2000 xp.

If the first one is 1000 xp and the second one, *given a short rest*, is also 1000 xp, then having the second one without a short rest _MUST_ be >= 1000 xp.

So, the assumption shouldn't be trying to gauge the lessened difficulty of back-to-back 1000 xp fights (with respect to a 2000 xp fight), but whether a single 2000 xp fight is even an accurate baseline. It's not.

So, instead gauge the first fight at 1000 xp and then increase the second one (virtually) based on how many resources the party lost or you expect them to lose in the first fight. Did they spend one third of their surge capability? If yes, then clearly the second fight difficulty will be greater than the expected normality of 1000 xp.

I see your point, and you are not wrong. We are however not looking at the encounter as two separate encounters, but instead as a whole. In which case, the total has to be less dangerous than 2000 xp.

An example, with the 2000 xp that we have been using so far.
The party (5 players) will, depending on how they act, face 1 or 2 encounters during the adventure (these are just examples, and not encounters from my campaign).
Option 1: they will face 5 gnaw demons (level 5 skirmishers, 1000 xp total) and then, seconds after the last demon is killed, they will be attacked by 5 wights (also level 5 skirmishers, 1000 xp total). The total xp for those two encounters is 2000 xp.
Option 2: They face 5 gnaw demons and 5 wights at the same time. That encounter is worth 2000 xp as well.
However, and I hope we all can agree on this, option 2 is potentially much more dangerous than option 1.
Now, I realize there has been some confusing because we have been using terms like xp in another way than is RAW.

So, let me ask in another way, that might make what I am looking for more clear:
Option 2 yields 2000 xp according to the DMG. If we instead of giving xp based on a monster’s worth (as per the MM), but instead give xp based on how hard the encounter is, while maintaining that option 2 is still worth 2000 xp, how much is option 1 worth?

 

[Infiniti2000]

I see your point, and you are not wrong. We are however not looking at the encounter as two separate encounters, but instead as a whole. In which case, the total has to be less dangerous than 2000 xp.

This is where I'm saying your assumption might be flawed. I'm alluding that the calculation of the difficulty of an encounter gets far less precise the further away from N we get. So, if a level N encounter (1000xp) is an accurate estimate (this is our baseline), then a level N+4 encounter (2000xp) is not so accurate in terms of XP, which is our gauge for difficulty. I'd say that a level N+4 encounter probably plays out, in terms of difficult, as about another +25% (at least, depending on strategic options because the more bad guys you have the more chances you'll have to execute nasty strategy and the more often you can do it, e.g as simple as always flanking).

So, my off-the-cuff guess is that back-to-back encounters of level N difficulty without a short rest are probably +20% harder for the second one. This goes up exponentially (so a third encounter is probably about +50-60% tougher). Also, a level N encounter following a level N+1 encounter is probably more like +30-40% tougher because it's more likely you'll expend resources in the first encounter. A level N+1 encounter following a level N encounter is still only +20% harder, but that's (N+1) * 1.3.

I think trying to equate it into one giant encounter is a red herring and will lead to inaccurate analysis. More inaccurate than allowing a short rest.