jgsugden
Legend
My rules of design:
1.) PCs should not feel like their life is in jeopardy in every combat once they get a few levels under their belt. They're heroes. They should feel competent and capable.
2.) Every combat has to have a risk of failure. This does not mean a reasonable risk of death. It means that they can fail to achieve a goal. There are a lot of ways for a PC to risk failure that do not involve death. The enemy might get away, kill an ally, steal something, destroy something, raise an alarm, finish a ritual, etc...
3.) The risk of failure has to be real. If the DM bails the PCs out, then there are no real stakes here. If the DM is anything other than as unbiased of an arbiter as they can be, then the PCs are not really playing the game - they're just there to observe the story the DM is laying out. As a DM, my rule is that once I add something to my world it is 'real' and not subject to revision - even if the PCs have not encountered it, yet.
4.) Death is OK. TPK is also OK. When a PC dies - and does not come back - it gives the PC an end to their party of their story. The story can live on with the rest of the group experiencing the ramifications of it. That can also be a cool experience. It reinforces that the heroes of the story have a real meaning.
From a practical perspective, I typically place 10 to 18 encounters per character level and they follow a bell curve of threat:
A couple easy and a couple very deadly.
A few (2 to 4) medium and a few (2 to 4) deadly.
Several (3 to 6) hard challenges.
The easier the challenge, the more it is about the PCs doing something within the combat and the less it is about them surviving the fight.
When designing the encounters, I try to have a variety of sizes and configurations for enemy forces. I also try to make sure there is at least one interesting thing about each environment in which the PCs are fighting.
Throw all that together, practice it a bit, and you get a pretty solid foundation for good storytelling and interesting encounters.
1.) PCs should not feel like their life is in jeopardy in every combat once they get a few levels under their belt. They're heroes. They should feel competent and capable.
2.) Every combat has to have a risk of failure. This does not mean a reasonable risk of death. It means that they can fail to achieve a goal. There are a lot of ways for a PC to risk failure that do not involve death. The enemy might get away, kill an ally, steal something, destroy something, raise an alarm, finish a ritual, etc...
3.) The risk of failure has to be real. If the DM bails the PCs out, then there are no real stakes here. If the DM is anything other than as unbiased of an arbiter as they can be, then the PCs are not really playing the game - they're just there to observe the story the DM is laying out. As a DM, my rule is that once I add something to my world it is 'real' and not subject to revision - even if the PCs have not encountered it, yet.
4.) Death is OK. TPK is also OK. When a PC dies - and does not come back - it gives the PC an end to their party of their story. The story can live on with the rest of the group experiencing the ramifications of it. That can also be a cool experience. It reinforces that the heroes of the story have a real meaning.
From a practical perspective, I typically place 10 to 18 encounters per character level and they follow a bell curve of threat:
A couple easy and a couple very deadly.
A few (2 to 4) medium and a few (2 to 4) deadly.
Several (3 to 6) hard challenges.
The easier the challenge, the more it is about the PCs doing something within the combat and the less it is about them surviving the fight.
When designing the encounters, I try to have a variety of sizes and configurations for enemy forces. I also try to make sure there is at least one interesting thing about each environment in which the PCs are fighting.
Throw all that together, practice it a bit, and you get a pretty solid foundation for good storytelling and interesting encounters.
