D&D 5E Combat Encounter Difficulty

[DMCF]

By all means keep the Yochlol. If it looks like the company is having a great time and in good health then by all means up the ante. Your post is about the perception of the combat calculation being completely screwed up. My experience tells me that you're using it wrong. That doesn't make you a bad DM. People argue about 1 line sentences and here we're talking about numerous rules and tables. Everyone posting in here is working towards a best understanding of the calculation.

The Yochlol stayed around but it appears the last round the summoner is alive. Why perceive the calculation as if Yochlol was there from the beginning? The description of events fits a multi-part encounter. Additionally, One elite fled and one is alive. The remaining elite's CR is half the Yochlol's. Depending on the remaining elite's condition I would likely not include a multiplier. Therefore this part of the encounter is "hard".

A champion was taken out during the deadly portion. You had an option to kill the player but didn't. They owe you a smoothie.

A monk was hurt to the point of retreat during the hard portion.

Success. Well done. The encounter aligns with the calculation guidelines.

Next time it may not. There is a caveat in the PHB remember? Also: Nothing takes into a count the nearly infinite combinations of map layouts that people come up with.

I once placed a Blue Dragon (human form) at the end of a tunnel where the space widened out to an excavation area. The party attacked and the human morphed. Most of the casters stayed in the middle of the tunnel. They all hid behind each other (perfect line) and then got cooked. This was a medium encounter because I had 7 players (multiplier). It was the third week in a row they lined up and my monster launched a lightning bolt at them.

I guess could blame the wizards and warlocks for not running in to the room with the dragon...oh wait. I eventually realized that I had better give the group a little more space when working with lightning hurling NPCs in "medium" encounters because I was effectively maximizing AoE. Initiative alone might fry the whole party plus all it took was one loose cannon to get the other 6 guys into a fight with a dragon.

 

[DMCF]

I also have a game using LoS rules in roll20 where I mapped every wall, column, sconce etc.

Let me tell you. When each players has an individual LoS and the light-vision rules are strictly enforced, it is a very different game. If you're using this ruleset remember to make your dungeon crawls full of easy fights. Many of them will quickly turn hard/deadly as "splitting the party" means a 10' step around the corner.

 

[Endur]

NPCs generally do not get death saves. Monsters practically never get death saves.

The PHB notes that this depends on the GM. All my NPCs and monsters get death saves.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Isn't the issue here that there are 5 PCs at level 5 and 3 NPCs at level 4 using PC character generation rules? By definition doesn't that throw DMG guidelines out the window? I'm not critiquing the OP, I'm just making an observation.

 

[Celtavian]

By all means keep the Yochlol. If it looks like the company is having a great time and in good health then by all means up the ante. Your post is about the perception of the combat calculation being completely screwed up. My experience tells me that you're using it wrong. That doesn't make you a bad DM. People argue about 1 line sentences and here we're talking about numerous rules and tables. Everyone posting in here is working towards a best understanding of the calculation.

The Yochlol stayed around but it appears the last round the summoner is alive. Why perceive the calculation as if Yochlol was there from the beginning? The description of events fits a multi-part encounter. Additionally, One elite fled and one is alive. The remaining elite's CR is half the Yochlol's. Depending on the remaining elite's condition I would likely not include a multiplier. Therefore this part of the encounter is "hard".

A champion was taken out during the deadly portion. You had an option to kill the player but didn't. They owe you a smoothie.

A monk was hurt to the point of retreat during the hard portion.

Success. Well done. The encounter aligns with the calculation guidelines.

Next time it may not. There is a caveat in the PHB remember? Also: Nothing takes into a count the nearly infinite combinations of map layouts that people come up with.

I once placed a Blue Dragon (human form) at the end of a tunnel where the space widened out to an excavation area. The party attacked and the human morphed. Most of the casters stayed in the middle of the tunnel. They all hid behind each other (perfect line) and then got cooked. This was a medium encounter because I had 7 players (multiplier). It was the third week in a row they lined up and my monster launched a lightning bolt at them.

I guess could blame the wizards and warlocks for not running in to the room with the dragon...oh wait. I eventually realized that I had better give the group a little more space when working with lightning hurling NPCs in "medium" encounters because I was effectively maximizing AoE. Initiative alone might fry the whole party plus all it took was one loose cannon to get the other 6 guys into a fight with a dragon.

The Champion was an NPC cohort. From Capn's description, none of the PCs were even close to death. It sounds more like a medium encounter.

 

[Celtavian]

I threw out the encounter creation guidelines early on. I create what I think will challenge the party using my calculations always assuming my players will get a few lucky rolls with six players rolling. I'm creating a bunch of monsters I feel better challenge the party. I also feel the CR calculation was never intended for characters using feats and magic items, which I'm not sure if your party is using. If they are, that throws the CR guidelines way off. Magic items create real problems with Bounded Accuracy. Certain feats provide enhancements that were not taken into account when calculating CR. The encounter guidelines may be useful for those that play the game without any character customization options.

 

[Prism]

The encounter guidelines are certainly thrown when you use feats, magic items, rolled stats or larger parties. However the party composition can have a large effect on it too. Looking at this particular party it seems on the face of it to be very combat focused and less focused on exploration and interaction. For example the two players who took fighters rather than rangers seems to have made their decision based primarily on combat ability. Fighters are certainly more effective in combat but rangers are typically much more effective in the exploration pillar (we have a ranger in one of our campaigns who is invaluable). The assassin rogue is the strongest in combat of the rogue archtypes and the fiend pact is the most combat focused warlock. The shadow monk is an exception to this I would say being more exploration and stealth focused. I dare say a party with a bard, ranger and great old one warlock would be less effective in combat.

Also, in my experience DMs tend to play slightly less optimally in combat then players. Players often focus fire whereas the monsters do so too but not always to the same extent. Its rare to see every single monster attack the same character in a single round. Its not fun when your character is killed in the first round so this kind of optimal monster play is usually avoided. Players think nothing of using such tactics though.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I threw out the encounter creation guidelines early on. I create what I think will challenge the party using my calculations always assuming my players will get a few lucky rolls with six players rolling. I've creating a bunch of monsters I feel better challenge the party. I also feel the CR calculation was never intended for characters using feats and magic items, which I'm not sure if your part is using. If they are, that throws the CR guidelines way off. Magic items create real problems with Bounded Accuracy. Certain feats provide enhancements that were not taken into account when calculating CR. The encounter guidelines may be useful for those that play the game without any character customization options.

I think this has a lot of truth to it. I'd be curious if you were to run the same exact encounter using only the four Basic Game classes (and their available abilities) for the seven PC/NPCs how things would shake out? Because I suspect the more "stuff" a DM makes available for PCs (whether it be additional classes, additional subclasses, feats, multiclassing, magic items etc.) the more power they actually have compared to the basic version of the game-- the version that might actually be more in line with the encounter creation guidelines and how those guidelines were designed to assist very new players using the most basic ruleset.

The few times I ever used the encounter creation guidelines, I came to one major conclusion... which was to not use the XP-multiplier for large groups of enemies UNLESS they had Pack Tactics. Having that ability available to most (or all) of the enemies was the only time when having many of them actually really raised the difficulty substantially to be worth the XP multiplier for calculations in my estimation. A group of kobolds double the size of the party could team up in pairs and attack every single PC, causing many of them to be knocked out-- and heaven forbid they all gang up on one PC they've cornered. But for other enemies without Pack Tactics... I don't think the multiplier really needed to come into play for calculations until there had been at least twice as many enemies as there were PCs, especially ones that were tricked out with all the "stuff" PCs can get from the PH.

But it's really for this reason that I just stopped using the encounter building guidelines. After a while they just seemed unnecessary because I had a good enough handle on what my party could do (based on how often they reset after Long Rests) to determine what I could throw at them randomly. (Making the plain the fact though that I'm admittedly also one of those horrible "fudging" DMs who will adjust things mid-fight if I've made a terrible mistake in my estimations. ).

 

[Fanaelialae]

The Champion was an NPC cohort. From Capn's description, none of the PCs were even close to death. It sounds more like a medium encounter.

The Champion was a party member. Whether he was a PC or NPC is irrelevant. Also, the party Monk was injured to the point where he withdrew (most likely one hit away from unconscious). If the rule is "NPCs don't count", then the DM ought to ignore the NPCs and focus fire on the PCs.

Remember that the DMG merely says that a deadly encounter could be deadly for one or more characters. The Champion went down and the Monk almost did. Had the enemy wanted to finish them off (hardly out of the question for drow) they could have likely killed one or two party members. Which falls under the definition of a deadly encounter.

I threw out the encounter creation guidelines early on. I create what I think will challenge the party using my calculations always assuming my players will get a few lucky rolls with six players rolling. I've creating a bunch of monsters I feel better challenge the party. I also feel the CR calculation was never intended for characters using feats and magic items, which I'm not sure if your part is using. If they are, that throws the CR guidelines way off. Magic items create real problems with Bounded Accuracy. Certain feats provide enhancements that were not taken into account when calculating CR. The encounter guidelines may be useful for those that play the game without any character customization options.

Magic items most definitely fall into the category of things not factored into encounter difficulty. I recall someone (probably Mearls) discussing how they could either go the 3rd edition route, and require magic items, or magic items could be treated as a reward that flat out made your character more powerful, ala AD&D. They went with the latter.

As for feats, that's an optimization issue. I seriously doubt that Alertness or Keen Mind is going to skew encounter difficulty calculations by any real measure. On the other hand, if the party is filled with GWF/SS users and always casts Bless, then yeah, that might skew the difficulty. The encounter guidelines are calibrated to a certain degree of optimization, and it doesn't seem to be hyper-optimized party from my perspective. Which is arguably fine, since from what I've hear Pathfinder already does that well.

In my estimation the assumed party optimization is a group who make strong characters, but don't really make any effort to achieve party-level synergy. If the party accumulates a significant horde of magic (particularly if those items have synergy with the party) you'll need to make encounters tougher to compensate.

 

[DMCF]

The Champion was an NPC cohort. From Capn's description, none of the PCs were even close to death. It sounds more like a medium encounter.

1 party member was taken out and was not killed by the GM's choice. Another party member had to retreat. Page 82 of the DMG regarding deadly encounters states:

"A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat."

Nowhere in there do I read:

"The party which is now ravaged by necrotic thunderstorms & corrosive fireballs limps off the battlefield."

It is also important to remember the caveat added by the authors under the difficulty table. In the first example class make up can affect the difficulty of the encounter. In the second example it is the NPC abilities that make some encounters more difficult than others.

I can only surmise the authors did this because 5e is more accessible. Adhering to the table prevents DM's still inexperienced with the system and/or NPC nuances from setting up unintended TPKs. The complaint that I'm seeing that there is no "chance of TPK" tier. I think that is a valid complaint for some. Personally I believe that if this was deliberate that they made the right choice.