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Combat Encounter Difficulty
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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 6812447" data-attributes="member: 7006"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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 <strong>Pack Tactics</strong>. 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.</p><p></p><p>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. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> ).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 6812447, member: 7006"] 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 [b]Pack Tactics[/b]. 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. ;) ). [/QUOTE]
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