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<blockquote data-quote="Illithidbix" data-source="post: 6816657" data-attributes="member: 12283"><p>This.</p><p></p><p>A few points that I feel are relevant whenever "THE ENCOUNTER BUILDER is RUSELESS ALEX BALDWIN!" debate turns up.</p><p></p><p><strong>1)The actual DMG definitions of what “Weak”, “Medium”, “Hard” and esp. “Deadly” means might not be immediately what DMs assume.</strong></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Deadly is "risk of death" rather than "risk of TPK".</p><p></p><p><strong>2)The players are expected to win.</strong></p><p>Sometimes easy to forget, but the Encounter Builder is designed to give defeatable challenges. Perhaps with more emphasis on "defeatable" than "challenge..."</p><p></p><p><strong>3)The Encounter Builder system seems mostly for newbie DMs to not accidentally TPK their similarly newbie players.</strong></p><p></p><p>If the players are experienced and knowledgeable about the rules and use this, then they'll punch above their weight. I presume most of the people who post on Enworld aren't their target audience in terms of experience.</p><p></p><p><strong>There is no set Wealth/Treasure/Magic Item guide that is assumed by the game or the Encounter Builder.</strong></p><p>Any amount of magic items put the party above the curve.</p><p>(I am still a little unsure if this remains the case with assuming the parties fighty types have access to magic weapons.</p><p>As a very rough guideline at 6th level Monks get Ki-Empowered Strikes and Moon Druids get Primal Strikes, and also looking at the monster builder in the DMG.... I'll start a separate thread about this)</p><p></p><p><strong>It is also part of the “Standard Adventuring Day” that assumes more encounters than players often encounter</strong></p><p></p><p> In my experience DMing, I don't think I ever threw my players up against a full adventuring day. So naturally they could go Nova and throw lots more resources into the fights.</p><p>(Personally I can't see how a 1st-3rd level party could handle that many encounters myself, which I think is a far bigger problem.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Encounter builder assumes 3-5 adventurers for the Encounter Multiplier.</strong></p><p>From what I can tell the NPCs are effectively PCs for purposes of combat contribution, so it becomes an 8 player party.</p><p></p><p></p><p>So, my calculations for XP thresholds for Encounter difficulty for a party of 5 level five characters and 3 level four “cohort NPCs” = </p><p>Easy: 1625 [250x5 + 125x3]</p><p>Medium:3250 [500x5 + 250 x3]</p><p>Hard: 4875 [750x5 + 375x3]</p><p>Deadly: 7000 [1100 x 5 + 3x500]</p><p>AND it's an 8 person party so uses the next lowest multiplier on the table.</p><p></p><p>As BoldItalic notes:</p><p></p><p></p><p>If you don't count the Drow, AND factor in the fact the player is 8 person large then the x2 multiplier gets reduced twice to x1, so it becomes 8350.</p><p>I'm less sure if the Drow are technically irrelevant for the multiplier, but I can see a strong argument that they are at this point.</p><p></p><p>Were there any other Encounters in that “adventuring day?” </p><p>Did they have any encounters they needed to use their daily resources on?</p><p></p><p>Otherwise, yes the Encounter Builder is a very rough guideline that you can probably get by with guesstimating beyond a certain point.</p><p>I personally wonder if the “Easy” “Average” “Hard” “Deadly” grading tries to provide more granularity than it can be expected to handle. </p><p>I think 4E's fixed “Target Encounter XP” for a party at a set level was a more reliable system because it tried to do less.</p><p></p><p>I personally have had to compensate for the fact that I almost never have a standard adventuring day of six-eight encounters.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Illithidbix, post: 6816657, member: 12283"] This. A few points that I feel are relevant whenever "THE ENCOUNTER BUILDER is RUSELESS ALEX BALDWIN!" debate turns up. [b]1)The actual DMG definitions of what “Weak”, “Medium”, “Hard” and esp. “Deadly” means might not be immediately what DMs assume.[/b] Deadly is "risk of death" rather than "risk of TPK". [b]2)The players are expected to win.[/b] Sometimes easy to forget, but the Encounter Builder is designed to give defeatable challenges. Perhaps with more emphasis on "defeatable" than "challenge..." [b]3)The Encounter Builder system seems mostly for newbie DMs to not accidentally TPK their similarly newbie players.[/b] If the players are experienced and knowledgeable about the rules and use this, then they'll punch above their weight. I presume most of the people who post on Enworld aren't their target audience in terms of experience. [b]There is no set Wealth/Treasure/Magic Item guide that is assumed by the game or the Encounter Builder.[/b] Any amount of magic items put the party above the curve. (I am still a little unsure if this remains the case with assuming the parties fighty types have access to magic weapons. As a very rough guideline at 6th level Monks get Ki-Empowered Strikes and Moon Druids get Primal Strikes, and also looking at the monster builder in the DMG.... I'll start a separate thread about this) [b]It is also part of the “Standard Adventuring Day” that assumes more encounters than players often encounter[/b] In my experience DMing, I don't think I ever threw my players up against a full adventuring day. So naturally they could go Nova and throw lots more resources into the fights. (Personally I can't see how a 1st-3rd level party could handle that many encounters myself, which I think is a far bigger problem. [b]The Encounter builder assumes 3-5 adventurers for the Encounter Multiplier.[/b] From what I can tell the NPCs are effectively PCs for purposes of combat contribution, so it becomes an 8 player party. So, my calculations for XP thresholds for Encounter difficulty for a party of 5 level five characters and 3 level four “cohort NPCs” = Easy: 1625 [250x5 + 125x3] Medium:3250 [500x5 + 250 x3] Hard: 4875 [750x5 + 375x3] Deadly: 7000 [1100 x 5 + 3x500] AND it's an 8 person party so uses the next lowest multiplier on the table. As BoldItalic notes: If you don't count the Drow, AND factor in the fact the player is 8 person large then the x2 multiplier gets reduced twice to x1, so it becomes 8350. I'm less sure if the Drow are technically irrelevant for the multiplier, but I can see a strong argument that they are at this point. Were there any other Encounters in that “adventuring day?” Did they have any encounters they needed to use their daily resources on? Otherwise, yes the Encounter Builder is a very rough guideline that you can probably get by with guesstimating beyond a certain point. I personally wonder if the “Easy” “Average” “Hard” “Deadly” grading tries to provide more granularity than it can be expected to handle. I think 4E's fixed “Target Encounter XP” for a party at a set level was a more reliable system because it tried to do less. I personally have had to compensate for the fact that I almost never have a standard adventuring day of six-eight encounters. [/QUOTE]
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