D&D 5E Combat Encounters Per Dungeon Budget

[FuzzyBunny]

Does anyone have a good rule of thumb for how many combat encounters should be in a dungeon of a given size for it to be an appropriate challenge? I'm trying my hand at homebrewing and I don't have a great sense of how to stock a dungeon with combat encounters. I'm kind of just feeling it out, and hoping that there are some better rules out there for budgeting combat encounters in a dungeon.

 

[Stormonu]

There’s no hard and fast rules, especially if you factor in a dungeon where not every encounter may lead to combat, and could be evaded or missed depending on the path the characters take (especially multi-path dungeons).

You could use the Encounter Day budget in the DMG (page 84), but it can be a bit too formulaic. It should give you a starting point, though - I think it works out to about 7-10 encounters for a day’s adventuring.

 

[FuzzyBunny]

Yeah, the ability to avoid encounters certainly complicates things.

The DMG says 6-8 hard or medium encounters a day. In my experience with Tier 1 and Tier 2 parties, that seems far too taxing.

 

[Quickleaf]

Does anyone have a good rule of thumb for how many combat encounters should be in a dungeon of a given size for it to be an appropriate challenge? I'm trying my hand at homebrewing and I don't have a great sense of how to stock a dungeon with combat encounters. I'm kind of just feeling it out, and hoping that there are some better rules out there for budgeting combat encounters in a dungeon.

The answer I'm going to give you is 4 to 5.

There's also an involved method in the DMG page 84 where you use the Adventuring Day XP Budget as your "building" points for stocking 1 Day in a Dungeon.

However, what's probably more valuable is actually "getting in under the hood" to sort out factors related to your question. I'll give the summarized version...but you can follow up if anything is unclear...

• "How many" combat encounters is not just a function of combat balance, but also a function of pacing & having a broad spectrum of challenges to appeal to different player tastes and keep things fresh – trap gauntlets, puzzles, cool discoveries or tricks, creatures to talk to, chases, etc.
• It's also a function of the scale/scope of your dungeon – is it meant to fill one 4-hour session? Or be a multi-session delve? Is it mostly linear (e.g. ABCDE)? Or does it present multiple paths (e.g. could go A-D-J-M-S, or A-C-H-M-S, or A-B-F-M-T)?
• What is the high concept of the dungeon? For instance a death trap dungeon like Tomb of Horrors might be lighter on combats whereas a stronghold dungeon like The Sunless Citadel might be heavier on monsters/combats). Similarly, a stronghold might actually have wandering patrols without defined "there's a combat in this room." Got to know your high concept when asking questions about what balance means.
• Not all combats are equal, so if you're concerned about balance, then you want to consider both the difficulty each combat presents to PCs (e.g. you might have 3 extremely challenging encounters in a dungeon, or you might have 5 easy encounters and one moderate one) AND the complexity/difficulty/mental burden of running a given combat (too many complex combats in close proximity can lead to fatigue/drag).

 

[Charlaquin]

In Ye Olden Days, it was recommended that one third of the rooms in a dungeon be empty (with one sixth of those empty rooms containing unguarded treasure), one third contain monsters (with half of those monsters guarding treasure), one sixth contain traps (with one third of those traps guarding treasure), and one sixth contain other environmental features.

Applying those assumptions to 5e’s 6-to-8 encounter adventuring days, you could have an 18-room dungeon with 6 rooms stocked with monsters (with random encounters accounting for the 2 flexible encounters), 3 trapped rooms, and 3 rooms with environmental hazards or other features, and divide a treasure hoard into 5 parcels to be distributed throughout the dungeon.

This gives a sense of a dungeon that’s a largely abandoned ruin with a handful of dangerous creatures still wandering through it. If you want something more heavily populated like an orc stronghold or whatever, you can fiddle with the numbers as feels appropriate.

 

[GMMichael]

Does anyone have a good rule of thumb for how many combat encounters should be in a dungeon of a given size for it to be an appropriate challenge? I'm trying my hand at homebrewing and I don't have a great sense of how to stock a dungeon with combat encounters. I'm kind of just feeling it out, and hoping that there are some better rules out there for budgeting combat encounters in a dungeon.

I use this one. See if it works for you:

Let dungeon size = DM estimate in square feet x 0.0001 Matt Mercer 's daily mirror time
For all Appropriate Challenges, sum of enemy CR <= WotC's drafts of "How to Un#@&% the OGL Situation" plus (# lawyers retained for proprietary content protection)
Dungeon Size / Average PC level ^ (20 - number of levels the campaign won't use) = Daily Combat Encounters stated in terms of Chris Pine's Oscar chances from DAD:HAT.

Failing that, a dungeon should be designed for what it is, not how many dice rolls it requires. Is the dungeon a watery cave system inhabited by bandits and possibly some unruly spiders? Design it that way. If it's too much combat for your PCs, they'd better figure out how to turn a "combat encounter" into a " social encounter. " Also, you can start thinking of an excuse for why the remaining denizens can't currently be found in the dungeon.

 

[Ancalagon]

In Ye Olden Days, it was recommended that one third of the rooms in a dungeon be empty (with one sixth of those empty rooms containing unguarded treasure), one third contain monsters (with half of those monsters guarding treasure), one sixth contain traps (with one third of those traps guarding treasure), and one sixth contain other environmental features.

30 years of gaming, and this is the first time I've seen this recommendation. A rather handy rule of thumb!

I also note that it needs 18 rooms minimum to "work" (given one sixth of one third).

 

[Ancalagon]

Yeah, the ability to avoid encounters certainly complicates things.

The DMG says 6-8 hard or medium encounters a day. In my experience with Tier 1 and Tier 2 parties, that seems far too taxing.

When you say "hard or medium", do you mean encounters that are actually hard or medium, or hard or medium as defined by the DMG? I'm saying that because I - and many others - have found that a medium encounter, as defined by the DMG, is usually quite easy.

Because given 2 short rests, absolutely parties should be handle this ( DMG "medium-hard) (well, maybe not level 1-2). In my experience at least.

Now if you mean that many actually medium-hard encounters, that will definitely challenge the party.

 

[Ancalagon]

So perhaps some more useful advice, following that nit-picking (sorry!):

I think a major factor on how dangerous a dungeon is is how "reactive" the dungeon is. If, for a number of reasons, the party is able to take it one room at a time, it's much easier to manage. If however a fight in room 4 attracts half (of more) of the denizens of the dungeon who rally to push back/kill the "invaders" (ie, the party!), that is a very dangerous dungeon.

Another consideration is how easy is it for the party to retreat from the dungeon and/or have a rest in the dungeon. If the party is free to leave and rest/heal up, it becomes far easier to manage for the party.

 

[Charlaquin]

30 years of gaming, and this is the first time I've seen this recommendation. A rather handy rule of thumb!

Perhaps it would look more familiar in this form:

The book in the background is B/X. The one in the foreground is Labyrinth Lord reproducing the probabilities of B/X’s table (more or less…) with d100s instead of d6s. Old School Essentials also has a version, using d6s as B/X did, which is where I first encountered it.

I also note that it needs 18 rooms minimum to "work" (given one sixth of one third).

Well, it needs at least 18 to work evenly. But, using these tables it’ll still work on average over multiple smaller dungeons. And you can always round if stocking manually.