Hi, I've read the section on creating encounters, but I'm left wondering how much the XP budget and CR guides are actually useful in practice. I'm looking for comments and tips from those that have designed enough combat encounters to comment.
The biggest advice I can give is that there's a lot more to creating a
good encounter than just creating a
balanced encounter. In that regard, the 4e DMG probably has a bit more to tell than the 5e one.
Specifically:
- It's better to use multiple opponents that one big one. And it's better to use multiple varied opponents than several the same.
- You should consider ways that the environment can affect combat - are there hazards to be avoided or to drive enemies towards?
- You should look to change the situation in some way every few rounds. Perhaps the bad guys should change their tactics, or they get reinforcements, or something. But don't just have the two sides stand trading blows for round after round after round!
- If it becomes apparent that the PCs are going to win, and especially if it becomes apparent that it will take them a long time to achieve that, you should find an 'out' - some way to bring the combat to a conclusion quickly. Whittling through 100 hit points at a rate of 2 per attack gets old
real fast!
For instance, are the easy medium hard deadly encounter ratings indicative of actual difficulty levels in practice?
Somewhat. The guidelines are rather better than 2nd Ed's lack of help, they're rather better than 3e (especially as soon as players started optimising 3e, which took about 2 sessions), and they're probably a little better than Pathfinder. But they're not as good as 4e.
And they're best treated as a somewhat-useful but somewhat-unreliable tool rather than as holy writ. Which is true in every edition.
Do monsters with a higher CR than the party level actually pose a significantly higher threat?
Yes. Note though that it's not linear - the game has distinct breakpoints between the tiers (at 5th, 11th, and 17th level) where the power level jumps significantly. So an encounter that's fine for 5th level characters won't just be a bit harder for 4th level characters; it will be
much harder.
Do the XP multipliers for the number of monsters encountered make sense?
Depends how you define "make sense". Like the monster creation rules, the encounter creation rules have a pretty good system there, but it's not terribly well expressed. To the extent that I'd be willing to buy a 5.5e that had no rules changes but merely rewrote the relevant sections for better clarity.
In terms of being a good idea, they are - multiple opponents are indeed tougher than a single one (due to the action economy). That said, the game should probably give out the additional XP as a reward in addition to counting it towards the encounter budget.
