DMG Apparent Contradiction: "Hard" Encounter = L+3 or L+4?

[Wisdom Penalty]

Your Honor, may I present Exhibit A.

On Encounter Level Difficulty:

DMG p. 56: "A hard encounter is two to four levels higher than the party's level."

DMG p. 104: Second column, second paragraph: "Hard encounters are two to three levels above the party..."

On Individual Threat Levels in those Encounters:

DMG p. 56: "Threats in a hard encounter can be as many as three to five levels above the party's level."

DMG p. 104: "Hard encounters...can include monsters that are five to seven levels above the characters."

***

Now, now. Is this worth mentioning? Is it worth errata? Is it worth me getting $2.37? I say - Yea.

The reason is because - damn! - have any of you DMs out there thrown an EL Lvl+4 at the party with one or two Monsters LVL+7? It is a recipe for a TPK, my brothers. I have had 4 TPKs thus far during our "test runs" of various encounters, and all of them came at Lvl+4. The players have yet to survive one of those.

Now, we're new to the system. The players are new, and still learning that 4e mandates teamwork. The individual heroism of 3e has gone buh-bye. That said, those encounters are very tough - too tough, to be honest - and this is coming from a guy who generally likes a couple PC deaths every few sessions.

Anyway...just seems like those two sections in the DMG should match. Poor proofreading?

Or a conspiracy to increase the number of TPKs?

<insert video of that prairie dog that turns to look at the camera in surprise>

Wis

 

[JohnSnow]

Your Honor, may I present Exhibit A.

On Encounter Level Difficulty:

DMG p. 56: "A hard encounter is two to four levels higher than the party's level."

DMG p. 104: Second column, second paragraph: "Hard encounters are two to three levels above the party..."

Notice. Encounter Level.

In other words, XP should be that of an encounter between 2 and 3 levels higher than the party. Four levels is probably pushing it. There's a slight discrepancy here, but not a big one.

Besides, "Encounter Level is relative to the number of characters in the party." (DMG p. 57). I think an encounter 4 levels higher is on the outside of what a small party could handle, but not so bad for a large one.

On Individual Threat Levels in those Encounters:

DMG p. 56: "Threats in a hard encounter can be as many as three to five levels above the party's level."

DMG p. 104: "Hard encounters...can include monsters that are five to seven levels above the characters."

Threats. Monsters. Obviously, this is a different situation than the above. You can have a monster 5 levels higher in an encounter that's only 2 or 3 levels up.

Now, the difference between these two sections is again worth noting. "Three to five levels" is obviously different from "five to seven." However, if you keep reading on p. 104, you'll notice strong caution is given about using monsters in certain roles that are more than 5 levels above the party. Which is largely consistent with the summary sidebar on p. 54.

And if you read on to the encounter templates on pp. 58-59, you'll notice monsters as much as 7 levels above the party suggested, totally in accordance with the advice on p. 104.

So it's not actually inconsistent. Consider p. 54 "general advice" and p. 104 more "specific" or "advanced."

Now, we're new to the system. The players are new, and still learning that 4e mandates teamwork. The individual heroism of 3e has gone buh-bye. That said, those encounters are very tough - too tough, to be honest - and this is coming from a guy who generally likes a couple PC deaths every few sessions.

Anyway...just seems like those two sections in the DMG should match. Poor proofreading?

They do match. Mostly.

Is there a big difference between an Encounter 3 levels above the party and 4 levels? If one's going to cause a TPK, so probably will the other.

 

[Vaeron]

One is talking about encounters, one is talking about monsters in those encounters. The important guideline is the XP budget. I know they determined monsters 7+ levels over the party average were too hard to hit, so produced impossibly long combats that were mostly the PCs missing the enemy and getting clobbered in return. Rather than viewing 5-7 levels higher as errata, I'd view it as the absolutely highest end of the spectrum you'd ever want to go, with 3-5 levels higher being a more realistic, challenging threat.

 

[Jhaelen]

Well, I've done the calculations for the encounter templates from pages 58/59 for levels 1-12 and noticed that several of the presented variants will not end up being in the recommended xp range.
Especially if you're trying to use the recommended Encounter Mix from page 104.

So, here's the changes I've made to get a better match:
- Battlefield Control is fine as written.

- Commander and Troops:
- Easy: add one troop

- Dragon's Den:
- Easy: alternatively use Solo monster (L-1)
- Hard: for the 2nd option use Elite (L+1)

- Double Line:
- Easy: use front line (L-3) and rear line (L)

- Wolf Pack:
- Easy: add one skirmisher
- Standard: for the 1st option add 1 skirmisher
- Hard: for the first two options remove 1 skirmisher

Another problem with the templates is that they don't work at the lower levels (i.e. when there are no monsters of L-X or no monsters of a certain role). You can create substitutes for all of them but it's not as flexible as I'd hoped it would be.
You'll run into similar problems in the high end levels. Where's the level 36 skirmisher for my hard L30 encounter? With just the MM1, there's just too few high level monsters, especially those of level 30+.

When creating some example encounters I still had the feeling that an encounter of L+4 is not only hard but extremely brutal. You'll want to be extra careful before you use one of these, especially at the starting levels (~ 1-3).

 

[Xorn]

I ran Irontooth from KotS for my play group, scaled to n+4 for them.

They destroyed the encounter. They were out of ways to trigger healing surges and blew several daily powers, but they demolished the encounter.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

Another problem with the templates is that they don't work at the lower levels (i.e. when there are no monsters of L-X or no monsters of a certain role). You can create substitutes for all of them but it's not as flexible as I'd hoped it would be.

You can simply put minions in these lower level roles. I have found 1st level encounters not too hard to get some variety in .

 

[Jhaelen]

You can simply put minions in these lower level roles. I have found 1st level encounters not too hard to get some variety in .

Well, yes. A Minion (L) can be used to replace a Standard (L-4) monster, just like an Elite (L) can be used to replace a Standard (L+4) monster. This does make it easier to use some of the templates as written.

 

[Jack99]

I killed two players with an 800 xp encounter (7 players, so barely n+1), and 4 out of the remaining 5 were down when the encounter ended.

Some combinations are lethal, and sometimes players just make the poor choices. No matter how solid the system is, we will still see a lot of different results from the same type of combats.

 

[eleran]

I put together an encounter of goblins in their warren consisting of 5 cutters (minion), 1 blackblade, 1 skullcrusher, 2 sharpshooters and 2 warriors and 1 hexer. 1050 XPs (n + 3) for a 1st level 6 PC party, and it was a TPK, which thru RP got turned into a narrow negotiated escape for the PCs with a follow up in the campaign.

In this particular encounter the Hexer is what really tipped the balance. His battlefield control and ability to blind opponents was pretty devastating. Not to mention the horrible rolling by the PCs at some really crucial moments.