DMG - Random Encounter Tables

[MerricB]

Hello. My name's Merric, and I'm addicted to Random Encounter tables. I use them all the time when designing adventures.

Well, perhaps not all the time, but for my dungeons they do get used quite a bit. I'll stock a few rooms myself, but after that I prefer to let the dice decide. (Although I do pay enough attention to alter results to fit the dungeon).

Are you like me?

There actually was a more serious point to this thread, which goes like this: Are monsters dumb?

The reason I ask that is because under the 3.5E Dungeon Encounter tables, it's very rare to encounter more than 3 of one monster in a room. The 3E tables suffered from a similar problem, but at least you could encounter 1st level creatures on the 3rd level of the dungeon and have their numbers significantly increased.

This is not the case with the 3.5E encounter tables.

Instead, you have a whole lot of solitary monsters roaming the dungeon, without being smart enough to realise that in numbers lies strength (and you're not going to be picked off by any adventuring party or tougher monster that wanders by).

I can well see the argument for the 3E tables being too complex, but I think the 3.5E tables have gone too far the other way. The treasure balance is out, the number encountered is weird beyond belief.

What do you think?

Cheers!

 

[Zappo]

I almost never use random encounter tables, partly because of the problems you mention. I like to design plausible dungeons, where each monster is there for a reason, and not random-looking dungeons, where monsters seem to pop out of thin air. Generally, this means no random encounters at all, or a very limited variety of monsters that can be encounterd. Mind ya, I don't really spite the "other" way, but it's not my cup of tea.

 

[Vrecknidj]

I only use random encounter tables for wilderness settings. I would use them for a dungeon if the dungeon were a cave complex that was its own ecosystem, but otherwise not.

An exception might be a large castle or something like that, where it would make sense to have a certain likelihood of certain encounters (guards, wandering merchants, wandering nobles, whatever). But, I'd try to make sure that I had different tables for different circumstances, and make sure that the results on the table were all plausible.

Dave

 

[ichabod]

I'm not sure what you're looking for here. The DMG tables are set so that the expected EL is equal to the dungeon level. This makes it so the appropriate place for third level parties is the third level of the dungeon. If you want to increase the number of creatures encountered you would have to reduce the power of the creatures in order to keep the same expected EL. But it seems like you want to make the encounters more deadly. That would just shift where it is appropriate for a party of a given level to be. I mean, why would a 2nd level party of four go where they could possibly run into 7 CR 2 creatures?

 

[MerricB]

I'm not sure what you're looking for here. The DMG tables are set so that the expected EL is equal to the dungeon level.

Yes, and that's fine.

However, if you examine the higher-level tables, you seem to always be running into very small groups of monsters.

1 Ogre. 1 Ettercap. 1d3 Lizardfolk. 1 ghast.

On the 3rd level table, there are two entries where the PCs could possiblyl be outnumbered: 2d4+1 dire rats; 2d4 stirges. Everywhere else it's just "1", "1", "1", "1d3", "1", etc.

Cheers!

 

[Melan]

I use the old 1e DMG tables, which I typed into Excel and printed on my computer. Those tables - yeah, no problem like this, since, especially in the wilderness, monsters come in huge hordes. For example, Giant Ants are organized into swarms of 1-100, whereas Ogres in bands of 2d10. For dungeons, I usually keep them a bit lower, but still, 1d6*10 orcs are more interesting than 1 monster of the appropriate CR.

Merric is right: solitary monsters or monsters in small groups are a different sort of challenge than huge hordes of them. In a party -vs- Big Bad fight, the heroes can focus their power on one opponent, who usually has no chance under a hail of spells, swordstrikes and sneak attacks. A horde, on the other hand, presents the threat of attrition. One good Fireball can kill 20-30 orcs, but the rest of the 240 in the lair, brandishing their scimitars, keep coming! This is when making a stand, and sometimes failing, becomes a probability - and that's just heroic.

(Of course, the cynic in me thinks that the lowered numbers are due to 3e's stat overload and long battles - hush, you fiend! )

[edit]One more thing: using large quantities of monsters with the official 3.5/3e XP/CR system will throw it out of the whack. Whether that is a failure of the rules or the DM, I will leave to the Esteemed Gaming Community.

 

[S'mon]

For actual 'wandering monsters' it makes sense that numbers encountered are small, except for actual patrols. Not for stocking a dungeon though, but using random tables for that never seems to give satisfactory results, certainly not in 3e. I find random Wilderness tables (inc Underdark) much more useful, I'm always annoyed that with 3e I have to make my own or adapt 1e/2e tables. Only recently I've decided to explicitly ignore all Monte's advice about creating Wilderness tables by EL ("This is a 3rd-level Wilderness") in favour of an objective-environmental approach ("orcs & hill giants live here"), and I'm much happier for that.

 

[ichabod]

Yes, and that's fine.

However, if you examine the higher-level tables, you seem to always be running into very small groups of monsters.

1 Ogre. 1 Ettercap. 1d3 Lizardfolk. 1 ghast.

Ah! I think what you're seeing there is a space problem. I have actually been expanding those tables recently because I noticed that they did not include all of the underground creatures of the appropriate CR. I just finished the level 3 table and it has over 75 entries. Thats with 1 of each CR 3, 1d3 of each CR 2, and 1d4+2 of each CR 1. That's 2.5 times as long as the DMG table, so to fill out the tables the three pages of tables would have become eight or nine. I'm guessing that WotC decided that players like zappo would be irritated that they put in nine pages of "useless" random tables. So they trimmed them down, and focused on creatures of the level's CR, which gives you lots of singletons. I don't see this as being wierd, just limited. I mean, until the adventurers arrive, that ogre can take on those 1d4+2 dire rats. It's those darn adventurers messing everything up. Don't they know that 4 CR 3 creatures should be on level 5?

 

[MerricB]

It's interesting to contrast the 3E tables with the 3.5E tables.

The 3E tables really hark back to the 1E DMG, with a strong possibility of monsters from deeper levels (or higher levels) appearing.

One of the interesting things about them is the "Treasure" percentage, and the possibility of gaining a greater treasure than the dungeon might indicate. This is all carefully balanced, so that monsters who normally don't have treasure are set against monsters with greater chances of treasure so that you'll end up (on average) with a proper amount of treasure.

That's gone in 3.5E. Instead, you check the MM description of the monster... with the effect that on the 1st level tables, you're quite likely to not get enough treasure.

Cheers!

 

[Mystery Man]

When I use random encounter tables I usually make my own.I used to try the random thing but just kept rerolling the dice until I got what I liked.

When I'm stocking an area I try to stick to a theme when a few deviations every now and then. For instance if my players or slogging thru an evil forest I open all my monster books and look for plants of the appropriate CR's and through in a couple abberations and some magical beasts or something. Maybe one, or at the most two things that would have nothing to do with the area.