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General Tabletop Discussion
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DM's, what's your experience with suggested Challenge Ratings?
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<blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 7058133" data-attributes="member: 97077"><p>The best advice I can impart is to learn the difference between challenge and difficulty and what makes a good challenge. Then everything else will fall into place and you'll know what to do.</p><p></p><p><em>Challenge</em> is a situation you can win or lose. <em>Difficulty</em> is what kind of skill level or resources are required to win at the challenge - the harder the difficulty, the better skill (or more resources) will be required. Encounter difficulty in the DMG speaks to Difficulty as I have just defined it, but here's the important bit: What makes a Challenge good is that its Difficulty can be modified by the players' decisions. This means their decisions are meaningful. This is a thing we generally want in our games.</p><p></p><p>Therefore, when you set up an encounter, know that the Difficulty by the numbers in the DMG does not take into account the specific decisions the players make. They may make great decisions that reduce the difficulty sometimes to the point of trivializing the encounter, leading you to believe that the encounter guidelines are wrong. Similarly, they may make poor decisions that greatly increase the difficulty which can lead you to a similar conclusion. They're not wrong though - that's exactly how a good challenge should work. So bear that in mind.</p><p></p><p>Your instincts are correct with regard to the number of creatures in the challenge - the difficulty will go up, as reflected in the adjusted XP value. As well, I recommend that in order to challenge your experienced players, make sure the battles take place in an environment favorable to the monsters in some way. That's a very easy way to take the Difficulty up a step without adjusting the XP reward. It has the added effect of making your scenes much more dynamic and interesting, especially if the PCs can take advantage of it. (Side note: If both the PCs and the monsters can take advantage of a terrain feature, then it's a wash as to Difficulty.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="iserith, post: 7058133, member: 97077"] The best advice I can impart is to learn the difference between challenge and difficulty and what makes a good challenge. Then everything else will fall into place and you'll know what to do. [I]Challenge[/I] is a situation you can win or lose. [I]Difficulty[/I] is what kind of skill level or resources are required to win at the challenge - the harder the difficulty, the better skill (or more resources) will be required. Encounter difficulty in the DMG speaks to Difficulty as I have just defined it, but here's the important bit: What makes a Challenge good is that its Difficulty can be modified by the players' decisions. This means their decisions are meaningful. This is a thing we generally want in our games. Therefore, when you set up an encounter, know that the Difficulty by the numbers in the DMG does not take into account the specific decisions the players make. They may make great decisions that reduce the difficulty sometimes to the point of trivializing the encounter, leading you to believe that the encounter guidelines are wrong. Similarly, they may make poor decisions that greatly increase the difficulty which can lead you to a similar conclusion. They're not wrong though - that's exactly how a good challenge should work. So bear that in mind. Your instincts are correct with regard to the number of creatures in the challenge - the difficulty will go up, as reflected in the adjusted XP value. As well, I recommend that in order to challenge your experienced players, make sure the battles take place in an environment favorable to the monsters in some way. That's a very easy way to take the Difficulty up a step without adjusting the XP reward. It has the added effect of making your scenes much more dynamic and interesting, especially if the PCs can take advantage of it. (Side note: If both the PCs and the monsters can take advantage of a terrain feature, then it's a wash as to Difficulty.) [/QUOTE]
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