Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9502640" data-attributes="member: 71699">It's hard to judge until the MM comes out, seeing as it's anchored on monster XP values. The procedure has been simplified in a sensible way - calculate an XP budget and spend that on monsters. That connects number of encounters with character advancement for groups that award XP for overcoming monsters.Where I and some others had landed for 2014 was to work with CR rather than XP, following rules of thumb like <a href="https://slyflourish.com/5e_encounter_building.html" target="_blank">Sly Flourish's</a>. I personally divide encounters into attritional and lethal*, and all I need to know is whether an encounter is likely to be lethal. My rubric was if CR*2 &gt; sum PC levels then = probably lethal. Encounters below that threshold are consistently unlikely to kill characters (there are a few creatures in the MM that are an exception to this). Above, pretty likely to be an interesting challenge.*Recollecting here that attrition only matters if rests matter, which greatly varies group to group. And lethality only matters if your players fight everything, which again greatly varies group to group. How dangerous is an ancient dragon that has decided not to eat the characters unless they provoke it intolerably? That will depend on the players.For my style of player-driven sandbox play, the new rules are a distinct improvement. The XP multiplier for encounter size in 2014 was pure nonsense (besides messing up the relationship between levels and encounters). That's gone. What I most I need is a procedure and measure by which that I can devise on the fly any encounter players opt into. An encounter budget is one of the more effective ways to offer that.Overall, what I need to successfully run my game is a reasonable guide to lethality. Were I designing 2024, I would have removed the &quot;low&quot; threshold altogether, and gone with &quot;attritional&quot; and &quot;lethal&quot;. As it is, I focus on the &quot;high&quot; threshold. If it's below that then it's low or medium (it seldom matters which.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 9502640, member: 71699"] It's hard to judge until the MM comes out, seeing as it's anchored on monster XP values. The procedure has been simplified in a sensible way - calculate an XP budget and spend that on monsters. That connects number of encounters with character advancement for groups that award XP for overcoming monsters. Where I and some others had landed for 2014 was to work with CR rather than XP, following rules of thumb like [URL='https://slyflourish.com/5e_encounter_building.html']Sly Flourish's[/URL]. I personally divide encounters into attritional and lethal*, and all I need to know is whether an encounter is likely to be lethal. My rubric was if CR*2 > sum PC levels then = probably lethal. Encounters below that threshold are consistently unlikely to kill characters (there are a few creatures in the MM that are an exception to this). Above, pretty likely to be an interesting challenge. *Recollecting here that attrition only matters if rests matter, which greatly varies group to group. And lethality only matters if your players fight everything, which again greatly varies group to group. How dangerous is an ancient dragon that has decided [I]not[/I] to eat the characters unless they provoke it intolerably? That will depend on the players. For my style of player-driven sandbox play, the new rules are a distinct improvement. The XP multiplier for encounter size in 2014 was pure nonsense (besides messing up the relationship between levels and encounters). That's gone. What I most I need is a procedure and measure by which that I can devise on the fly any encounter players opt into. An encounter budget is one of the more effective ways to offer that. Overall, what I need to successfully run my game is a reasonable guide to [I]lethality[/I]. Were I designing 2024, I would have removed the "low" threshold altogether, and gone with "attritional" and "lethal". As it is, I focus on the "high" threshold. If it's below that then it's low or medium (it seldom matters which.) [/QUOTE]

Verification