Encounter Building in WOIN

[Devilbass]

Hey folks, just curious if anyone has general advice on encounter building in WOIN. I don't have a strong feel for the game as yet, so it's not easy for me to intuit things.

Let's say that I want an encounter where it is unlikely that more than one PC will go down, but there are multiple enemies, say roughly one for each PC. Should the baddies generally have a dice pool one lower than the party? Two lower? I know it will vary depending on the party, and the enemies, but I'm just looking for something general.

Also, at what point is a single enemy too tough for a party? At one grade higher? Two?

 

[raspberryfh]

This is something I'm still working out too. I've found that enemies 2 levels lower have almost no chance against a character, even if there are a lot of them (like 2:1 ratio). If your player knows how to use cover, then you have an NPC trying to hit a def of 14+ with 2 dice (which is impossible). There might be situations those npcs get a third d6, but they probably won't live long enough to enjoy a pinning bonus unless there are a LOT of them and the players aren't moving around. When enemies are 1 grade lower, it gets closer, but I think players with any kind of combat focus probably could handle 1.5-2 without trouble unless they got badly flanked.

The flipside may not hold true though depending on the rules you allow. I let my players add equipment bonuses to their max dice pools, so they can go toe-to-toe with enemies a grade higher more often than not.

I suspect this gets a little less clear-cut as you get into higher grades than the 4-7 range since differences between grades stop being so pronounced when the MDP rises more slowly.

I'd love to hear some other GMs' thoughts on encounter creation/balancing too.

 

[Morrus]

PCs are usually way better optimised than monsters. I find that using enemies the same dice pool is pretty easy, 1 dice pool higher is fairly routine, 2 dice pools higher makes for a tough encounter, 3 dice pools is very dangerous.

My current group is 7d6. They tend to win against 8d6 groups. 9d6 groups will involve casualties.

This may vary depending on how optimised your PCs are and how well they use tactics.