Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="JiffyPopTart" data-source="post: 6390384" data-attributes="member: 4881">Due to the mysteries of the warp our group went from 4 to 7 players in just a couple months.  Coincidentally, it was during these couple months we quit our 13th Age campaign and decided to transition to a new 5e campaign.7 players is a LOT of players.  More than I am used to GMing for.  On top of this hurdle, since 5e is brand new I don't have any experience yet designing balanced combats for any number of players.According to the DMG Basic Rulebook, encounter design follows these steps...1. Choose if the encounter is Easy, Medium, Hard, or Deadly  (Medium for this example)2. Add up the XP from all the characters to determine your encounter budget (7 2nd level PC's = 700XP)3. Spend the XP on creatures, sticking to CR ratings not much higher than the average PC level (CR 2 in my case)4. Multiply the XP value of the creatures by a multiple that changes as you choose more monsters (This is where it gets annoying as removing a creature drops the multiplier, which then frees up some cap room, which then you pick a slightly cheaper creature to fill up hoping it doesn't push you past the cap when you once again change your multiplier)My actual question is this:  Since the party is so large (7 PCs) do you think my encounters would be better balanced by adjusting the modifiers in step 4 down to allow for larger monster groups?  I am thinking of shifting the existing multipliers down one category and adding a X -.5 for a single monster.We are planning a shake-out cruise first adventure with no penalty for dying while I try out various power levels to try to get things dialed in correctly.  The reason the suggestions seem to not work correctly is that according to the design a "medium" encounter for 7 second level PCs is 4 hobgoblins.  It doesn't seem like 4 hobgoblins would be much of a speedbump for 7 PCs.  They have a great AC and can dish some damage (perhaps piling on enough damage to KO the druidbear), but have so few HP that the wizard/bard/druid/cleric are going to eat them for breakfast.</blockquote>

Verification