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<blockquote data-quote="Gobelure" data-source="post: 6402172" data-attributes="member: 6780929">First, I would like to stress that I love the way 5E is going up to now. A lot of effort was put to provide a game that is both rich in possibilities and at the same time simple to run. Well done ! However, when it comes to encounter building, there is a huge level of complexity which gets added and it is almost impossible to handle it without a computer. Even if there are really usefull apps already available, I want to be able to run a game offline, just with pencil and paper. The game is easy to run, and encounter building should be as easy. Fortunately, after some thought I came with a simple way to implement this.But first, an important disclaimer : already with previous versions, encounter balancing was more an art than a science. My impression is that with 5E it is even more true: depending on the PCs tactics and on the monster synergies, a single number representing the encounter challenge can at best be indicative. CR is not the ultimate truth, so please don't complain if on a given encounter for a given group you find it way too easy or too hard. That's just 5E life !In the following, I will assume that the DMG Basic rules for encounter building are providing the best guess, and I only will tweak the math to achieve two goals. The first one is to make it simpler. The second is to cure the &quot;3 rats and a lich&quot; bug, which basically says that a CR21 lich in company of 3 rats is as tough as a CR24-25 monster. So, for pack of monsters of almost the same level, my system will retrieve the difficulty rating of official rules, where it will improve it for wildly different CR mix. Plus: you forget forever about encounter XP mutipliers.The simple way to compute encounters challengePhilosophy of the method is : 1. Forget XP for encounter building, only use power equivalent levels (or PELs)2. Compare PELs for PCs and PELs for monsters and deduce the lethality of the enounter.Player Characters PEL :PC equivalent level is almost player level, with only a few exceptions. Use the table below[TABLE=&quot;class: grid, width: 300, align: center&quot;][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]Player level[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]PEL[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]1[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]1[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]2[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]1.5[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]3[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]2.5[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]4[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]3[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]5[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]5[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]6[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]6[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]7[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]7[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]8[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]8[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]9[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]9[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]10[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]10[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]11[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]11[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]12[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]12[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]13[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]13[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]14[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]14[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]15[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]16[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]16[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]18[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]17[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]20[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]18[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]22[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]19[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]24[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]20[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]26[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]Monsters PEL :Convert each individual monster CR to it's EL using the following table[TABLE=&quot;class: grid, width: 300, align: center&quot;][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]Monster CR[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]PEL[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]0[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]1/3[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]1/8[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]2/3[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]1/4[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]1[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]1/2[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]1.5[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]1[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]2[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]2[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]4[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]3[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]6[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]4[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]8[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]5[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]11[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]6[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]13[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]7[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]15[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]8[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]18[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]9[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]21[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]10[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]24[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]11[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]28[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]12[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]32[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]13[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]36[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]14[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]40[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]15[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]44[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]16[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]48[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]17[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]52[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]18[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]56[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]19[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]60[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]20[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]64[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]21[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]76[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]22[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]88[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]23[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]104[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]24[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]120[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]25[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]136[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]26[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]152[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]27[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]168[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]28[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]184[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]29[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]200[/TD][/TR][TR][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]30[/TD][TD=&quot;align: center&quot;]216[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]Encounter challenge :a. Sum up all PCs PELs get the Total Party Equivalent Levels (TPEL)b. Sum up all monsters PELs to get the Total Monster Equivalent Levels (TMEL)Encounter is easy(*) if TMEL ~ 40% to TPEL
Encounter is medium if TMEL ~ 60% to TPEL
Encounter is difficult if TMEL ~ 80% to TPEL
Encounter is deadly if TMEL ~ 100% to TPEL(*) Assuming Easy is 25% of XP with respect to deadly… The table provided in the DMG preview has however an inconsistent definition of easy across levels. Not a big deal, you can just ignore it. What matters is to have a TML lower than the TPL. The lowest, the easiest.Summary PDFDnddungeoneer made an awesome PDF out of these table. Check it out !<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=64467&amp;d=1412784399" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=64467&amp;d=1412784399" target="_blank">Player Level Charts.pdf</a>Example :A CR21 lich and 3 rats is PEL 76 + (1/3)*3 = 77, so basically… a lich !The math behind the scene :This section is only meant for math-oriented people.[sblock]What did I do here ? First, I realized that the Encounter XP scales as the number of monsters to the power 3/2.Indeed, XP for 4 monsters&nbsp; is 4 times the base XP, times 2 for 4 monsters. Total : 8 times the XP, which is 4^3/2. It also works approximatively for other numbers of monsters.Second, I checked that the strength of a PC group scales with the number of PCs to the power 3/2.If I have a deadly encounter opposing 4 PCs and 4 monsters, it means than the individual monster XP is half that of the PC deadly scale (4 times deadly scale divided by 8, see above). Then, a deadly encounter for 2 PCs will be 2 such monsters. It seems just logical, but let's check : 2 monsters is twice individual monster XP, and the multiplier is 2 as I have only 2 PCs : total multiplier is x4, which makes the encounter deadly for 2 PCs. Hurrah, the system is consistent.As PCs strengh with number scales as monster strength, it is fair to assume that the power of PCs scale as their number to the power 3/2.At the same time, it means that the XP value for a PC is the half the deadly encounter XP !Now, is is just a matter of rescaling: saying that&nbsp; A N^3/2 = B M^3/2, is equivalent to state that A^2/3 N = B^2/3 M. In other words : instead of taking some crazy math according to monster numbers relative to PCs numbers, just do simple addition, and precompute the corrected XP scale to make it fit.The formula I used for my tables above is thus PEL = (XP/49)^(2/3), approximated up to 10% to get numbers easy to remember.[/sblock]</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Gobelure, post: 6402172, member: 6780929"] [FONT=Helvetica]First, I would like to stress that I love the way 5E is going up to now. A lot of effort was put to provide a game that is both rich in possibilities and at the same time simple to run. Well done ! However, when it comes to encounter building, there is a huge level of complexity which gets added and it is almost impossible to handle it without a computer. Even if there are really usefull apps already available, I want to be able to run a game offline, just with pencil and paper. The game is easy to run, and encounter building should be as easy. Fortunately, after some thought I came with a simple way to implement this.[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica] [/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]But first, an important disclaimer : already with previous versions, encounter balancing was more an art than a science. My impression is that with 5E it is even more true: depending on the PCs tactics and on the monster synergies, a single number representing the encounter challenge can at best be indicative. CR is not the ultimate truth, so please don't complain if on a given encounter for a given group you find it way too easy or too hard. That's just 5E life ![/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica] [/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]In the following, I will assume that the DMG Basic rules for encounter building are providing the best guess, and I only will tweak the math to achieve two goals. The first one is to make it simpler. The second is to cure the "3 rats and a lich" bug, which basically says that a CR21 lich in company of 3 rats is as tough as a CR24-25 monster. So, for pack of monsters of almost the same level, my system will retrieve the difficulty rating of official rules, where it will improve it for wildly different CR mix. Plus: you forget forever about encounter XP mutipliers.[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica] [/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica][SIZE=4][B]The simple way to compute encounters challenge[/B][/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica] [/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]Philosophy of the method is : [/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]1. Forget XP for encounter building, only use power equivalent levels (or PELs)[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]2. Compare PELs for PCs and PELs for monsters and deduce the lethality of the enounter.[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica] [/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica][SIZE=3][B]Player Characters PEL :[/B][/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]PC equivalent level is almost player level, with only a few exceptions. Use the table below[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica] [/FONT] [TABLE="class: grid, width: 300, align: center"][TR][TD="align: center"][B]Player level[/B][/TD][TD="align: center"][B]PEL[/B][/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]1[/TD][TD="align: center"]1[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]2[/TD][TD="align: center"][I]1.5[/I][/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]3[/TD][TD="align: center"][I]2.5[/I][/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]4[/TD][TD="align: center"][I]3[/I][/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]5[/TD][TD="align: center"]5[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]6[/TD][TD="align: center"]6[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]7[/TD][TD="align: center"]7[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]8[/TD][TD="align: center"]8[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]9[/TD][TD="align: center"]9[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]10[/TD][TD="align: center"]10[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]11[/TD][TD="align: center"]11[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]12[/TD][TD="align: center"]12[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]13[/TD][TD="align: center"]13[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]14[/TD][TD="align: center"]14[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]15[/TD][TD="align: center"][I]16[/I][/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]16[/TD][TD="align: center"][I]18[/I][/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]17[/TD][TD="align: center"][I]20[/I][/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]18[/TD][TD="align: center"][I]22[/I][/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]19[/TD][TD="align: center"][I]24[/I][/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]20[/TD][TD="align: center"][I]26[/I][/TD][/TR][/TABLE][FONT=Helvetica][SIZE=3][B] Monsters PEL :[/B][/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica] Convert each individual monster CR to it's EL using the following table[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica] [/FONT] [TABLE="class: grid, width: 300, align: center"][TR][TD="align: center"][B]Monster CR[/B][/TD][TD="align: center"][B]PEL[/B][/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]0[/TD][TD="align: center"]1/3[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]1/8[/TD][TD="align: center"]2/3[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]1/4[/TD][TD="align: center"]1[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]1/2[/TD][TD="align: center"]1.5[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]1[/TD][TD="align: center"]2[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]2[/TD][TD="align: center"]4[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]3[/TD][TD="align: center"]6[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]4[/TD][TD="align: center"]8[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]5[/TD][TD="align: center"]11[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]6[/TD][TD="align: center"]13[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]7[/TD][TD="align: center"]15[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]8[/TD][TD="align: center"]18[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]9[/TD][TD="align: center"]21[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]10[/TD][TD="align: center"]24[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]11[/TD][TD="align: center"]28[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]12[/TD][TD="align: center"]32[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]13[/TD][TD="align: center"]36[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]14[/TD][TD="align: center"]40[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]15[/TD][TD="align: center"]44[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]16[/TD][TD="align: center"]48[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]17[/TD][TD="align: center"]52[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]18[/TD][TD="align: center"]56[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]19[/TD][TD="align: center"]60[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]20[/TD][TD="align: center"]64[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]21[/TD][TD="align: center"]76[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]22[/TD][TD="align: center"]88[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]23[/TD][TD="align: center"]104[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]24[/TD][TD="align: center"]120[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]25[/TD][TD="align: center"]136[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]26[/TD][TD="align: center"]152[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]27[/TD][TD="align: center"]168[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]28[/TD][TD="align: center"]184[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]29[/TD][TD="align: center"]200[/TD][/TR][TR][TD="align: center"]30[/TD][TD="align: center"]216[/TD][/TR][/TABLE][FONT=Helvetica][SIZE=3][B] Encounter challenge :[/B][/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Helvetica] [/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]a. Sum up all PCs PELs get the Total Party Equivalent Levels (TPEL)[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]b. Sum up all monsters PELs to get the Total Monster Equivalent Levels (TMEL)[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica] [/FONT] [CENTER][FONT=Helvetica][SIZE=2]Encounter is easy(*) if TMEL ~ 40% to TPEL[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica][SIZE=2]Encounter is medium if TMEL ~ 60% to TPEL[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica][SIZE=2]Encounter is difficult if TMEL ~ 80% to TPEL[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica][SIZE=2]Encounter is deadly if TMEL ~ 100% to TPEL[/SIZE][/FONT][/CENTER] [FONT=Helvetica] [/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica](*) Assuming Easy is 25% of XP with respect to deadly… The table provided in the DMG preview has however an inconsistent definition of easy across levels. Not a big deal, you can just ignore it. What matters is to have a TML lower than the TPL. The lowest, the easiest. [/FONT][B][SIZE=3]Summary PDF[/SIZE] [/B] Dnddungeoneer made an awesome PDF out of these table. Check it out ![URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=64467&d=1412784399"] Player Level Charts.pdf[/URL] [SIZE=3][B]Example :[/B][/SIZE] A CR21 lich and 3 rats is PEL 76 + (1/3)*3 = 77, so basically… a lich ! [FONT=Helvetica][B]The math behind the scene :[/B] This section is only meant for math-oriented people. [/FONT][sblock] [FONT=Helvetica]What did I do here ? [/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica] [/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]First, I realized that the Encounter XP scales as the number of monsters to the power 3/2.[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]Indeed, XP for 4 monsters is 4 times the base XP, times 2 for 4 monsters. Total : 8 times the XP, which is 4^3/2. It also works approximatively for other numbers of monsters.[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica] [/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]Second, I checked that the strength of a PC group scales with the number of PCs to the power 3/2.[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]If I have a deadly encounter opposing 4 PCs and 4 monsters, it means than the individual monster XP is half that of the PC deadly scale (4 times deadly scale divided by 8, see above). [/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]Then, a deadly encounter for 2 PCs will be 2 such monsters. It seems just logical, but let's check : 2 monsters is twice individual monster XP, and the multiplier is 2 as I have only 2 PCs : total multiplier is x4, which makes the encounter deadly for 2 PCs. Hurrah, the system is consistent.[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]As PCs strengh with number scales as monster strength, it is fair to assume that the power of PCs scale as their number to the power 3/2.[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica] [/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]At the same time, it means that the XP value for a PC is the half the deadly encounter XP ![/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica] [/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]Now, is is just a matter of rescaling: saying that A N^3/2 = B M^3/2, is equivalent to state that A^2/3 N = B^2/3 M. In other words : instead of taking some crazy math according to monster numbers relative to PCs numbers, just do simple addition, and precompute the corrected XP scale to make it fit.[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica] [/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica]The formula I used for my tables above is thus PEL = (XP/49)^(2/3), approximated up to 10% to get numbers easy to remember.[/FONT] [/sblock] [/QUOTE]

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