D&D 5E FeeFiFoFum *splat* goes the giants

[Ancalagon]

We had an encounter. 3 PCs at level 7: a Psi Warrior, Shadow Monk, and Divine Sorcerer/rogue (5/2). 3 hill giants are harassing the road and we have to deal with them. Solid characters with good stats and equipment, but no powerhouses (the psi warrior is a dex-build shield and board fighter, for example).

We weren't given a chance to ambush them, be clever etc - just a straight clash of arms.

By the DMG, our XP budget is 1700/PC for a deadly encounter. Hill Giants are worth 1800 XP and there were 3 of them, so multiply by 2. This would have been a deadly encounter for level 11 characters.

Now you are going to say "hill giants are dumb and have bad saving throws, eaaaaasy". And you are correct (I ran a game where one hill giant ambushed a level 5 party, they defeated it in one round with a fear spell and it ran off). However, our sorcerer has next to no control magic, just fireballs. So we did this "the hard way" by fighting them.

And... that was a medium encounter. maybe hard (the sorcerer did toss a few fireballs).

I knew that the encounter building method was off but... this is ridiculous.

Edit: some quick clarification: I was a player in this encounter, not the GM. I wondered "how hard is this "in theory" vs how hard it was on the table" and cracked open the DMG. I'm not blaming the GM here, just... astounded by the result.

 

[Bolares]

XP budgets are kind of worthless information. Encounter building is the worst part of the DMG.

 

[Lyxen]

I knew that the encounter building method was off but... this is ridiculous.

And how much resources did you spend ? Did you go nova on them ? At level 7, tossing "a couple of fireballs" should reasonably dent your budget for the day...

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

We had an encounter. 3 PCs at level 7: a Psi Warrior, Shadow Monk, and Divine Sorcerer/rogue (5/2). 3 hill giants are harassing the road and we have to deal with them. Solid characters with good stats and equipment, but no powerhouses (the psi warrior is a dex-build shield and board fighter, for example).

We weren't given a chance to ambush them, be clever etc - just a straight clash of arms.

By the DMG, our XP budget is 1700/PC for a deadly encounter. Hill Giants are worth 1800 XP and there were 3 of them, so multiply by 2. This would have been a deadly encounter for level 11 characters.

Now you are going to say "hill giants are dumb and have bad saving throws, eaaaaasy". And you are correct (I ran a game where one hill giant ambushed a level 5 party, they defeated it in one round with a fear spell and it ran off). However, our sorcerer has next to no control magic, just fireballs. So we did this "the hard way" by fighting them.

And... that was a medium encounter. maybe hard (the sorcerer did toss a few fireballs).

I knew that the encounter building method was off but...

We had an encounter. 3 PCs at level 7: a Psi Warrior, Shadow Monk, and Divine Sorcerer/rogue (5/2). 3 hill giants are harassing the road and we have to deal with them. Solid characters with good stats and equipment, but no powerhouses (the psi warrior is a dex-build shield and board fighter, for example).

We weren't given a chance to ambush them, be clever etc - just a straight clash of arms.

By the DMG, our XP budget is 1700/PC for a deadly encounter. Hill Giants are worth 1800 XP and there were 3 of them, so multiply by 2. This would have been a deadly encounter for level 11 characters.

Now you are going to say "hill giants are dumb and have bad saving throws, eaaaaasy". And you are correct (I ran a game where one hill giant ambushed a level 5 party, they defeated it in one round with a fear spell and it ran off). However, our sorcerer has next to no control magic, just fireballs. So we did this "the hard way" by fighting them.

And... that was a medium encounter. maybe hard (the sorcerer did toss a few fireballs).

I knew that the encounter building method was off but... this is ridiculous.

How is it off? You have explained nothing of what happened.

how is it off? You have explained nothing of what happened.

 

[ninjayeti]

The encounter building guidelines state that they are based on an 6-8 encounter day. So run the same encounter 6 more times with a couple of short rests and you have a solid data point.

But yeah, the encounter building guidelines are bad if you aren't actually following the guidelines.

 

[Lyxen]

The encounter building guidelines state that they are based on an 6-8 encounter day.

It's not exactly what it says, it just says that the daily budget corresponds to 6-8 medium to hard encounters.

So run the same encounter 6 more times with a couple of short rests and you have a solid data point.

But yeah, the encounter building guidelines are bad if you aren't actually following the guidelines.

Indeed, which includes standard array characters without options like variant humans, feats or multiclass, so basically, as soon as you have a build, you are tinkering with the computations.

 

[Ancalagon]

Oh, we have feats, magical items etc, that would make the encounter easier, of course. But this is supposed to be a deadly encounter for 3 level 11 characters. So it's a deadly +4 encounter, so to speak. But it wasn't even close to be deadly.

 

[dave2008]

Oh, we have feats, magical items etc, that would make the encounter easier, of course. But this is supposed to be a deadly encounter for 3 level 11 characters. So it's a deadly +4 encounter, so to speak. But it wasn't even close to be deadly.

What is your definition of deadly? The definition in the DMG is definitely not what I would consider "deadly." You have to look less at the word and more at what it is measuring:

"A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat."

Deadly by definition is nothing close to TPK, there is only a possibility that it might be lethal to one PC. And this is in a game that assumes no magic items. You add magic items and it is even less of a threat.

Now, I do think the monster multipliers are bit off as they are not related to the number of PCs.

So I would not expect it to be what I would consider "deadly"

 

[dave2008]

@Ancalagon, for a better measure of what I think most people consider deadly you would need closer to 100% of your daily XP budget in one encounter. So for your 3 7th lvl PCs that would be a 15,000 XP encounter, so closer to 5 hill giants (with your assumed level of magic gear)

Also, hill giants are a bit low CR monsters for lvl 7 groups (if you want it to be deadly)

 

[Stalker0]

@Ancalagon, for a better measure of what I think most people consider deadly you would need closer to 100% of your daily XP budget in one encounter. So for your 3 7th lvl PCs that would be a 15,000 XP encounter, so closer to 5 hill giants (with your assumed level of magic gear)

Also, hill giants are a bit low CR monsters for lvl 7 groups (if you want it to be deadly)

I'd say more like 4. 5 hill giants is 18000 xp, 4 is 14,400 (so within rounding range).

I think the thing to remember here is that was not actually a deadly encounter (and no I don't mean hard to win). For this party, this was 2.1x deadly.

Aka this is TWICE as deadly as what a normal deadly encounter is supposed to be. If 15000 xp was the daily budget, that means that the party should be dragging ready for a long rest after just one more of these (as that would be 5k over their daily budget)....and it sounds like they are still fairly fresh.

But at the end of the day this is nothing new. We all have our battlelines drawn as to whether you think 5e encounter design is well balance or not, and we aren't going to change any minds with this example.