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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Garnfellow" data-source="post: 1325675" data-attributes="member: 1223">An excellent question, Olive.In all honesty, there was a lot of fudging through encounters during my first year or so using 3e . . . as opposed to the almost constant fudging under the AD&D ruleset. It’s probably only been in the last year and a half that I’ve felt reasonably confident in designing encounters for this group. Here are a few observations/adjustments that I use to help balance things out:1. Monsters are fairly rare. Much as I love to make and tinker with them, the campaign is supposed to have a low-magic, low-power feel. Probably 2/3 of all our adventures solely involve mundane opponents and encounters with human NPCs. And because monsters are so rare and remarkable, the players normally have plenty of opportunities to research and scout out their opponents -- often given them a critical strategic edge going into battle.2. I use free form XP awards, which I find encourages roleplaying and in-game solutions that do not involve combat. So if the players can find a way to trick, banish, entrap, or otherwise circumvent a monster, I will reward them just as if they fought the beastie toe-to-toe.3. Because monsters are rare and XP awards are free-form, a typical Frilond session does not involve the standard 4 encounters of EL X strength. We might have one or two political/roleplaying encounters, one or two minor combat encounters, and then the one big fight with the monster. As such, when the PCs hit the big showdown, they are usually in pretty good shape as far as spells, hit points, and other resources.4. As you notice, the group is considerably larger than the standard four-member party. I find that the extra numbers (and all the attendant class abilities) tend to balance out the lack of magic items.5. What's sauce for the goose . . . I also reduce NPC and monster magic items, so they are slightly weaker than ones straight out of the DMG.</blockquote>

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