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Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Hot to handle level progression in Princes of the Apocalypse (or sandbox adventures in general)
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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6591393" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>I think this can happen only if the sandbox is too randomized in challenge levels (i.e. widely different encounter difficulties in the same general area), and the rules system used is such that different challenge levels quickly diverge.</p><p></p><p>For example, I found World of Warcraft being well-randomized but horribly diverging: you have areas where most encounters are of similar challenge level, but then an encounter of just a few challenge levels difference is either trivial or impossible. You just can't go to another area until you're ready.</p><p></p><p>The randomization is totally up to the DM (or author). So if you design a sandbox where in the same forest you have lots of trivial encounter but also some epic monsters, this can cause problems. OTOH, the system is very important in how much freedom it allows, and 5e has been said to work better than previous 2 editions in terms of "flattening" the difficulty of encounters a few levels apart. This means that the players have more freedom to choose what to do / where to go in the sandbox, as the risks of death (or boredom, in the opposite case) is lessened.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Add:</p><p></p><p>5) Remind the players that encounters don't have to be killed-or-be-killed. It is not only perfectly valid but also narratively very realistic, that when facing something too hard the PCs decide it's better to withdraw. IMO the main problem of 'hard' encounters (or why not even 'impossible' sometimes!) is the stubborn refusal of many players to consider alternatives to a killed-or-be-killed strategy. </p><p></p><p>And then as I mentioned above:</p><p></p><p>6) Harmonize the sandbox CR randomness at least a little bit. IMO it feels narratively sound that the world has areas of greater danger, where creatures of higher powers tend to cluster just because lesser creatures don't survive. You don't go hiking in the Himalayas until you think you're ready! When a higher-CR creature is placed in a lower-CR area, make it somehow 'enclosed' (for example, in a dungeon/prison/cave, behind a spell etc.), which would also explain why animals and people haven't already fled.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 6591393, member: 1465"] I think this can happen only if the sandbox is too randomized in challenge levels (i.e. widely different encounter difficulties in the same general area), and the rules system used is such that different challenge levels quickly diverge. For example, I found World of Warcraft being well-randomized but horribly diverging: you have areas where most encounters are of similar challenge level, but then an encounter of just a few challenge levels difference is either trivial or impossible. You just can't go to another area until you're ready. The randomization is totally up to the DM (or author). So if you design a sandbox where in the same forest you have lots of trivial encounter but also some epic monsters, this can cause problems. OTOH, the system is very important in how much freedom it allows, and 5e has been said to work better than previous 2 editions in terms of "flattening" the difficulty of encounters a few levels apart. This means that the players have more freedom to choose what to do / where to go in the sandbox, as the risks of death (or boredom, in the opposite case) is lessened. Add: 5) Remind the players that encounters don't have to be killed-or-be-killed. It is not only perfectly valid but also narratively very realistic, that when facing something too hard the PCs decide it's better to withdraw. IMO the main problem of 'hard' encounters (or why not even 'impossible' sometimes!) is the stubborn refusal of many players to consider alternatives to a killed-or-be-killed strategy. And then as I mentioned above: 6) Harmonize the sandbox CR randomness at least a little bit. IMO it feels narratively sound that the world has areas of greater danger, where creatures of higher powers tend to cluster just because lesser creatures don't survive. You don't go hiking in the Himalayas until you think you're ready! When a higher-CR creature is placed in a lower-CR area, make it somehow 'enclosed' (for example, in a dungeon/prison/cave, behind a spell etc.), which would also explain why animals and people haven't already fled. [/QUOTE]
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Community
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Hot to handle level progression in Princes of the Apocalypse (or sandbox adventures in general)
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