D&D 5E How do you prepare/build encounters in 5e? (Poll)

[FormerlyHemlock]

Always? No. The vast majority of the time? Yeah if the party has a Wizard who can teleport.

And I was actually referring to the concept of a TPK encounter where the players are expected by the DM to run instead of actually engaging. I'm not a big fan of such encounters since like I said, the first casualty of any encounter is the plan.

So you weren't talking about dragons per se? Because my point is that a smart party builds in escape capabilities and may be able to disengage without deaths from almost any "TPK encounter", simply because MM monsters are so slow. For instance, I hit "Random" on kobold.club for 4 20th level PCs and got a Glabrezu, Hezrou, and Green Slaad. The fastest of these is a Glabrezu at 40 feet. A 5th level party might not be able to kill these guys, but they could for sure run away from them! Either Longstrider or Expeditious Retreat would suffice, or even just caltrops. If the PCs can make it back to their horses (Move: 60) they'll be okay. They did bring horses, right? Even if not, once contact is broken the Glabrezu can't catch up unless it casts Fly, and then all they have to do is break its concentration once and the encounter is done.

In fact, if the scout (Rogue/Monk) is doing his job, there's no need to break contact since the whole party never wandered into melee range of the Glabrezu in the first place.

If you're just pointing out that the DM can still build encounters that PCs can't run away from, especially using dragons, then sure. PCs can't generally run away from Tiamat either. But "you can always run away from Tiamat" is no part of conventional wisdom so I'm not sure why you took the dig at conventional wisdom in the first place there.

 

[KarinsDad]

So you weren't talking about dragons per se? Because my point is that a smart party builds in escape capabilities and may be able to disengage without deaths from almost any "TPK encounter", simply because MM monsters are so slow. For instance, I hit "Random" on kobold.club for 4 20th level PCs and got a Glabrezu, Hezrou, and Green Slaad. The fastest of these is a Glabrezu at 40 feet. A 5th level party might not be able to kill these guys, but they could for sure run away from them! Either Longstrider or Expeditious Retreat would suffice, or even just caltrops. If the PCs can make it back to their horses (Move: 60) they'll be okay. They did bring horses, right? Even if not, once contact is broken the Glabrezu can't catch up unless it casts Fly, and then all they have to do is break its concentration once and the encounter is done.

I was discussing TPK-like encounters. So who is doing the strawman now? Your kobold example here is random medium encounter, not random deadly encounter for 20th level PCs. Apples and Oranges.

And caltrops? Are you serious? Is every encounter in your world in a simple 10 foot wide corridor?

And just because a monster has a low speed does not mean that it doesn't have ranged abilities that could seriously hinder or trap a PC.


I agree with you that a smart party should build in escape capabilities, but where I do not agree is that it is the players responsibility to not walk into a death trap or TPK type encounter set up by the DM. The primary reason such an encounter will succeed in killing the PCs is because the DM put it into his game in the first place. The DM cannot predict the actions of the players, so if it happens, he's mostly responsible.

In fact, if the scout (Rogue/Monk) is doing his job, there's no need to break contact since the whole party never wandered into melee range of the Glabrezu in the first place.

Who says that there is a scout in the party? Who says that the scout can find anything for a given encounter, even if such a PC is in the party? Who says that the scout doesn't get ambushed and killed? Who says that the party recognizes that this is a situation in which to send a scout out?

Lot's of assumptions on your part here on how a given encounter may or may not be laid out.

If you're just pointing out that the DM can still build encounters that PCs can't run away from, especially using dragons, then sure. PCs can't generally run away from Tiamat either. But "you can always run away from Tiamat" is no part of conventional wisdom so I'm not sure why you took the dig at conventional wisdom in the first place there.

No, I was pointing out that encounters designed to kill one or more PCs suck.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I was discussing TPK-like encounters. So who is doing the strawman now? Your kobold example here is random medium encounter, not random deadly encounter for 20th level PCs. Apples and Oranges.

What? I said "5th level party." A medium encounter for a 20th level party is TPK material for a 5th level party. Strawmanning the straw man accusations now, or just miscommunication?

If the PCs are in close confines, caltrops are potentially useful. If they're in the open, they're probably already on their horses and don't need caltrops. Take your pick. And yes, in some cases neither will apply, but we're discussing contingency plans so balance of probability matters here.

 

[the Jester]

I build encounters with an eye to in-world concerns: what lives here? How many guards would they set? Etc. I don't worry at all about encounter balance or what level pcs will have the encounter. But then, I run a hardcore sandbox, where 4th level pcs might encounter a CR 11 remorhaz if they are wandering out in the snow, so I might be atypical.

 

[Imaro]

I build encounters with an eye to in-world concerns: what lives here? How many guards would they set? Etc. I don't worry at all about encounter balance or what level pcs will have the encounter. But then, I run a hardcore sandbox, where 4th level pcs might encounter a CR 11 remorhaz if they are wandering out in the snow, so I might be atypical.

It depends on the type of campaign I'm running but right now this is pretty much how I'm creating encounters in 5e...

 

[GuardianLurker]

I use the DMG guidelines - I just don't apply the adjustments, it's strictly an XP budget per character. I don't worry about how that budget breaks down in terms of number of monsters. I also don't worry a whole lot about one or two PCs dropping - I just make sure to keep the party cleric stocked with 100 gp gems for revivify.

As a result, I've got a "deadly" encounter planned for 6 9th-level PCs that works out to roughly 2700 XP/character, or something like CR 16-18 by the book. I still expect them to defeat it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

For those folks, are there ANY encounter guidelines/rules that you would find helpful on a DM screen/cheat sheet, or do you enjoy the freewheeling nature of your approach without any guidelines?

Not really. The system can't take into account how wildly the party will vary in effectiveness with composition and resource management prior to the point the encounter occurs, how heavily numbers/surprise or a few hot/cold dice rolls will tell in the few rounds encounters are designed to last, or how an improvised action or off-label spell use or other stupid player trick might (with DM connivance) throw the whole thing one way or another (or leave the players bitterly disappointed if it doesn't do anything).
Once you've developed them, "Intuition & feel" can handle all that - and if they can't ahead of time, they probably can on the fly.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I had to choose "Other".

I don't "build" encounters...I write out what is in an area. I could care less one way or the other what the players do if/when they get there. For example, the players are in town and hear of: (A) A windmill outside of town that was abandoned years ago after a vicious, winged, dragon-like creature took over, (B) In the hills a few hours outside of town is a tomb of an ancient cleric of Wee Jas, and (C) A somewhat crazed captain is looking for adventurers to join him in the hunt for the legendary Isle of the Ape.

I design what I think is "cool" for each of those things. In (A), maybe it's a wyvern of unusual size or cunning. In (B), the tomb will be packed with deadly magical traps and foul undead. And with (C) maybe I'll just use the old "Isle of the Ape" 1e adventure module or maybe the "Isle of Dread" and just replace the temple/pearl area of the island with a big-azz ape thing. The fact that the PC's are only level 3 is more or less irrelevant to me. It's not my job to keep the PC's safe, nor is it my job to "only make/put adventures in their path that they can deal with". All that is up to the players. If they are 3rd level and inquire more about the tomb, for example, they may learn that there are a mummy and vampire that were married in life over two hundred years ago and that they are the keepers of the tomb, tasked with guarding it against intruders. If the players think "Yeay, sure, lets do that one!" and head off...well, at least making 5e characters is a relatively quick matter. If they look into the windmill one, maybe they can find out that it is, indeed, a wyvern. Tough, but they at least can prepare for it by buying nets and poison antidotes and come up with a plan. *shrug* Fine by me. I'm not their boss... I just run the world. They are the ones making all the decisions; good and bad. After a few months of play, a natural, organic story has developed. One in which things from level 1 can be, and frequently are, quite relevant now that they are level 6. A year or two after that, the story continues, grows, and yes, those things from level 1 can STILL be relevant.

IMHO, when a DM specifically "builds encounters" specifically for a party, he is really selling his players short and doing a disservice to his own campaign belivability. Now, don't get me wrong, when they are in a kobod warren I don't just put in a "cave with three adult green dragons in it" when they are all level 1 and 2. I place only a few specific things that are appropriate to the area (re: not to the player characters capabilities), and I more or less "randomly determine" a lot of the other areas. Sometimes I'll determine what specifically is in an area 'one the fly' (e.g., a room may have a list of "Monster, Treasure" and that's it).

Case in point: In my current campaign, I have a large multi-leveled dwarven citadel complex with dungeon and underground river. The PC's are trying to recover a specific ring from the place. They entered on "level 0". They wandered around a bit, found some stairs and found a well. They decided to use the well. Turns out, the well is almost two hundred feet down, with water at the bottom. They didn't have *quite* enough rope. The dwarven monk decided to jump in. He at least landed in the water...and was secretly swept away down the underground river. Like lemmings, they all eventually decided that was a good plan, so in they all went. Only two managed to get out in the actual well room without being swept down stream a bit. Unfortunately, those two wandered around alone on the lowest level of the dungeon (a thief and a cleric of nature). Long story short, the cleric *almost* died and the gnome was eaten by an umber hulk. Oh, they cleric was level 4 and the thief level 2. Now, they finally found each other and are holed up in a storage room on the lowest level of the dungeon, missing a LOT of their gear and weapons (swept down the underground river...big, btw...like 40' deep at center and 80' across, average). Am I going to "build encounters" for them? Hell no! They decided to just up and jump to the bottom of the dungeon...and do it in a dangerous and foolhardy way that they lost a lot of their 'stuff'. Not my problem. They made their bed, now they have to lie in it. As E.G.G. would say,"Let the chips fall where they may...​".

But the core "points" of an area/adventure is noted. I can't say it enough though... I don't "build" with the PC's in mind much at all.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Shiroiken]

Disclaimer: I use the "encounter" lingo since that's what the D&D books use, but what this thread is really asking about is combat encounters. Just wanted to clarify.

See, I don't design different types of encounters. I've found that ANY encounter can become a combat encounter based solely on the actions of the PCs. I've also found that any combat encounter can become a social encounter or exploration encounter with smart actions by PCs.

I don't design for specific types, but try to be flexible to the player's potential actions. To be fair, I put more effort into what I assume will be the type of encounter, but I try to keep open possibilities. An example of this would be from an Encounters season during the playtest, where one of the PCs tried to convince the other players to kill and loot their employer, a renowned sage. This (almost) turned a social encounter into a combat encounter due to the actions of a single player.

 

[Quickleaf]

The fact that the PC's are only level 3 is more or less irrelevant to me. It's not my job to keep the PC's safe, nor is it my job to "only make/put adventures in their path that they can deal with".

Great response, thanks

A followup question for you: Is it your job to inform player in advance about the challenge a particular scenario presents?

For example, say you have a mixed group of new-ish players and experienced players. Following your example, their PCs are 3rd level. Let's say the island would be a deadly (as in probably impossible) scenario for them. What cues (if any) would you give to let them know? Do you simply say "mummies" and rely on experienced players to inform everyone that mummies are way above their experience level?