D&D 5E It's Official! Most of my encounters are "Deadly" (now updated with info through the end of 2022!)

[Flamestrike]

Update Time!

The PCs wrapped up a sidetrek and other related encounters only tangentially connected to the previous adventure:

Encounter #	Monsters	# of (N)PCs/Level	CRs	Difficulty
52	Knight (1), Guards (5)	4/6	3, 1/8	Easy
53	Skeletons (16), Ogre Zombie	4/6	1/4, 2	Hard
54	Trolls (2)	4/6	5	Hard
55	Knight (1), Guards (5), Troll, Giant Two-Headed Troll	4/6	3, 1/8, 5, 6	Deadly

Despite being technically "easy," encounter 52 was made sufficiently difficult that the PCs cast some obscuring spells (darkness, fog cloud) and fled, because the guards had missile weapons and got the drop on the PCs from above and with sufficient cover and distance, to make taking them out nearly impossible - esp. since the party has no means to fly or teleport (well, ranger/sorcerer can misty step but then she'd be up there by herself). Despite, being against 17 foes, encounter #53 did not take too long (about 6 rounds?) and in this case the PCs saw the troop of undead coming up the road and prepped an ambush which helped.

The PCs (both players and characters) did not know about troll regeneration, so that fight was interesting as they figured it out once one of the trolls threw caution to the wind to reach the gnome bard/wizard who fire bolted him. One of these two trolls managed to get away, ducking into a dark cave the PCs did not want to follow him into for fear of more trolls in there.

Eventually for encounter 55 (which took 15 rounds), the PCs had to face that knight and his men again at the same time as a fully healed returned troll and the giant-two-headed troll (basically an ettin with troll traits), while also trying to defend a defenseless civilian, which complicated the fight. I also used a bunch of DIY terrain to create a tiered and vertical battle site that made it very interesting. In the end, they destroyed both trolls, killed all the guards (or they were killed by a troll), and took the knight prisoner. Oh they took a short rest both after the undead fight and after the first troll fight.

For those who are curious, encounter 52 and 53 happened in the same session, and 54 and 55 were the session after that. All this activity happened within a 10 hour period where the PCs were unable to get a long rest.

Do with this info, what you will - and I am happy to answer questions - oh and below are the set-ups for where encounters 54 and 55 took place.

One last thing: There was another session after this one with the big fight, but there was no combat in it.

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Are you factoring the encounter difficulty on account of the CR 1/8's, counting each one as a separate monster?

Vs 6th level PCs, I wouldnt.

 

[el-remmen]

Are you factoring the encounter difficulty on account of the CR 1/8's, counting each one as a separate monster?

Vs 6th level PCs, I wouldnt.

I am just using the website I linked in the OP and putting in whatever they face no matter what it is.

 

[Flamestrike]

I am just using the website I linked in the OP and putting in whatever they face no matter what it is.

Yeah but that website uses raw math. Encounter building requires a judgement call on this point:

4. Modify Total XP for Multiple Monsters. If the encounter includes more than one monster, apply a multiplier to the monsters’ total XP. The more monsters there are, the more attack rolls you’re making against the characters in a given round, and the more dangerous the encounter becomes. To correctly gauge an encounter’s difficulty, multiply the total XP of all the monsters in the encounter by the value given in the Encounter Multipliers table.

When making this calculation, don’t count any monsters whose challenge rating is significantly below the average challenge rating of the other monsters in the group unless you think the weak monsters significantly contribute to the difficulty of the encounter.

Building Combat Encounters

D&D Beyond - Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition Tools, Rules, Races, Classes, Items, Spells, Monsters, and More

www.dndbeyond.com

I'm pretty sure your encounter calculator is counting those CR 1/8's when it comes to modifying the total XP for the encounter.

They should be disregarded at this step of the calculation (which should drastically reduce the encounter difficulty the generator is spitting out).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

the CR system (since it was created in 3e?) is mostly useless.

Both the 3e and 5e CR systems are basically useless, yes. I mean, they can give you a very rough notion of how things plausibly will work, but eyeballing is of roughly equivalent effectiveness.

The irony, of course, is that 4e's XP Budget system was excellent and, while definitely not perfect, worked quite reliably most of the time. The outliers tended to happen when you took a very high-level solo monster and scaled it down to roughly level 1-4: high-level characters have a lot more ways to deal with unpleasant conditions, which makes a super down-scaled monster more difficult in ways that the XP Budget doesn't directly track. IIRC the only other prominently-discussed outlier was Needlefang Drake Swarms, and that's more because it had over-tuned damage and was a Swarm (which, in several games like 4e and PF, tends to make a "monster," or rather the collection of tiny monsters, much tankier than normal.)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I'll say, the Easy/Medium/Hard/Deadly system is fairly accurate for low levels. It's when you hit level 8 that all of your encounters are going to start skewing to Deadly, and they won't really be incredibly challenging for the PCs.

Official 5E modules support this too; the high-level adventures in Candlekeep Mysteries mostly contain Deadly encounters.

I think you need to add: potentially to deadly. And then you need to spend some valuable ressources to overcome the challenge. Spells of your highest available level(s) . At level 8, you have so many slots, that you can afford to spend them more freely and thus encounters do get sognificantly easier. At level 1 to 5 you really have to think twice if the expenditure of your rare ressources is really worth it, or if it is better to spend some hit dice and recover during a short rest.

 

[el-remmen]

Yeah but that website uses raw math. Encounter building requires a judgement call on this point:

Building Combat Encounters

D&D Beyond - Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition Tools, Rules, Races, Classes, Items, Spells, Monsters, and More

www.dndbeyond.com

I'm pretty sure your encounter calculator is counting those CR 1/8's when it comes to modifying the total XP for the encounter.

They should be disregarded at this step of the calculation (which should drastically reduce the encounter difficulty the generator is spitting out).

I don't think you understand what this experiment is about. It is not about learning to use the difficulty calculator. It is about using that calculator to examine combat encounters that are perfectly fine just winging/eyeballing it and seeing what it says.

I will say that I am not sure why the 1/8 CR creatures do not count when they represent another potential attack roll or other action that can challenge the PCs in the context of the fight. It makes sense that the encounter difficult would be lower if they are not counted, but not sure why they should not be counted in this context.

 

[el-remmen]

For example those CR 1/8 guards were difficult to deal with for 6th level characters because of the specific circumstances of the combat setting in the first encounter described in the part @Flamestrike quoted. . If I didn't count them - well it would have been calculated as "trivial" and that is even less accurate description of the fight.

 

[Flamestrike]

For example those CR 1/8 guards were difficult to deal with for 6th level characters because of the specific circumstances of the combat setting in the first encounter described in the part @Flamestrike quoted. . If I didn't count them - well it would have been calculated as "trivial" and that is even less accurate description of the fight.

There is a separate part where you factor in specific circumstances (which is again, subjective).

Modifying Encounter Difficulty​

An encounter can be made easier or harder based on the choice of location and the situation.

Increase the difficulty of the encounter by one step (from easy to medium, for example) if the characters have a drawback that their enemies don’t. Reduce the difficulty by one step if the characters have a benefit that their enemies don’t. Any additional benefit or drawback pushes the encounter one step in the appropriate direction. If the characters have both a benefit and a drawback, the two cancel each other out.

Building Combat Encounters

Are your PCs tooled up with Magic Items? Decrease the ecounter difficulty one step.

Are the Monsters waiting in a cunning ambush? Increase it by one step.

Are the Monsters fighting in favorable terrain to them and an alien one to the PCS? Increase the difficulty by one step.

Etc.

It's why I'm wary of those calculators. There is a lot of subjective human decision making they cant factor in.

 

[Flamestrike]

I will say that I am not sure why the 1/8 CR creatures do not count when they represent another potential attack roll or other action that can challenge the PCs in the context of the fight.

Because for 5 x 6th level PCs, CR 1/8s shouldn't last more than a round or (max) two at best, presuming moderate resource usage (a 3rd level AoE spell, an Action surge etc).

 

[el-remmen]

There is a separate part where you factor in specific circumstances (which is again, subjective).


Building Combat Encounters

Are your PCs tooled up with Magic Items? Decrease the ecounter difficulty one step.

Are the Monsters waiting in a cunning ambush? Increase it by one step.

Are the Monsters fighting in favorable terrain to them and an alien one to the PCS? Increase the difficulty by one step.

Etc.

It's why I'm wary of those calculators. There is a lot of subjective human decision making they cant factor in.

Let me ask you this: Is this supposed to modify how much XP the PCs get? Because if not, it seems like a big waste of time. Currently, I just add up the XP values of all monsters defeated/overcome and divide it among all the PCs in the party.