Keeping the World Dangerous – A Monster Scaling Table for a Sandbox TTRPG?

[HeritageTTRPG]

Howdy all

I'm currently working on a story-driven sandbox TTRPG campaign where players can form and follow their own paths. They can explore where they want, tackle what they want, and write their own story (through various types of core systems). But this raises an important design question:

How do you keep the world consistently dangerous and exciting in a sandbox game without breaking the feeling of progression?

I often hear people praise progression in TTRPGs where characters grow broader in their abilities rather than just becoming untouchable superheroes. But what about the world? If players get stronger, but the world remains static (due to monster stat blocks), then certain challenges eventually become trivial and not challenging at all. I am aiming to write a campaign, where this is not the case. Encounters should have a certain sense of danger/importance to them, at all levels. But on the other side, if the world constantly levels up with the players, it can feel like the players aren’t progressing at all.

So, I’m experimenting with a player-level-based monster progression table to strike a balance.

The Idea of a monster progression table​

The aim of the system/table will be, to allow any type of monster to be used at any player level by scaling its stats according to the party’s average level. However, there are very important factors to keep in mind:

• Player progression is steeper than monster progression.
• This means the world always stays dangerous, but not equally dangerous forever throughout the campaign.
• Eventually, the players do outscale certain lower threats and make impossible missions possible.

Trying to keep combat deadly, but not hopeless, I want to have encounters remain tactically interesting throughout the campaign. The table lets you quickly generate monster stats (e.g. HP, damage, armor, resistances, etc.) based on factors such as:

• Player level
• Monster type (minion, brute, elite, boss, mythical, etc.)
• Monster size and archetype (small goblin vs. massive wyrm)
• Danger rating (used more as a narrative threat scale than raw CR)
• Monster abilities, and so on ...

A Quick Example​

• At Level 1, the party wanders into a dragon’s lair. The dragon’s stats are based on a Level 1 “mythic” monster. It’s strong, terrifying, probably going to roast the party.
• At Level 4, they return. The dragon’s stats have scaled just like the player's, but less steeply. If they are feeling lucky, they are free to tackle the dragon, but have to take the risk of heavy losses.
• At Level 10, the same dragon (scaled according to their level) still poses a real threat. But the players now have powerful gear, better tactics, and experience. The challenge has changed, and is still present, but the players have decent chances of success!

Feel of Progression​

This table will allow the odds of success against different encounters to grow, depending on the players level. This means:

• Players feel stronger over time.
• Monsters remain relevant, especially elites and bosses.
• Small threats (like goblins) eventually become trivial (as they should).
• Mythical foes (dragons, liches, demon lords) remain dangerous throughout the campaign, just less so than when the party was at low level.

The system/table also leaves room for special monsters who break the rules. Fixed threats that don’t scale and exist to surprise or pose deeper challenges.

Main Questions/Thoughts​

One of the main goals for such a table would be to not have to keep a monster stat block for every single monster. The table will weight in enough factors to differentiate between varying types of monsters/enemies.

The question I mainly want to try to ask with this is, if such table has been done before? Would such a system be enhancing the experience of a sandbox TTRPG or are fixed statblocks more interesting to face in battle?

Would love to hear thoughts from others who’ve used similar systems or seen them work (or fail). Any advice or aditional ideas are welcome!

TL;DR:​

• Monsters scale with players to stay relevant — but not equally.
• Player progression is faster than monster scaling.
• Dragons stay deadly, but become beatable.
• Goblins stay weak, and eventually become fodder.
• Perfect for story-first sandbox play where any monster can be faced at any level — at your own risk.
• Would this work for a sandbox TTRPG campaign?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So, World of Warcraft does this nowadays, where monsters scale up to a players level on a player-level basis (so two players of different levels in the same group will both see a monster as their same level).

It opens up much more of the now-enormous game world for anyone to play in, which is good. There's no more either rapidly out-leveling old content or having everyone squeezed into the same few zones while the rest of the world is entirely vacant. (Although the new hotness is always much more populated than older content.)

However, it also means that leveling up means a lot less until you start reaching the by-expansion caps on how far up monsters will scale. Leveling up gives PCs more tools to play with, but even people who really enjoy modern WoW, like me, generally acknowledge that if everything more or less keeps pace with you, players lose much of the feeling of getting more powerful and more accomplished.

So, the answer is, this system does work, and I think it would definitely work for ttrpg play, but it's essentially a variant of the quantum ogre situation: Wherever the PCs go, there's almost certainly something that's more or less a fair fight for them. You will run into players who feel like this makes the game world feel less real to them. (You'll especially run into these people online, even if not at your actual table.)

If I might, I'd suggest not doing this, but letting stuff be at its baseline level but also having a robust wandering monster encounter table that includes the full range of monsters on it. So your level 1 PCs could conceivably turn a corner and find themselves eyeball to eyeball with a wyvern devouring a herd of cows and have to scramble to survive. And a higher level party could periodically run into a goblin hunting party that they can slaughter with impunity, if they're inclined to. Players can mostly avoid trouble -- stay out of the dragons graveyard until you're high level, to lower the chances of running into an angry and hostile dragon -- but they're not ever guaranteed to do so.

 

[Tonguez]

Regional Effects of Lairs is the answer. Lairs were the greatest innovation of 5e because the allowed for encounter design without concern for individual monsters. If you combine lairs with regional effects you have an entire sandbox adventure set up as the PCs explore a region - they might miss the actual lair entirely but still get to engage with the "presence' of the threat. Leverage your Wandering Encounter table and let scaling be driven by action economy affecting the number, tactics, types, and monster roles activated in an encounter

 

[HeritageTTRPG]

So, World of Warcraft does this nowadays, where monsters scale up to a players level on a player-level basis (so two players of different levels in the same group will both see a monster as their same level).

It opens up much more of the now-enormous game world for anyone to play in, which is good. There's no more either rapidly out-leveling old content or having everyone squeezed into the same few zones while the rest of the world is entirely vacant. (Although the new hotness is always much more populated than older content.)

However, it also means that leveling up means a lot less until you start reaching the by-expansion caps on how far up monsters will scale. Leveling up gives PCs more tools to play with, but even people who really enjoy modern WoW, like me, generally acknowledge that if everything more or less keeps pace with you, players lose much of the feeling of getting more powerful and more accomplished.

So, the answer is, this system does work, and I think it would definitely work for ttrpg play, but it's essentially a variant of the quantum ogre situation: Wherever the PCs go, there's almost certainly something that's more or less a fair fight for them. You will run into players who feel like this makes the game world feel less real to them. (You'll especially run into these people online, even if not at your actual table.)

If I might, I'd suggest not doing this, but letting stuff be at its baseline level but also having a robust wandering monster encounter table that includes the full range of monsters on it. So your level 1 PCs could conceivably turn a corner and find themselves eyeball to eyeball with a wyvern devouring a herd of cows and have to scramble to survive. And a higher level party could periodically run into a goblin hunting party that they can slaughter with impunity, if they're inclined to. Players can mostly avoid trouble -- stay out of the dragons graveyard until you're high level, to lower the chances of running into an angry and hostile dragon -- but they're not ever guaranteed to do so.

Thank your for your reply

Yes, my biggest concern would be for the would to feel static and not real at all. But wouldn't such a table actually achieve the opposite and act as the proper foundation for an actual organically living world? Factoring in different rates of power scaling, smaller monsters will become less of a threat quite early on. Just not to such a degree, that a clap on the cheek would eliminate them eventually, while bigger ones stay relevant throughout the entire campaign.

I will have to ponder on this quite abit. The first interation of monster generation so far has worked quite well but I have not yet spawned any quantom ogres ... Probably a good starting point, to work on this table from a different perspective and rethink how "fair" fights should really be. Thank you!

 

[HeritageTTRPG]

Regional Effects of Lairs is the answer. Lairs were the greatest innovation of 5e because the allowed for encounter design without concern for individual monsters. If you combine lairs with regional effects you have an entire sandbox adventure set up as the PCs explore a region - they might miss the actual lair entirely but still get to engage with the "presence' of the threat. Leverage your Wandering Encounter table and let scaling be driven by action economy affecting the number, tactics, types, and monster roles activated in an encounter

Wow, how did I only hear of this now? Regional Effects for lairs sound quite interesting and are propably a perfect tool to design entire ... well, regions! Still I am asking myself, how I would determine the scale/threat/power of these regional encounters? Keeping the sandbox in mind, I do like the idea of my players exploring any kind of region/lair they want to ... at any given level. Wouldn't such a monster/stat table enable that?

Having that said, perhaps a combination of both worlds would be something else to think about. Have the table split up into an "area" of stats which can be applied to different types of encounters ... not sure if that makes sense, but you sure sparked an idea in my head. Thank you!

 

[Reynard]

I think level scaling is antithetical to a player driven sandbox campaign.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I think level scaling is antithetical to a player driven sandbox campaign.

Yeah the problem is that power scaling in most RPGs if far too steep.

This is one thing I really like about games like The One Ring and Dragonbane: enemies that are dangerous to new characters are still a threat to veterans.

Remember that back in the very early days of gaming, dungeon "level" was meant to roughly correlate to character "level". You didn't go into the 2nd level of the dungeon until you were 2nd level.

Since open world sandbox play is pretty much the antonym of that sort of dungeon design, it shouldn't be surprising that the whole 'level' structure doesn't really work.

 

[Reynard]

Yeah the problem is that power scaling in most RPGs if far too steep.

This is one thing I really like about games like The One Ring and Dragonbane: enemies that are dangerous to new characters are still a threat to veterans.

Remember that back in the very early days of gaming, dungeon "level" was meant to roughly correlate to character "level". You didn't go into the 2nd level of the dungeon until you were 2nd level.

Since open world sandbox play is pretty much the antonym of that sort of dungeon design, it shouldn't be surprising that the whole 'level' structure doesn't really work.

I am currently having the problem with a 5E sandbox that the PCs are leveling too quickly. They won't actually be able to explore the "whole map" before the level out of it. That's okay becasue the whole point is that they are trying to gain enough power (levels, items whatever) to take on the Big Bad, but I had kind of forgotten how quickly a few tough mini-dungeons can level PCs in 5E.

 

[HeritageTTRPG]

I am currently having the problem with a 5E sandbox that the PCs are leveling too quickly. They won't actually be able to explore the "whole map" before the level out of it. That's okay becasue the whole point is that they are trying to gain enough power (levels, items whatever) to take on the Big Bad, but I had kind of forgotten how quickly a few tough mini-dungeons can level PCs in 5E.

This is somewhat the idea behind the progression table. To keep the world relevant throughout the campaign, no matter the players choices. Thanks to different monster types and their associated scaling power, players are still getting relatively stronger in comparison to some enemies, but the relevancy of most parts of the world does not dimish.

 

[Reynard]

This is somewhat the idea behind the progression table. To keep the world relevant throughout the campaign, no matter the players choices. Thanks to different monster types and their associated scaling power, players are still getting relatively stronger in comparison to some enemies, but the relevancy of most parts of the world does not dimish.

I get what you are aiming for, but I just don't like the way a level scaling world feels.