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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NewJeffCT" data-source="post: 5423792" data-attributes="member: 10784">Encounter building in any edition is really just as much art as it is science.  It really helps to know the group and your players, though.  In 3.5E, a group without a cleric and/or a paladin is going to be more vulnerable to undead than a group with a cleric and a paladin in it.  However, a group with a cleric and paladin in it may be more vulnerable to other types of encounters (quick, ranged attackers/skirmishers)It also depends on what you want in an encounter - my last group where I had a 2 1/2 year long 3.5E campaign was a big group (7-8 players) that met every other week.  Since our time was limited, most of the encounters tended to be BIG! IMPORTANT! CLIMACTIC!   So, most of the encounters would be somewhere on the border of very challenging and overpowering on the encounter builder chart in terms of CR.  Since my group was big, they had a huge range of options in terms of offensive firepower from range and in melee, as well as strong defensive abilities, so a normal encounter of their CR level would be a piece of cake a lot of the time.  After they cleared level 10/11 or so, there was only one "solo" encounter after that, against a blue dragon in the desert, and they focused so much firepower on it in the first round that they burned through 75% of its hit points.  And, once the players cleared that level 10/11 range, a lot of encounters became very long and very complex, taking a full session.  And, the final two encounters both took two full overtime sessions to complete.However, if you have the time to run 2-3 encounters per session, then you don't want to overwhelm the PCs with big encounters every time out.If they still have online encounter builders for 3.5, I would use those as a starting point and then tweak them based on your group and what you want out of the encounter.  In the beginning, I might recommend you have a DM ex machina in reserve to prevent a TPK from happening - at least until you get better at encounter building.  (meaning, a passing NPC who rescues them, or a helpful forest creature, or, the merchant manages to dig out a healing potion or jar of alchemist's fire he forgot about earlier, etc)</blockquote>

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