D&D (2024) New DMG Encounter Building Math vs 2014

[gorice]

No, the difficulty is the same. Hard is Hard, its the same band of XP values. A single CR 8 creature is a Hard encounter in both methods.

OK, I think I was reading too much into the difference between 'floor' and 'ceiling'.

I stand by my flabbergastedness though. Dealing with scaling problems at higher levels doesn't help anyone if the baseline difficulty is so low it won't be a challenge anyway. 'Deadly' was never very helpful, since it had no upper bound, but they really needed to add one, not remove it completely.

It seems like combat just isn't intended to be a genuine challenge anymore.

 

[OB1]

OK, I think I was reading too much into the difference between 'floor' and 'ceiling'.

I stand by my flabbergastedness though. Dealing with scaling problems at higher levels doesn't help anyone if the baseline difficulty is so low it won't be a challenge anyway. 'Deadly' was never very helpful, since it had no upper bound, but they really needed to add one, not remove it completely.

It seems like combat just isn't intended to be a genuine challenge anymore.

I'm not sure I follow you. Dungeon Dudes recently ran a 17th level combat using the new thresholds and said it was a scary, nail bitting encounter. I checked my own 20th level final battle encounter I ran a couple years ago that nearly resulted in a TPK and the XP budget for that was right at the new guidelines.

I also typically wouldn't throw Deadly encounters at even experienced players until 5th level, at that's when I also started ignoring the XP multiplier.

My sense is this new chart comes from extensive playtesting over 10 years possibly even studying data from DDB encounters from tens of thousands of combats, and on top of that, we still haven't seen the new MM which is the other half of the equation, as WotC has admitted that many monsters, especially at higher level, never hit as hard as they were expected.

 

[gorice]

I'm not sure I follow you. Dungeon Dudes recently ran a 17th level combat using the new thresholds and said it was a scary, nail bitting encounter. I checked my own 20th level final battle encounter I ran a couple years ago that nearly resulted in a TPK and the XP budget for that was right at the new guidelines.

I wasn't aware of that.

FWIW, I'm happy to grant that level 20 encounters will be tough, but I've literally never played any. What most interests me are the levels that people frequently play at -- any balance over about level 10 is just gravy, as far as I'm concerned.

I also typically wouldn't throw Deadly encounters at even experienced players until 5th level, at that's when I also started ignoring the XP multiplier.

Right. It's that 'sweet spot' from around levels 3-10 that gets played the most, IME, and that's where I see the biggest problem.

My sense is this new chart comes from extensive playtesting over 10 years possibly even studying data from DDB encounters from tens of thousands of combats, and on top of that, we still haven't seen the new MM which is the other half of the equation, as WotC has admitted that many monsters, especially at higher level, never hit as hard as they were expected.

A lot is going to hinge on the MM, for sure.

 

[Retros_x]

Generally, I think this is an overcorrection and will result in early level TPKs that would've been avoidable under the 2014 encounter building rules.

But the multiplier was a pain without electronic tools, its good that they got rid of it. There are some guidelines according to the previews to make aware of action economy. If I remember correctly it says for early levels to not build encounters with more monsters than number of players for example.

What's even more surprising is that the concept of attrition has been done away with. So, not only are encounters easier, but parties are expected to go into them at full strength

No, parties are not to go into them at full strength. Its only the adventuring day they got rid of. Expectation is the same, they just got rid of the math and measurements behind it - which I think is a mistake. They have instead some more abstract and loose definitions what could happen on what difficulty level depending on resources spent. I don't remember the exact words from the previews but it was something like for example: "If players have already spent some resources, a fight on this difficulty could get dangerous".

 

[Retros_x]

This is INCORRECT. The ranges for each difficulty grade is largely unchanged, until levels 8+

Thats true, but I can imagine it might affect encounter difficulty for a lot of tables anyway. Most DMs I'd argue don't think in difficulty ranges, but just target the number that is listed in the DMG. The 2024 guidelines seem to expect to use most of your budget, so to get close to the high ceiling, while the 2014 guidelines seem to just care about the threshold/floor.

A 2014 DM wanting to build an easy level 1 encounter will target 100 XP, a 2024 DM trying to do the same will target 200XP (minus "a few unspent XP left over") resulting in a more difficult encounter.

Ofc we will only know that for sure if we have the new MM. All that XP math comparison is worthless if they changed how much you get for your mone--XP in a monster.

 

[Baumi]

Like Retros_x said, I never thought of the old XP Valus as the lower threshold, but instead as the number that you should achive and any discussions I read/heard about difficulty was also always with the printed numbers in mind. So I would say that the newer table is more difficult even without taking the missing multiplayer into account.

That said, the last years I always used Sly Flourish easy Encounter Rule, which was much faster and worked quite well with me.

What really hurts is, that there is seemingly no new discussion about the adventure day .. how many short Rests and Encounter you should have per day. This is extermly impactful to an adventure and to the class-balance.

 

[Retros_x]

What really hurts is, that there is seemingly no new discussion about the adventure day .. how many short Rests and Encounter you should have per day. This is extermly impactful to an adventure and to the class-balance.

Just like in 2014, the adventuring day and the importance of adventure balance over encounter balance gets forgotten :') I agree though, I think its a shame they got rid of daily XP budgets and replaced them with some unspecific instructions. I will still use them, but I run relatively classic games with dungeon crawls.

 

[Devilbass]

Context that I think is important:

People are saying that "Low is the new Medium, Moderate the new Hard, and Hard the new Deadly" NOT because of changes to the XP budget, but because of how those challenge levels are described, and how the lack of a multiplier interacts with those budgets.

Sure you get 200 XP for each level 1 PC for easy in 2014 and moderate in 2024, but so long as you have more than one monster, that encounter is instantly harder in 2024. For encounters with one enemy, the difficulty (based on XP budget) in 2024 is unchanged, for any encounter with more than one, the difficulty is higher.

As far as the potential for low level TPKs because of the lack of multiplier, the new guidelines do provide advice on not stacking too many enemies against the party. The advice could be better imo, but at least something is there.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Like Retros_x said, I never thought of the old XP Valus as the lower threshold, but instead as the number that you should achive and any discussions I read/heard about difficulty was also always with the printed numbers in mind. So I would say that the newer table is more difficult even without taking the missing multiplayer into account.

I've always and exclusively seen the numbers in the 2014 DMG as lower thresholds - mainly since using the XP multiplier meant that you would almost always end up at some random number between the difficulty levels.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Wait, so you're saying that for a group of say, level 5 characters, a 'hard' encounter is actually easier than in 2014, so long as they don't get overwhelmed by a horde of mooks?

Also, there is no deadly difficulty? Are XP values for monsters still the same as they were in 2014?

I'm flabbergasted. The 2014 encounter rules were already far too easy at all levels except perhaps 1-2. I used to build 'deadly' encounters as a baseline, and scale up from there. I've never seen a single party defeated using the 2014 encounter rules.

What's even more surprising is that the concept of attrition has been done away with. So, not only are encounters easier, but parties are expected to go into them at full strength.

I've got to be missing something, right?

It a new world with new assumptions. They've been remarkably clear about it, actually.

Still the same edition though...somehow.