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

Yeah, this (gestures to page) is why I said that attrition has been done away with. Removing the 'X encounters per day' stuff and not replacing it with anything (like harder encounter scaling) is a big lapse, unless you assume (a) encounters aren't supposed to be genuinely challenging or (b) people will play official adventures and/or DMs will take notes from them.

I've always been in the camp of people who thought that attrition-based balancing (i.e. 'the adventuring day') was a terrible idea. To remove it and then just... Keep the existing balance model boggles the mind.

It a new world with new assumptions. They've been remarkably clear about it, actually.
Can you expand on this?
 

log in or register to remove this ad

If I remember correctly it says for early levels to not build encounters with more monsters than number of players for example.
Seriously? That is absolutely horrible advice. At all levels of play 5e relies on multiple opponents for the action economy to work, and one of the best ways of making a fight take a toll without risking a TPK is to outnumber the players with relatively weak opponents.

What they could have given as a general fuzzy guideline is that it gets really dangerous if you outnumber the party with monsters of a certain CR relative to party level.
 

Seriously? That is absolutely horrible advice. At all levels of play 5e relies on multiple opponents for the action economy to work, and one of the best ways of making a fight take a toll without risking a TPK is to outnumber the players with relatively weak opponents.

What they could have given as a general fuzzy guideline is that it gets really dangerous if you outnumber the party with monsters of a certain CR relative to party level.

Here:
Many Creatures. The more creatures in an encounter, the higher the risk that a lucky streak on their part could deal more damage to the characters than you expect. If your encounter includes more than two creatures per character, include fragile creatures that can be defeated quickly. This guideline is especially important for characters of level 1 or 2.

Rules link.
 

Seriously? That is absolutely horrible advice. At all levels of play 5e relies on multiple opponents for the action economy to work, and one of the best ways of making a fight take a toll without risking a TPK is to outnumber the players with relatively weak opponents.

What they could have given as a general fuzzy guideline is that it gets really dangerous if you outnumber the party with monsters of a certain CR relative to party level.
The advice is not to have more than double the numbers of PCs.

They also give guidelines about CR.

Also, the multipliers did not work once you take AOE into account.

Every wizard with fireball was very happy to face numbers of weaker enemies. That did not make the encounter harder but easier. Especially when the wizard is an evoker who can chose to drop a fireball safely around surrounded party members.

With generally higher tresholds, you put more monsters in anyway. Or an even higher CR solo.

And if the solo has better damage/action economy than in 2014, a single monster of a certain CR should also be harder. So lets wait dor the MM to complain.
 

Can you expand on this?
The 5.5 DMG in particular has made it quite clear that the purpose of D&D is crazy super-powered adventures where PCs show off their amazing powers to each other on the regular, feeling like badasses all the way. The rules are specifically designed (according to the book) to facilitate this and only this. I have to presume that's what the DM is for as well.
 


The 5.5 DMG in particular has made it quite clear that the purpose of D&D is crazy super-powered adventures where PCs show off their amazing powers to each other on the regular, feeling like badasses all the way. The rules are specifically designed (according to the book) to facilitate this and only this. I have to presume that's what the DM is for as well.
Did you read it completely? Or at all? Does not look like this...
 




Trending content

Remove ads

Top