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<blockquote data-quote="jrowland" data-source="post: 5992693" data-attributes="member: 94389">With 4E I have instituted my own &quot;adventure building&quot; framework. It is very contrived, but it works...for me anyway. I call it the &quot;rule of three&quot;:I assume 1 adventure has 3 chapterseach chapter has 3 &quot;delves&quot;each delve has 3 encountersfor a total of 27 encounters.Of those 27 encounters 1/3 will be &quot;Heavy&quot; Combat1/3 will be skills (including RPing, actual skills, puzzles, exploration, etc)1/3 will be &quot;Mixed&quot; (either skills + combat, or 2 easy combat/skill encounters, or avoidable combat/skills encounters)I don't auto assign where and how these are to be encountered, but If I did, it might look like this for a 5th level &quot;chapter&quot;:Delve 13rd level combat4th level avoidable combat5th level skillDelve 2 4th Level easy combat5th level skill6th level combat4th level easy skillDelve 35th level avoidable skill6th level easy combat6th level easy skill7th level combatlevel up, start next chapterDelve 4 4th level skill5th level avoidable combat6th level combatetc. etc. *notice the level of the encounters start easy and get progressively higher level, then reset after a level gain. It looks contrived on paper, but players rarely notice. I prefer &quot;delves&quot; for each sandbox location as well, so players might hit a delve 3 in the low level zone then go to the lower level delve 4 in a higher level zone, and not feel that each zone is too tightly focused in encounters)In practice, I usually start with the BBEG/tough encounters and work backwards, so I can tie things together thematically and dropping in foreshadow elements.YMMVBut I think you could do the same here with the playtest. Start with the adventure, figure out a few &quot;scenes&quot; or locations (ie delves), and populate them with combats, RP, skill tests, exploration, etc.P.S. -&nbsp; &quot;avoidable&quot; encounters in my game either provide little or no rewards (they are easy to avoid but drain resources should you engage) or they provide a boon (healing, helpful magic, etc) but are harder to FIND or are out of the way.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="jrowland, post: 5992693, member: 94389"] With 4E I have instituted my own "adventure building" framework. It is very contrived, but it works...for me anyway. I call it the "rule of three": I assume 1 adventure has 3 chapters each chapter has 3 "delves" each delve has 3 encounters for a total of 27 encounters. Of those 27 encounters 1/3 will be "Heavy" Combat 1/3 will be skills (including RPing, actual skills, puzzles, exploration, etc) 1/3 will be "Mixed" (either skills + combat, or 2 easy combat/skill encounters, or avoidable combat/skills encounters) I don't auto assign where and how these are to be encountered, but If I did, it might look like this for a 5th level "chapter": Delve 1 3rd level combat 4th level avoidable combat 5th level skill Delve 2 4th Level easy combat 5th level skill 6th level combat 4th level easy skill Delve 3 5th level avoidable skill 6th level easy combat 6th level easy skill 7th level combat level up, start next chapter Delve 4 4th level skill 5th level avoidable combat 6th level combat etc. etc. *notice the level of the encounters start easy and get progressively higher level, then reset after a level gain. It looks contrived on paper, but players rarely notice. I prefer "delves" for each sandbox location as well, so players might hit a delve 3 in the low level zone then go to the lower level delve 4 in a higher level zone, and not feel that each zone is too tightly focused in encounters) In practice, I usually start with the BBEG/tough encounters and work backwards, so I can tie things together thematically and dropping in foreshadow elements. YMMV But I think you could do the same here with the playtest. Start with the adventure, figure out a few "scenes" or locations (ie delves), and populate them with combats, RP, skill tests, exploration, etc. P.S. - "avoidable" encounters in my game either provide little or no rewards (they are easy to avoid but drain resources should you engage) or they provide a boon (healing, helpful magic, etc) but are harder to FIND or are out of the way. [/QUOTE]

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