Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana Presents Alternative Encounter Building Guidelines

WotC's Mike Mearls has posted the latest Unearthed Arcana, presenting an alternate set of encounter-building guidelines for D&D. "Though this approach uses the same basic math underlying the encounter system presented in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, it makes a few adjustments to how it presents that math to produce a more flexible system. These guidelines will be of interest to DMs who want to emphasize combat in their games, who want to ensure that a foe isn’t too deadly for a specific group of characters, and who want to understand the relationship between a character’s level and a monster’s challenge rating."

It's four pages, and includes various tables divided into a series of five steps - Assess the Characters, Encounter Size, Determine Numbers and Challenge Ratings, Select Monsters, and Add Complications. The latter step includes d8 monster personalities, d6 monster relationships, terrain, traps, and random events. Find it here.

At the D&D website:

 

[pemerton]

I did find pemerton's insight about player-controlled pacing and 'CaW' interesting. I'm not sure if I'm convinced, but it's interesting.

Thanks!

And it was part of an optional alternative to simply death at 0 hps.

The "death's door" rules in 1st ed AD&D are not presented as optional.

The only option that is presented is whether dropping below zero is instant death (so the death's door rules trigger only on dropping to exactly zero hp) otr whether dropping below -3 is instant death (so the death's door rules are triggered in a 4 hp range, between 0 hp and -3 hp). I also used the latter option, because having the rules trigger in only a 1 hp range seemed a bit pointless, whereas given the fairly narrow range of typical damage dice in AD&D the 4 hp range will see play a reasonable amount.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

@pemerton, I understand that you are talking about encounter design. I am not misunderstanding your point; I just strongly disagree with it. I think you're mistaken on two counts: you're overestimating how forgiving AD&D is, and you're underestimating how forgiving 5E is.

On the first count, you've acknowledged that AD&D could and did throw encounters in your face that would certainly kill you if you tried to tackle them head-on. (Twenty kobolds, a tribe of a hundred orcs, etc.) This was exacerbated by a number of AD&D-era rules which made disengaging from combat difficult compared to 5E (e.g. turning your back on an enemy not only gave a free attack, it was a free attack with a massive bonus; and sneaking was far less effective than in 5E unless you were fairly high-level already or you hyperspecialized).

On the second count, we all play 5E so I don't know how much actually needs to be said, but consider if you will simply the impact of mounted combat on 5E. A first-level PC with a longbow and a horse can slaughter nigh-unlimited quantities of orcs or hill giants in open terrain until he runs out of ammunition; that would never happen in AD&D. Combat As War works terrifically well in 5E specifically because there are so many options and exploits available for you to leverage and because (MM) monsters are quite limited in what they can do. Whether you want to exploit Sharpshooter + caltrops or Fog Cloud + Cunning Action + Stealth Expertise or Planar Binding, it's all available. Even something as simple as the Dodge action opens up possibilities. Consider your hypothetical Hill Giant vs. 3rd level Fighter scenario--if the Fighter has buddies with ranged weapons, he can Dodge with his own action with no loss of offensive effectiveness whatsoever while also halving the damage he takes from the hill giant. Either the hill giant takes the bait and tries to bash the fighter at disadvantage while everyone else pours on the ranged attacks, or the hill giant ignores the bait and pursues some other PC, which gives the fighter the same 1 attack he would have gotten against the hill giant if he'd decided to Attack instead. In short, there is no reason for the fighter to Attack the hill giant at all.

Four 3rd level PCs vs. a CR 5 Hill Giant is a perfectly winnable fight. Possibly moreso in 5E than it would have been in AD&D (2nd edition); certainly not much less so.

AD&D assumes that the players will not have to be swarmed by the kobolds, but rather are able to control the terms on which they encounter them (eg by successfully scouting; by bribing or otherwise influencing sentries - hence the reaction roll mechanic as an alternative to "everything automatically attacks"; etc).

Once AD&D scenarios began to be written which eschewed these rules and guidelines favouring player control of pacing and encounter numbers, and assuming that the GM would exercise control over these things, the game started to break down, because it didn't have encounter building guidelines; and the solution the system offered GMs was to fudge dice rolls.

That's an interesting historical perspective, and the causation you posit is plausible, but it's not relevant to 5E unless you're trying to play that kind of DM-controlled game. And you don't have to, at all. 5E is perfectly friendly to Combat As War and player-controlled pacing.

 

[pemerton]

I think you're mistaken on two counts: you're overestimating how forgiving AD&D is, and you're underestimating how forgiving 5E is.

<snip>

A first-level PC with a longbow and a horse can slaughter nigh-unlimited quantities of orcs or hill giants in open terrain until he runs out of ammunition; that would never happen in AD&D.

<snip>

Four 3rd level PCs vs. a CR 5 Hill Giant is a perfectly winnable fight. Possibly moreso in 5E than it would have been in AD&D (2nd edition); certainly not much less so.

<snip>

5E is perfectly friendly to Combat As War and player-controlled pacing.

I think classic D&D's morale and pursuit/evasion rules provide additional support in this respect.

My default thinking has been of dungeon scenarios - which is the main context for classic D&D player-controlled pacing (if you meet hill giants as a random encounter in the wilderness, you're probably best of evading if you think you'll have any trouble beating them). When you say that archery is so much stronger in 5e than AD&D, are you referring to range - the 53 hill giant's rock is range 60/240 for 21 damage (longbow 150/600), compared to AD&D's 20" for 2d8 (longbow range 7"/14"/21").

Assuming a melee context, I still can't help but notice that 18 damage from a hill giant can drop a 3rd level 5e PC, whereas 2d8 from a AD&D hill giant is very unlikely to drop a 3rd level AD&D PC other than a MU.

 

[dave2008]

My average combats last about 15 minutes. There's usually a "bad guy" several grunts and some other things people have to deal with that isn't fighting (disable the mcguffin etc..)

Are you saying your average combat lasts 150 rounds or 15 minutes to play? 15 minutes of play could be a large range of rounds. My group can typically get through 2-4 rounds in 15 minutes, if they are really on task maybe up to 6 rounds.

 

[CapnZapp]

I think the more pertinent point is asking Shidaku how challenging those fights are.

Because I can certainly see a fifteen minute fight. But I have trouble seeing an interesting fifteen minute fight.

(That is, not all fights need to be difficult. And even a level 11 party vs three goblins aka a fifteen second fight could concievably be interesting, but then that would be for story reasons, not for game mechanics reasons)

A large reason why we're playing the game is for the fights to be challenging. For a fight to be challenging, it needs to feature sufficiently powerful monsters in number and CR.

And that kind of fight simply isn't over in 15 minutes of real time, not for our group anyways.

We abandoned 4E because we could barely fit in two fights in a eight-hour game session. The actual combat (the tactical considerations on the battlemat) was great. The fact there was no time for PC characterization, NPC interaction and story progression was a deal-breaker however. We want more out of our Sunday afternoons than merely a great tactical battlegame - we want the full roleplaying experience (albeit one heavily focused on the mechanics of combat).

That a challenging fight now in 5E takes only one or two hours is a huge improvement. It lets us have plenty of fun-filled and challenging fights and still squeeze in a modicum of roleplaying in between (PC characterization; NPC interaction; story progression)

Just saying that to provide background from where I'm seeing this.

 

[The_Gneech]

Four 3rd level PCs vs. a CR 5 Hill Giant is a perfectly winnable fight.

If my group is any indication, four 3rd level PCs vs. a CR 5 Hill Giant will end with a curbstomped giant, but it might take half an hour to get there. If the giant rolls really well, he might get a big hit on one player.

Granted, most of my players have 20+ years of gaming experience, but still, this isn't something that was true (or at least as true) in 3.x/PF. In that context, the giant would probably take out one or two characters before finally succumbing, but it would be over sooner, assuming a single large room without weird terrain effects or whatever.

(Using more conventional encounter numbers, 5E combats are way faster than 3.x/PF fights, but that's largely a function of the difficulty. A "normal" 5E encounter is closer to an "easy" 3.x/PF encounter. Once you get out of that realm, things change.)

In any case, what I'm getting at, is that I find 5E to be very forgiving in what encounters players can and can't take on. There's been very little I've encountered that was so trivial players could completely ignore it, but there's also been very little that they couldn't take on and eventually overcome. "Tougher" in 5E seems to translate to "takes longer to eventually lose."

-The Gneech

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

My default thinking has been of dungeon scenarios - which is the main context for classic D&D player-controlled pacing (if you meet hill giants as a random encounter in the wilderness, you're probably best of evading if you think you'll have any trouble beating them). When you say that archery is so much stronger in 5e than AD&D, are you referring to range - the 53 hill giant's rock is range 60/240 for 21 damage (longbow 150/600), compared to AD&D's 20" for 2d8 (longbow range 7"/14"/21").

Range is one dimension, including the 5E ranged advantage over not just hill giant rocks but also spells and monster abilities; 5E movement rules are another (shoot-and-scoot is entirely legal and quite easy); increased damage is yet another (in 5E, not only do you get your Dex bonus to attacks but you can pump damage even further via a number of feats/options); also feat support to increase to-hit chances, damage, and mobility even further; the fact that magical longbows in 5E are explicitly outlined to bypass weapon immunity a la werewolves; class abilities like Missile Catch that provide ways for players to tilt ranged combat in their favor; synergistic combat options like Dodge that synergize with ranged combat (especially with options like Sharpshooter) in the way I outlined previously in the discussion about Fighter 3 vs. Hill Giant.

Ranged combat is dominant in 5E from a powergaming perspective. There's very little reason not to be a range-specialized combatant, even if you specialize in dungeon crawling.

Assuming a melee context, I still can't help but notice that 18 damage from a hill giant can drop a 3rd level 5e PC, whereas 2d8 from a AD&D hill giant is very unlikely to drop a 3rd level AD&D PC other than a MU.

Maybe in 1E, but in 2nd edition, a Hill Giant does 2d6+7 (14) which, as I mentioned previously, is about 75% of a 3rd level Fighter's HP; 18 damage is only about 67% of a 5E fighter's HP. And "dropping" a PC has very different implications in 5E vs. AD&D. In AD&D, one blow from the Hill Giant can take you out of the adventure; in 5E, it can take you out of the combat for a round.

You're making the claim that 5E is less robust than AD&D when it comes to writing an adventure that accomodates a wide range of levels (e.g. 4-6 players of levels 3-5), so I don't think you get to ignore 2nd edition here. Unless you're limiting your claim to 1E? My only exposure to 1E is the Gold Box games, which don't really count, so if you're making a 1E-specific claim I'll have to bow out.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Are you saying your average combat lasts 150 rounds or 15 minutes to play? 15 minutes of play could be a large range of rounds. My group can typically get through 2-4 rounds in 15 minutes, if they are really on task maybe up to 6 rounds.

(Agreeing with and expanding on this.)

Yes, there is wide variation. I've seen twelve-round fights that take two minutes (mano-a-mano between an ogre and a first-level Barbarian; a lot of whiffing occurred), four-hour fights that took thirty minutes (Bone Naga vs. solo PC who then retreated to where the rest of the party was, and then it turned into a four-hour Mexican standoff against the infinitely-patient undead Naga until one of the players finally bit the bullet and broke the standoff in his own disfavor), and eighteen-second (?) fights that must have taken an hour by wall clock time, even though I have no idea where the time went because it didn't seem that long.

It's the decision-making that makes a fight take a while. The more options you have to evaluate, the longer the fight takes; this goes double if there are lots of characters involved in the fight.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

(Using more conventional encounter numbers, 5E combats are way faster than 3.x/PF fights, but that's largely a function of the difficulty. A "normal" 5E encounter is closer to an "easy" 3.x/PF encounter. Once you get out of that realm, things change.)

I didn't play 3.x/PF, but--yes. This exactly.

I admit also that I don't particularly care for quick-and-easy combats because it trivializes murder. I prefer a combat-light game in which combat, when it occurs, is an emotionally significant event for the players. In practice I don't always manage to live up to that standard (i D&D after all), but I certainly have no desire to feed my players eight easy buckets a night of easy encounters to casually slaughter. Instead of eight patrols of three goblins apiece, I'd rather have you meet the goblin tribe of twenty-four goblins, have a chance to trade with/negotiate/offend them, and then go from there. If you decide that you want to defeat them in detail, it is your job as players to split them up into the three-goblin packets (which might be as simple as "wait until daylight"), and at least you'll have had a roleplaying interaction with their chief first--so one way or another, your in-game interactions with the goblins will be measured in minutes or hours, not seconds.

 

[CapnZapp]

Range is one dimension, including the 5E ranged advantage over not just hill giant rocks but also spells and monster abilities; 5E movement rules are another (shoot-and-scoot is entirely legal and quite easy); increased damage is yet another (in 5E, not only do you get your Dex bonus to attacks but you can pump damage even further via a number of feats/options); also feat support to increase to-hit chances, damage, and mobility even further; the fact that magical longbows in 5E are explicitly outlined to bypass weapon immunity a la werewolves; class abilities like Missile Catch that provide ways for players to tilt ranged combat in their favor; synergistic combat options like Dodge that synergize with ranged combat (especially with options like Sharpshooter) in the way I outlined previously in the discussion about Fighter 3 vs. Hill Giant.

Ranged combat is dominant in 5E from a powergaming perspective. There's very little reason not to be a range-specialized combatant, even if you specialize in dungeon crawling.

Thank you.

It can be quite exasperating discussing optimal play with people that think they get it, but really don't.

Posts like yours help me hold onto my sanity...