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:

 

[Tony Vargas]

That's the fault in your argument. 4e did two things: it made the game easier to run and it "disrespected the game's history". Those two things are not inextricably bound together.

They were - well, the former was a sub-set of the latter. D&D was traditionally tricky to DM, DMing was more of an art than a science, say. Changing that was one of many attempts to make the game better that ended up sending some fans into paroxysms of nerdrage for, as I put it "disrespecting the game's history." (I think that's a reasonably nice way to put it, sorry if it bothers anyone.) The DM-player dynamic in D&D prior to 4e was simply different, and opening that dynamic to change - among other things - triggered some very negative reactions.

5e encourages a DM-player dynamic more like that of the classic game.

A fair bit of biography here masquerading as universal.

Eg my 4e game - with the Rod of Seven Parts, the Eye of Vecna, the Sword of Kas, and an Orcus-slaying party that includes a dwarven cleric/fighter swapping between hammer and axe and an elven ranger-cleric with a demon-slaying bow - does not disrespect the game's history. That list of stuff is basically the roll call for D&D nostalgia!

Sure, it didn't for you & your group. I also found plenty of nostalgic D&Disms in both 3e and 4e - my second 4e character was a reprise of the positively cliche 'high-elf fighter/magic-user with a wand of fireballs' archetype from among my earliest D&D experiences. Oh re-imagined, more sophisticated and lampshading a few things, but still a lot of nostalgic fun. But, for others, the change in basic mechanics, class balance, or even very basic labels, like spell levels being simplified to match the class level at which they were gained, were positively intolerable. You can argue that the fault for that reaction lay with them, and I'd agree, but the edition war happened, and 5e had to react to it.

So it's, y'know, 'reactionary.' Ironic, perhaps, but it's working.

Nor does my game, or other 4e games I've read about on these boards, involve "cookie-cutter" or "totally predictable" encounters.

Nod. The basic, dead-easy, totally intuitive, same-number-of-same-level-standard-monsters encounter would have been a 'cookie cutter,' if it were the only thing. It's wasn't. Sufficient lack of familiarity with the system could leave one with the impression it was, though.

(I can't address how they compare to 4E because I never played that beyond Keep on the Shadowfell, which I'm told is not representative.)

I ran & played a lot of 4e. It might as well have been a 'different game' (as it's critics often ranted) - there was so much going on in terms of player options at charge/level-up and in play, and there was so little to DMing it the DM could even start to feel like just another player. I've known DMs to run 5e in a way that resembled 4e, but they did it by essentially running 4e - using 4e rules for movement, actions, &c.
With DM Empowerment, you can get away with that.

That's kind of a problem for the game, then. The designers of the game identified some time ago that the biggest factor limiting the growth of the game is the rate at which new DMs can be recruited and 'trained'; at some point, the number of players at the table gets to be too large to handle effectively, so someone needs to step up and become a new DM to allow the table to split into smaller, more manageable parties. But if the perception is that DMing is hard and takes a long time and lots of effort to get 'good' at it, then people aren't going to be all that willing to step up to DM. (And anybody who has tried recruiting new DMs for Adventurers League or Living Forgotten Realms can sympathize with this.)

But, at the same time, you can't afford to lose existing DMs - you especially can't afford to turn them against you.

Thus, the impetus for encounter-building guidelines, with the implicit promise that, if you crunch the numbers correctly, you'll come up with a challenging, not overwhelming encounter that your players will enjoy.
...Of all the versions of D&D that had encounter-building guidelines, 4th edition's was the most useful

And it did lead to remarkably rapid transitions from new player to new DM. I saw it myself many time during the Encounters period, players quickly picking up the game, then moving quickly to picking up an adventure and running it.
But I was also very often the oldest guy at the FLGS. When I wasn't, like as not, my fellow grognard would be there recruiting for Pathfinder.

4e might be the pinnacle of balance, but balance brings predictability. And IMO, predictability breeds boredom.

Decent encounter guideling bring greater predictability - for the DM designing the encounter. Though, really, it's more a matter of reduced unpredictability - the only thing a DM, like the allegorical cat-herder, can really predict is that the players won't do what he predicts.

That doesn't mean the encounters he comes up with can't be quite varied (and thus seem unpredictable to his players), just that he'll have a better idea of when he's created a probable rollover or a risk of TPK.

D&D didn't have rules for balanced encounters for decades, and it was the most popular time for the game

That's deeply faulty logic. Yes, D&D was fad in the early 80s when it was badly balanced & hard to DM, it didn't become any less imbalanced in the 90s, but lost virtually all of it's popularity anyway. Broken = popular isn't even a valid correlation.

What you do need, is a DM who is familiar with both the rules and their players if you want to create encounters that your gaming group will enjoy.

Absolutely. And more true the more encounter design tends towards art over science.

What I think would be great is an explanation on how to adjust the encounter guidelines based on different expectations of encounters per day. That I think would be interesting.

It would be interesting. But it might encourage problematic play styles (the infamous 5MWD, which has always been a problem with D&D, and which 5e, expecting 6-8 encounters and having a more complex than ever variety of resource mixes, is particularly vulnerable to).

In my experience, 5E fights run exactly like 3E/PF ones if you crank up the difficulty and put a bunch of terrain stuff in.

I can't say that matches my experience, I don't see 3e's level of 'rocket tag' in 5e, and being outnumbered seems to be more problematic in 5e than it was in 3e.

5e, at very low level, does feel like classic AD&D, to me. After that it's prettymuch up to the DM to try to mod it into what he's looking for.

So my advice to anyone looking for help in creating encounters is to a) get really familiar with the mechanics and monsters, and b) get really familiar with how your players typically play, and then create encounters that feel right.

I would add: don't hesitate to adjust them on the fly.

I take issue with the bold part there. The assumption is that one is expected to improve play ("get better") in some manner that makes battles easier or less dangerous for the players. That is one way / style of play.

It's a classic style - 'skilled play' - going all the way back. Yes, the idea is that not only do characters get better by leveling, but players get better through experience. So experienced players re-starting with 1st level characters will be more effective than they were their first time 'round and 1st level. For most D&Ders, that cycle has happened many times, and there's only so many differences between one edition and the next for them to un-learn & re-learn before they're at the top of their game again.

5e encounter guidelines seem not to assume a lot of player skill (or closely related but distinct 'system mastery') but provide plenty of room for both to be developed and rewarded. So it gets 'too easy' and the DM has to dial it up. Not a new issue. By the time that happens, the DM should also have enough DM skill & system mastery to deliver.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

You don't need fancy encounter building guidelines when the characters stay at roughly the same power level through the course of a campaign.

Why and how does not drastically changing in power level over the course of play remove the need for advice on what sort of encounter is "appropriate"? I ask because most other games that don't have encounter building guidelines still have a wide enough range of possible antagonists to confront that it isn't necessarily obvious which of them are "too much" or "not enough" for the PCs to challenge.

Basically, if someone decides they are going to play D&D but the characters are going to start and stay at 5th level the entire time, do they no longer have any need for encounter building guidelines despite the Monster Manual ranging from mundane frogs to ancient dragons?

 

[Jer]

Why and how does not drastically changing in power level over the course of play remove the need for advice on what sort of encounter is "appropriate"? I ask because most other games that don't have encounter building guidelines still have a wide enough range of possible antagonists to confront that it isn't necessarily obvious which of them are "too much" or "not enough" for the PCs to challenge.

Basically, if someone decides they are going to play D&D but the characters are going to start and stay at 5th level the entire time, do they no longer have any need for encounter building guidelines despite the Monster Manual ranging from mundane frogs to ancient dragons?

Nope, they'd still need the encounter building advice because the game is built assuming a wide range of power levels. If the game were built so that they stayed around level 5 then the Monster Manual would be constructed differently and the only antagonists you would have would be in the narrow band. They'd look like they vary in power - because they would - but the difference in power would be much narrower and it can be more obvious which ones you could throw at your novice players and which ones were high powered compared to them.

I think back to the D&D Basic set - the red box. There was a game constructed for a narrow band of power. It had 1/2 HD monsters all the way through (I think) 5HD monsters. It was pretty obvious that the 5HD monsters were scarier than the 1/2 HD monsters and the book could get by with some really shallow advice-by-example of how to build an encounter that wouldn't TPK your players. Because so long as you didn't throw your players up against 5 minotaurs or something like that you were probably okay.

I take back one thing though - superhero games do have encounter building advice. It tends to be "keep your antagonists at the same level as your PCs" and "if you throw them up against a much higher level threat make it a solo threat" type stuff, but it's advice.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

If the game were built so that they stayed around level 5 then the Monster Manual would be constructed differently and the only antagonists you would have would be in the narrow band. They'd look like they vary in power - because they would - but the difference in power would be much narrower and it can be more obvious which ones you could throw at your novice players and which ones were high powered compared to them.

I don't think there is some magical thing that happens where a person that can look at, for example, the Shadowrun antagonists (which range from street gangers to immensely powerful dragons), and pick out which ones aren't too much for their characters to handle can't look at the Monster Manual for D&D and pick out which monsters aren't too much for their characters to handle.

Those "narrow bands" in other games aren't, in my experience, anywhere near so narrow as to not have plenty of things that starting or even middle-powered characters aren't able to take on (without macguffin support or truly clever play).

I think back to the D&D Basic set - the red box. There was a game constructed for a narrow band of power. It had 1/2 HD monsters all the way through (I think) 5HD monsters.

There are actually 10 HD red dragons (and 11 HD gold that are less likely to be used as enemies) in the Red Box I have.

It was pretty obvious that the 5HD monsters were scarier than the 1/2 HD monsters and the book could get by with some really shallow advice-by-example of how to build an encounter that wouldn't TPK your players. Because so long as you didn't throw your players up against 5 minotaurs or something like that you were probably okay.

I don't see modern D&D as being any less obvious when a monster is too much for the party - even if ignoring the inclusion of CR. I admit, however, that my perception of the matter is that of a person experienced with figuring out fun encounters in a variety of games before 3rd edition came along and introduced the idea of building encounters to a specific challenge-level goal - so I wouldn't be surprised if someone of different experience saw games without encounter building guidelines as missing something, rather than seeing games with such guidelines as having an unnecessary bonus.

 

[Juomari Veren]

how many adventures do you remember running where a number of rooms had comments like 'if the bugbears in Area 4 hear the sound of combat in Area 2, they will move to reinforce their fellows in 3 rounds'. This kind of thing is virtually unheard of since the rise of the 'encounter' model in 3E design.

Are you saying that most of the older adventures and modules do this? Because this occurs frequently in the newest 5e adventure book, Storm King's Thunder. Most of the big dungeons have charts with a shorthand description of what's in each room and then goes into detail about what monsters will reinforce one another if combat breaks out nearby.

I don't recall a lot of that in 3rd or 4th edition adventures I will relent, but it's pretty common again nowadays, at least.

 

[CapnZapp]

It has always been a really meaningless vague guideline number in nearly all editions.

Agreed.

But, you could just as easily have said "both".

As in:

It has always been a really meaningless vague guideline number in both the editions where it is marked as a meaningful concrete guideline number, 3rd and 5th.

 

[CapnZapp]

I suspect that this is largely due to the power curve on non-D&D games (or really, non-d20 family games). The power curve on most non-D&D games is fairly flat. Your Star Wars or WOD or Cortex or Icons characters generally stay within a certain bound of power and never leave it. Essentially most games have solved the "sweet spot" problem by having a much narrower band of power levels for characters to act in. (Even superhero games generally follow the pattern of setting a power level at character creation and then if your power level ramps up at all during play it does it fairly slowly).

You don't need fancy encounter building guidelines when the characters stay at roughly the same power level through the course of a campaign. The only reason D&D has ever needed any guidance at all on what to throw at the party is because when you first start playing throwing 6 orcs at a party of 4 characters might slaughter them, while a month later 6 orcs against the same party is going to be too easy. You don't get that in a Star Wars game - if 6 storm troopers are a challenge for a party when they first start playing, they're probably only a slightly smaller challenge a month later. And even a year later you might only need to add 1 or 2 more to keep the encounter interesting.

(Also, of course, the emphasis on combat in the D&D family of games probably has an impact here as well. Encounters need to be balanced to a large degree because players will play through so many of them in the course of a story. In games that are less combat heavy there's less of a need for balance because there's an assumption that the GM will adjust on the fly if it turns out that his/her assumptions about power level were off because the combat is filling a narrative need and a TPK rarely fulfills a narrative need outside of a Call of Cthulhu or similar scenario. Of course experienced DMs do that with D&D as well, but it's hard to impart experience in a rule book to people trying to learn the game from the book.)

I think the encounter building rules are there for a completely different reason.

I don't think D&D is special in a way that makes it need encounter building rules any more or less than other rpgs.

I think, however, D&D is marketed by a company wishing to maintain the illusion it is simple and straightforward to create balanced encounters. Because that is all encounter building guidelines are - they're an unwelcome layer of obfuscation that just hides the truth:

That you are much better off learning the players, their characters, the monsters, and how they interact.

But since that pretty much reveals that encounter building is an art, not a science, and that you need experience to be good at it, that doesn't sell as many units....

 

[The_Gneech]

Are you saying that most of the older adventures and modules do this? Because this occurs frequently in the newest 5e adventure book, Storm King's Thunder. Most of the big dungeons have charts with a shorthand description of what's in each room and then goes into detail about what monsters will reinforce one another if combat breaks out nearby.

I don't recall a lot of that in 3rd or 4th edition adventures I will relent, but it's pretty common again nowadays, at least.

It's pretty common in older adventures, yes, but especially things like Keep On the Borderlands or other "starter" adventures designed to teach DMs the flow of the game.

-TG

 

[Sunseeker]

I agree with Dave here. Also, I take issue with @shidaku's implication that you're an idiot if you don't "get better at optimizing or rules mastery". A whole lot of players couldn't care less about optimizing or becoming better "tacticians". A lot of people like to role play, or a million other things. I'll also say some of the best players I've ever DM'd were brand new to the game and didn't have all the rules memorized.

Woah now. I never even used the word optimization and it wasn't what I was talking about either. Moreover "rules mastery" is a bit of a loaded term here. You want people to know the rules of the game right? To know when they apply, when they don't, and what sort of exception exist right? By "get better" all I meant was require rules clarifications less often, understand how game aspects work and generally become a better player. Not an optimizer, not a rules lawyer, but someone who is better at the game and doesn't need to ask which die they need to roll to make an attack.

And I already clarified that I wasn't talking about "new" players who just don't know the ropes yet. Maybe my overly aggressive writing made people miss that, but I'm not talking about new players. I'm talking about players who actively don't show an interest in learning how the game works and usually they insist that their lack of knowledge be catered to by constant interruptions and misapplications of the rules.

I don't know how any of you can argue that some people "don't want to get better" at D&D. Sure, you may not want to become optimizers, but that's not objectively better. Maybe you get better at staying in character. Maybe you get better at using the tools of the game to create the right theme for your character, maybe you just ask fewer rules questions because you know how X, Y or Z works.

But I mean, I dunno I guess if you guys are telling me there are some people who want to play D&D, but have no interest in expanding their understanding of how the game works, well I just don't know what to tell you. To me that sounds like wanting to drive but not wanting to learn the rules of the road and reminds me of some particular players I refuse to play with.

So hey maybe what I said came out wrong, maybe I'm misunderstanding you guys, I'm just telling you what I'm hearing.

 

[dave2008]

I think, however, D&D is marketed by a company wishing to maintain the illusion it is simple and straightforward to create balanced encounters. Because that is all encounter building guidelines are - they're an unwelcome layer of obfuscation that just hides the truth:

That you are much better off learning the players, their characters, the monsters, and how they interact.

But since that pretty much reveals that encounter building is an art, not a science, and that you need experience to be good at it, that doesn't sell as many units....

I seriously doubt the existence or not of encounter building guidelines has much of an influence on the sales of D&D books. If that was the case then they would need to be a lot better to sell their books!