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:

 

[Jester David]

It should be criminal to unload such profoundly unhelpful BS on new players

...
why would new players be using playtest material from the website, let alone even finding the Unearthed Arcana articles?

 

[Jester David]

I tend to think any encounter building guidelines are doomed to fail. Especially in 5e, which has such power variability between characters.
Perfect encounter guideline would have to take into account the number of daily resources remaining to the party, the number of magic items, the optimization of the characters, the synergy between the characters, how lucky the players are, the tactical skill of all players, the terrain, encounter distance, surprise, and more.

An encounter at medium range with a melee heavy party in the middle of an adventuring day will unfold vastly differently compared to that same encounter at the beginning of a day for a party focused on ranged combat.

 

[I'm A Banana]

High-level encounter guidelines are completely borked, and probably always will be. Recently, I threw four CR 10 monsters at a group of three level 12 characters. They didn't even break a sweat. According to the DMG, this encounter was 3-4x harder than Deadly. No one was knocked unconscious. No one was even badly hurt. The thought of throwing ONE CR 12 monster at a high-level group and expecting a challenge is laughable.

If we want to analyze this by the new rules, let's get a character assessment and a monster assessment, too. We'll need each characters' HP maximum and saving throw modifiers, as well as the highest damage they could inflict with a single round (let's say "round" to take into account extra attack) going into the fight. We'll also need the monster's hit points (compared to that damage), attack damage (compared to those HP totals), saving throw DC's (compared to the party's saves) and saving throws (compared to the party's save DC's).

It would probably also be relevant to look at any magic items the party might be holding (since those would put them ahead of the curve).

Or more briefly, like the article points out, "Even though character level and challenge rating are useful tools for defining the difficulty of an encounter, they don’t tell the whole story."

 

[Shadow Demon]

It is my belief that if a DM wishes to completely ignore step 1 then none of these guidelines are going to work unless the party is comprised of 4 characters (fighter, rogue, thief, and wizard) only with no feats and no multiclassing run by group of new players.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I've never used encounter building rules since I started in 1981. In fact, I don't recall there even being rules until 3e, is that correct?

I started the year earlier, and that's how I remember it. There was some advice in the 1e DMG, and there were implications about monster 'level' here and there, in summoning spells and encounter tables, and many thing keying off HD/levels as if they were equivalent. But nothing like CR until 3e, and nothing that 'worked' in the least dependably or simply until 4e.

It's perhaps ironic that 5e, in trying so hard to be (or at least feel) 'simpler' in other ways (particularly BA) has managed to saddle itself with such a complex-seeming set of encounter guidelines. But, ultimately, most of us probably don't need them, anyway - experience and the freedom 5e allows us as DMs is enough to handle 'balancing' encounters (and adventuring days and divergent PC power levels, etc) - whether intuitively or on the fly or more carefully beforehand, with or without such guidelines (though having them, even if only to give a once-over or ignore, is better than not). It all just becomes part of the art of running a good game, and that becomes second nature.

It is my belief that if a DM wishes to completely ignore step 1 then none of these guidelines are going to work unless the party is comprised of 4 characters (fighter, rogue, thief, and wizard) only with no feats and no multiclassing run by group of new players.

That just might be exactly the situation that a new DM sits down to run. New players, with basic pdf characters.

 

[TerraDave]

Its a step in the right direction. Easier to use then what is in the DMG, no over-correcting for multiple combatants, and a much more robust approach to solos.

But there is a discrepancy between the multi-monster tables and the solo one. Which is probably on purpose--solos need all the help they can get--but that should probably be clearer.

 

[Prakriti]

I'm not saying you've done this (I don't have any details on how you ran this encounter), but most of the times when I've seen arguments like this ("the encounter should have been super deadly but was a cakewalk!!), often the monsters and/or environment were ran by the DM to the benefit of the characters.

I got into D&D through turn-based strategy games, so I know how to utilize tactics and terrain to my advantage. This particular encounter (four CR 10 monsters vs. three level 12 PCs) was definitely NOT stacked in the players' favor, nor was it atypical. In fact, I've been throwing nothing BUT Deadly encounters at my high-level group for a while now, because they're the only ones that are remotely challenging.

My low-level group, meanwhile, almost TPK'd against three bugbears, and then again against a band of orcs (we're running Lost Mine of Phandelver), so it's not that I don't know how to run encounters. It's that the encounter-building guidelines are really only useful for low-level groups. After level 9 or so, they are so off-base as to be completely useless, especially for players who have optimized their characters with feats and multiclassing (which REALLY pay off after level 9).

I'm not complaining, though. I like building encounters, and I know my group well enough to challenge them without the help of guidelines. But it's worth pointing out -- especially to newer DMs -- that you can't rely on these guidelines for high-level groups.

 

[Raunalyn]

If we want to analyze this by the new rules, let's get a character assessment and a monster assessment, too. We'll need each characters' HP maximum and saving throw modifiers, as well as the highest damage they could inflict with a single round (let's say "round" to take into account extra attack) going into the fight. We'll also need the monster's hit points (compared to that damage), attack damage (compared to those HP totals), saving throw DC's (compared to the party's saves) and saving throws (compared to the party's save DC's).

It would probably also be relevant to look at any magic items the party might be holding (since those would put them ahead of the curve).

Or more briefly, like the article points out, "Even though character level and challenge rating are useful tools for defining the difficulty of an encounter, they don’t tell the whole story."

This is exactly right. Really, you need to tailor your higher level encounters to the party. Choose monsters that you think will be a challenge for your group. Have Tanks with high AC? Target their weak saves. Have mages who can attack from a distance? Find ways to counter them. Don't let the group fight the solo mob when they are fresh! Soften them up, make them work toward the boss.

In one group I'm running, the party is 10th level and I placed them against a solo Blood Elemental (custom monster...I'm A Banana is in this group). According to the chart in the Unearthed Arcana, this was a moderate encounter. I very nearly killed the group; one or two of them went down during the fight, and almost everyone was out of resources.

It really is familiarity with the rules. I've had a few encounters that I thought would be a cakewalk for the group, but turned out to nearly be a TPK. Conversely, I've had encounters I thought would be extremely difficult, but the group was able to walk all over the encounter with hardly a scratch.

 

[Ath-kethin]

It is my belief that if a DM wishes to completely ignore step 1 then none of these guidelines are going to work unless the party is comprised of 4 characters (fighter, rogue, thief, and wizard) only with no feats and no multiclassing run by group of new players.

So, a group of newish players following baseline expectations (possibly even Basic D&D) and no optional rules. Sounds like the type of group who could use serious help building encounters.

After all, I think those of us who are more seasoned have a better sense of how to gauge our groups and account on-the-fly for issues that arise during play. I know that when planning encounters for my campaign, I am capable of thinking in terms of what tactics my players are likely to employ. I have no problem with most "official" help being aimed at players who lack my level of familiarity, comfort, and/or expertise with the rules. By the time most of the issues described in this thread appear, hopefully the DM will have had a chance to develop end get a better feel for things themselves.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Optimized groups always steamroll encounters if they are allowed to play on their battlefield. But then it stops being a real roleplaying game and starts being a wargame. The borders are blurry though and there are groups that enjoy both. If you balance the game for optimizers then average players who don't spend time on these forums are hopelessly lost.
Also if the DM also optimizes and picks monsters carefully, even lower level encounters may be deadly. But that is seen as unfair by optimizers because the DM exploits weaknesses...