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:

 

[nswanson27]

I think this article has fully qualified itself as not being end-all-be-all to encounter making. Treat it as a hammer, not as a wand that magically makes a house.
The thing about higher level play is that there's a lot more variables in play. People should think about their "cakewalk" and "almost TPK" experiences. Just because a party did really well or really bad doesn't mean that's the encounter (or even the DM's) fault. Were the dice good or bad at one crucial moment? Did one seemingly innocuous decision by the party have a huge swing on the downstream events? And finally, did the players have fun in spite of the mechanical outcome - if so, was there even really a problem here to begin with?

 

[pming]

Hiya.

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.

But then, how did everyone manage to play D&D back in 1980 (+/-)? There were no "encounter guidelines" back then. I was 10 then, and started DM'ing at the end of that year. We would trade off DM'ing every module or two (initially, for the first two years or so; then it was either me or one other guy). Back in those days, you either "had the DM'ing skill, or you didn't". I did, as well as another friend named Chris. It wasn't until late 80's that I found another friend who could also DM. Since those days I've played with many folk. Out of nigh-on-40 years of this RPG'ing stuff, I think the number of DM's I've come across is...let me count...6.

What's my point? My point is that anyone who can't figure out, learn, or otherwise "get it" (DM'ing) to write fun, exciting, and challenging adventures without the aid of mathematical formulas or a computer...er...well, maybe DM'ing isn't for them. Writing "balanced encounters" isn't about numbers, CR's and DPR...it's about experience and knowing your players. Charts, tables and mathematical formula are not going to cut it. Well done charts, tables and math can be used as tools to help a DM, but really "knowing" if something is going to be easy, average, tough, or deadly is something that, IMHO, just needs to be learned over time.

(sorry for the "smugness" of this, but it's hard to not come off that way when talking from experience)

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Parmandur]

These guidelines are more intuitive to me, though clearly any guidelines are a Quixotic endeavor, very rough rules of thumb.

 

[callinostros]

One of the biggest (to me) failures of 5E is the lack of a strong and intuitive encounter building system. This article didn't help in that regard.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

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.

What were the CR 10 monsters? Knowing what they are might answer the question.

 

[CapnZapp]

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

There's always the risk of this stuff getting out of playtest, and into a published book *shrug*

 

[CapnZapp]

What were the CR 10 monsters? Knowing what they are might answer the question.

I think a much better start would be to ask questions about the party.

Oh wait, that's exactly what every encounter building guideline refuse to do, thereby dooming itself into worthlessness.

 

[CapnZapp]

Hiya.



But then, how did everyone manage to play D&D back in 1980 (+/-)? There were no "encounter guidelines" back then. I was 10 then, and started DM'ing at the end of that year. We would trade off DM'ing every module or two (initially, for the first two years or so; then it was either me or one other guy). Back in those days, you either "had the DM'ing skill, or you didn't". I did, as well as another friend named Chris. It wasn't until late 80's that I found another friend who could also DM. Since those days I've played with many folk. Out of nigh-on-40 years of this RPG'ing stuff, I think the number of DM's I've come across is...let me count...6.

What's my point? My point is that anyone who can't figure out, learn, or otherwise "get it" (DM'ing) to write fun, exciting, and challenging adventures without the aid of mathematical formulas or a computer...er...well, maybe DM'ing isn't for them. Writing "balanced encounters" isn't about numbers, CR's and DPR...it's about experience and knowing your players. Charts, tables and mathematical formula are not going to cut it. Well done charts, tables and math can be used as tools to help a DM, but really "knowing" if something is going to be easy, average, tough, or deadly is something that, IMHO, just needs to be learned over time.

(sorry for the "smugness" of this, but it's hard to not come off that way when talking from experience)

^_^

Paul L. Ming

I think the take-away here is: because there exists guidelines, people tend to assume they're worth following.

Back in the day there were no guidelines. And actually, that is still the best set of guidelines I've seen...

But again: the thing here is that the existence of guidelines is actively harmful, since it hides the truth from people - the things you just said.

 

[CapnZapp]

I think this article has fully qualified itself as not being end-all-be-all to encounter making. Treat it as a hammer, not as a wand that magically makes a house.
The thing about higher level play is that there's a lot more variables in play. People should think about their "cakewalk" and "almost TPK" experiences. Just because a party did really well or really bad doesn't mean that's the encounter (or even the DM's) fault. Were the dice good or bad at one crucial moment? Did one seemingly innocuous decision by the party have a huge swing on the downstream events? And finally, did the players have fun in spite of the mechanical outcome - if so, was there even really a problem here to begin with?

If the guidelines actively said they were a crutch for beginning DMs' first few encounters... a very crude crutch... that only works for the most straight-forward of encounters... at the lowest levels...

...I would respect them much more.

 

[CapnZapp]

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...

Okay sure... but what has this to do with those guidelines...?

I mean, it's not as if the guidelines says anything of what you just said. If they did, I could respect them much more.