D&D 5E Weirdness: The more monsters, the less the XP.

[CapnZapp]

This is just one of the myriad of things that makes me wonder why WotC even bothers with challenge ratings, encounter building tables and the like. It seems like so many players take them as gospel, follow them to the letter, then get annoyed when they don't work right for their particular group. That group of 20 Bandits against 4 melee PCs makes the battle difficult enough that the XP that they get out of it (due to XP multipliers for large groups) doesn't seem nearly enough... whereas the same 20 Bandit group against 4 PCs that can drop a pair of AoE spells in the middle of them at the top of the battle seems like a cakewalk.

If WotC had just left "encounter building" and "challenge ratings" out of it and just told DMs "figure out what your group can handle and create fights to challenge them"... DMs would build towards their specific party and not just using arbitrary numbers and wonder why they don't work right. It's how DMs always had to do it way back when and we got pretty good at just eyeballing things based on monster stats and XP gained... and it's a skill that too many DMs these days have never really learned how to do.

I'd encourage all DMs to occasionally just put together a random encounter using nothing more than your instincts on what you think your group could handle-- not bothering with any encounter building equations or ratings or anything-- and just see what happens.

Very much this.

Sadly, I believe challenge ratings sells the game. Gives encounter building a pseudo scientific sheen. In effect, it tells newbie DMs "you can do it. Just follow these steps and you will have an average, difficult or deadly encounter, every time"

It's all a lie, of course.

I weep at the thousands of hours being wasted on meticulously calculating ECLs or XP budgets or whatnot. Not to mention the countless arguments in forum threads just like this one.

 

[discosoc]

Normally paladins max out at AC 21 (23 with Shield of Faith) so I assume you must have given him a magic shield or something, yes?

Yeah, he ended up getting a set of +1 plate mail and +1 shield (both were from loot table rolls). I actually forgot about that, but my point does still stand. The 23 AC has been high enough that he rarely opts to use Shield of Faith, and with most enemies until around 13th or 14th level, they were only hitting on an 18+ at best (+4 or +5 to hit is common for the relevant CR unless it's a single big bad).

Anyway, yes there are ways of dealing damage to him, but it gets silly if it looks like every fight (or even most fights) amazingly has some anti-him component for sake of actually doing damage. There are only so many nearby cliffs, lava pits, gusts of wind, etc, to be had before it starts to just look weird. I trudged through it, and it's not so bad now. I was just making the point that if the hit bonus for most creatures was a point or two higher, a lot of encounters (as setup by the DMG difficulty table) wouldn't feel quite as easy as they do.

 

[Psikerlord#]

To answer the OP - I just give full full monster exp, don't adjust it at all. works fine. of course we like a quick advancement at our table.

Alternatively, even better imo, don't use XP at all - just have PCs level up in downtime betwixt adventures.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I find this issue utterly baffling. It's like change for the sake of change, rather than sticking to something that's had its kinks already worked out and has been proven to work.

Encounter guidelines depend on both the PCs and enemies being, to a degree, 'known quantities.' In theory Bounded Accuracy shouldn't have hurt that, but it did necessitate that multiplier, which added complexity, and, perhaps it muddies the meaning of relative a bit. But, aside from BA, the monsters in 5e are not that crazy.

It's really probably the PC side of the equation that's the more problematic. Classes and even sub-classes have very different resource mixes, and there's not even rough guidelines (though there is significant tradition) as to what party composition 'should' be like. So the party, itself, is a giant unknown, a wildcard that makes any set of guidelines iffy at best.

On top of that, 5e is meant to be run rulings-over-rules and with any of a variety of modules or house rules that could impact encounter balance.

Maybe good guidelines didn't feel enough like D&D? *shrug*

Really, guidelines might not 'feel' much like D&D, since it didn't really have any prior to 3.0 introducing CR. That's over 20 years of DMs learning the art of encounter design through experience.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Really, guidelines might not 'feel' much like D&D, since it didn't really have any prior to 3.0 introducing CR. That's over 20 years of DMs learning the art of encounter design through experience.

That's not actually true. TSR versions of D&D had guidelines for setting up encounters, even if those guidelines didn't operate on the idea of a "balanced encounter" or "fair challenge" or whatever term it is that WotC-era D&D encounter building guidelines operate on.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

Really, guidelines might not 'feel' much like D&D, since it didn't really have any prior to 3.0 introducing CR. That's over 20 years of DMs learning the art of encounter design through experience.

That's not actually true. TSR versions of D&D had guidelines for setting up encounters, even if those guidelines didn't operate on the idea of a "balanced encounter" or "fair challenge" or whatever term it is that WotC-era D&D encounter building guidelines operate on.

Yeah, first edition had monster "levels" that were...supposedly more or less corresponding to dungeon level or something IIRC; and ranged from 1 to 10. Not to be confused with character level or spell level.

 

[Psikerlord#]

That's not actually true. TSR versions of D&D had guidelines for setting up encounters, even if those guidelines didn't operate on the idea of a "balanced encounter" or "fair challenge" or whatever term it is that WotC-era D&D encounter building guidelines operate on.

Indeed, I think the game worked better without detailed encounter guides. There was no expectation of a "balanced" or fair encounter - as it should be! This is one of those areas where the original design was better than what came later (along with too much HP inflation, passive perception, and cantrips! - imo)

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Indeed, I think the game worked better without detailed encounter guides. There was no expectation of a "balanced" or fair encounter - as it should be! This is one of those areas where the original design was better than what came later (along with too much HP inflation, passive perception, and cantrips! - imo)

I can't agree that the encounter guidelines weren't detailed; they taught me everything I needed to know about building encounters by me just reading them and putting them to practice.

I can't say what is better, objectively, either - since I learned by the monster levels & d12+d8 encounter charts method, my view of the later 3rd, 4th, and even 5th edition methods is clouded by the fact that I can't experience any of those in the same fresh-brained way. The fact that different edition's encounter building guidelines have also had completely different goals also prevents an objective statement of which is better being made - it's apples & oranges.

As to your opinions on HP, passive perception, and cantrips, I express my usual disagreement - things are how they are in 5th edition for a good reason.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Indeed, I think the game worked better without detailed encounter guides. There was no expectation of a "balanced" or fair encounter - as it should be! This is one of those areas where the original design was better than what came later (along with too much HP inflation, passive perception, and cantrips! - imo)

What you're really saying is that you like the game being worse (as a game) for lack of encounter guidelines. Which is fine. Encounter guidelines can always be thrown to the winds if that's the style the DM wants to go for. 'Status Quo' rather than 'Tailored.' Why isn't even relevant. But, not everyone is going to agree that flying by braille like that makes for a better gaming experience. Some are going to want to be able to tailor a 'balanced' encounter, because they run under a different style than the one you prefer. Even some DMs running 'status quo,' might like to be able to check encounters they've designed against guidelines to get an estimate of how challenging they'd be, in general, if only to get a sense of the kind of rumors that should be swirling around the area or something of that nature.

 

[Psikerlord#]

What you're really saying is that you like the game being worse (as a game) for lack of encounter guidelines. Which is fine. Encounter guidelines can always be thrown to the winds if that's the style the DM wants to go for. 'Status Quo' rather than 'Tailored.' Why isn't even relevant. But, not everyone is going to agree that flying by braille like that makes for a better gaming experience. Some are going to want to be able to tailor a 'balanced' encounter, because they run under a different style than the one you prefer. Even some DMs running 'status quo,' might like to be able to check encounters they've designed against guidelines to get an estimate of how challenging they'd be, in general, if only to get a sense of the kind of rumors that should be swirling around the area or something of that nature.

All I know is, detailed encounter guides are needless extra work for the DM, and the play experience is better if the DM just eyeballs it, and places monsters according to what makes sense, and not what he thinks would be an "Easy" , "moderate" or "hard" encounter for the party.