Advice on Building Combat Encounters

[@SupergeekMike]

Where do you think you land on the Balance/Situational Encounter Spectrum? Thanks so much to Many Worlds Tavern for sponsoring this video! If you are one of the first 100 viewers to visit manyworldstavern.com/discount/supergeek or use the code SUPERGEEK at checkout, you will receive 10% off of your order! manyworldstavern.com/discount/supergeek

[@sleepyspartan1367]

I once came up with the idea that if you have a boss monster like perhaps a gnoll Chief or Goblin then you once per round or every other round you roll a die. You choose different dice depending on the intensity you want or how well the part is doing, this also applies to how often you roll. The in question will decided how many enemies the party fights and what enemies. An example could be the party is fighting a necromancer. Every round the necromancer summons or calls a d6 skeletons to his side. On a 1 he calls a skeleton Minotaur. Two rounds go by and he's summoned 5 skeletons and a Minotaur with 3 skeletons being defeated and the skeleton Minotaur at half health. Again this is only for a boss encounter, I wouldn't do this for every encounter as using the same method would get stale after fight 5 hordes after all.

[@zeldablizzard]

It's a good video, but I just don't imagine these as one spectrum, but two separate dimensions to aim for "scoring high" on. I recently ran a fight for a young shadow dragon and some nothics for some 12th level characters in the Underdark, and it's going to be highly memorable because it was both appropriate for the situation AND balanced to be deadly. Gaining one does not need to mean sacrificing the other.

[@AJA188667]

Hey Mike, I'm a big fan of the channel and I hope you're doing okay with your own personal life and whatever campaign you are currently running if you are of course. I have a question that's off-topic from this video, but I thought this was the best way to get your attention and help with something. My question is: how do you determine how much time it will take the party to get from City A to City B, or if this is a journey that's going to require going from one continent to another? (As an example I was thinking about how Bell Hells traveled in the skyship from Jrusar to Bassuras). Hope I get to hear from you soon, keep up the good work.

[@SupergeekMike]

@@AJA188667 This is something I've been giving some thought to as well - hopefully I have an answer soon, because there's a campaign I really want to run where this would be a major factor! But once I've collected my thoughts, I plan to discuss this in a video in the future :)

[@jesseehlman5101]

I think another thing to keep in mind is your party composition when planning combat encounters. If your group is very spellcaster heavy, they will have a much harder time with a small amount of high hitpoint enemies, than a large group of minions due to AOE. This stuff can cause make CR much less reliable, so when planning it’s always smart to remember your party’s strengths and weaknesses

[@CharoGaming]

We have never supported WOTC, but our group really likes 5e. Please keep the 5e advice coming

[@thomashenderson3326]

I build encounters with a mix of the two methods you're describing. It's more an art than a science and advice to a new GM is: Just do your best, you'll get better over time. But my favorite quote is actually from MC. "Encounter Design does not end when initiative is rolled" Use Minions from 4e, Use adds mid fight, give enemies abilities the players don't have access to, and always make your monsters act as real as possible. One of my own quotes that's useful at all stages, but extremely useful in T3-4 play: "I don't plan solutions, I plan problems. Solutions are the player's job." And quite frankly, the best change I've ever made in 5e: Use the Spell Points optional rule (that is actually official). I use this for monsters but also as an option for players too btw. (But I also loathe Vancian-style-magic)

[@jonathanschaefer9848]

Definitely more of a situational builder myself. Always looking to make sure it’s either environmentally or thematically appropriate. I do love it though when I just really wanna use a creature and that informs the story instead of the other way around!

[@bencanevari4056]

I must say that ever since I've discovered your channel, I've always been able to take away at least one useful/helpful tip from each video. Thank you for your work!

[@kweh8122]

Something my DM does that may not be for everyone is that he doesn't explicitly plan for the enemies to fight OUR party. This probably falls under the general umbrella of situational encounters, but I like the enemies not specifically being tuned to us since it allows for the fight's difficulty to be shaped by factors other than our level, like the way in which we approach the fight, if we notice it in advance at all, or even just rewarding our ability or spell choices by making it feel good when we have the perfect tool for the job, that the DM did not deliberately account for. When someone realizes "oh hey, I can do something here with my abilities," and everyone at the table is surprised and excited, it feels really good to cheer them on.

[@mkang8782]

The Kobold Fight Club site helps with the math. I purposefully craft several encounters at different challenge levels - a few medium, a couple hard, and a deadly - for a given situation/area. I definitely do my best to ensure whatever the terrain is makes for the encounter. It's also very important to have different roles in the enemies, if at all possible (melee, ranged, casters). It definitely takes time and experience to get a feel for setting up encounters that suit your style and table. Lots of good points in this video.

[@dondumitru7093]

3:31 I think rugby is probably a better example of a sport where players actively try to kill each other, and even if they are just getting severely bloodied up they don't get swapped out but instead just stay in the melee while blood streams down their face.

[@annatar2140]

always love your advice Mike! I'm running an open world Ixalan inspired pirate campaign and this has been very helpful. Keep it up!

[@2011multisam]

So my first session DMing was a rollercoaster with the encounters. This was meant to be an introductory session since the players were brand new to the game, the encounter I designed got slaughtered in 2 turns with a few crits. Since the encounter went by quicker than expected I figured I'd roll for a random encounter (which I wasn't originally going to do since they were new and I wanted to ease them in.) The roll lands for a random encounter so I throw a couple wolves at them. The fighter, who was on watch, decided to not bother waking uo the party and got severely damaged (more crits, go figure) before the rest of the party could get to him. Essentially I ended up contriving an army patrol finding them and saving the party in the knick of time, this patrol had a cleric who stabilised half of the party and I moved a plot hook to be something the cleric said, at which point I ended the session. They told me they enjoyed it but I was so stressed the whole time, guess my poker face was on point

[@levimagruder8808]

In about a month I am starting my first campaign where I am a GM(DM). I am using Pathfinder 2e but your channel has been super helpful!

[@mnm1273]

CR is great, it allows you to judge the strength of a monster and the challenge of a fight even if you don't have much experience. The labels of challenge won't be objective because it depends on the group. I've DMed a table with newbies who often forget their tools, the challenge of an encounter will be different from that of wargamers. I'll usually just slowly raise the pressure during initial sessions and see where a group stands.

[@ncpolley]

This is super good advice. Personally, I think there is a lot of value to building encounter *complexes*, where individual encounters might be easy, but by insufficiently dealing with one threat, you can increase the difficulty of the next encounter. By sheer probability, the players will accidentally up the difficulty on a few encounters by not stopping a fleeing goblin, missing a mcguffin, or missing the clues to go a different direction. These mistakes can suck, but they don't ever make the next encounter actually deadly, and also can make the players feel cool for a "flawless" execution. E. G. Players stop the goblin running away down a tunnel. They successfully sneak down the tunnel, and I make sure to tell them about the alarm bell hung just another 100 ft down. Another thing I do is live HP balancing. I do two passes on HP. The first time after the first hit. If it took out way more than I was hoping, that is noted. if not enough, also noted. This is the biggest change I make. HP values are rapidly adjusted at that point. Sometimes by as much as 30%. Because I use a modded version of 4e's Bloodied condition, giving enemies free attacks, reactions, special abilities, once bloodied, I will very lightly track HP until the enemy is bloodied. Once bloodied, I explicitly tell the players that the enemies are bloodied (in a cool way if I can) and that's when I lock in the HP, wherever I want it to be. This seems to work for me. When I want it to, my players genuinely seem to believe they are in life or death situations, whether newbies or grognards. The bloodied condition helps, because even if it doesn't *actually* up the difficulty of the monsters much, it *feels* like more is happening. The monster getting a free bite at you, even though it does 2d4, as opposed to it's normal 2d6 attack, and never does it again, just *feels* more intense.

[@honoratagold]

When I'm picking out monsters during prep I always do the math for the min and max health possible, just so I have a good vibe on HP window of the monster RAW if I really messed up and have to tweak it live.

[@KristiansBrain]

Watching this video has reinforced to me that a lot people run D&D very differently to I do, I can't relate to any of this, haha

[@manueltorresart2345]

Since I'm a noob DM I try to make use of both approaches. I try to pick what the enemy is going to be storywise and think about doing something balanced. Since I am, I repeat, a noob DM and also bad at math, I make use of pages like Kobold Fight Club to help me in the math area. Maybe when I have more experience in doing encounters I'll stop using the math and go just with what I feel is right.

[@retu3510]

Wait, there is still no working formular/chart for encounters? I know what I would spend my R&D for a book on.

[@Drudenfusz]

Weird, I seem not to be on this spectrum (I am sure on the neurodiversity spectrum though), since neither balance not situation are in anyway interesting to me, since neither the gamey aspect nor some simulation aspect is shaping my thoughts on how I approach physical conflict in my games. But well, this is probably why I do not run D&D in the first place, but go for more narrative focused games.

[@blahblahghost]

Woot

[@joshricks1273]

Yeah the balance chart in the DMG isn't great, lol. But I've always found that the encounters were too easy

[@joshricks1273]

My level 18 party of 5 clowned on a Tarrasque, lol

[@johnnygreenface4195]

I am against really balanced encounters. I prefer the odds to be stacked against the players

[@HeikoWiebe]

There is no such thing as a combat encounter. There are only encounters. Encounters might include a source of conflict, and one side might chose to use violence to resolve the conflict.

[@roguevirus]

I would love to see a dedicated video from you about the magic item system failures in 5e. Great work so far as well!

[@TheCosmicCollective1]

Something I try to do is include weaknesses on my enemies. That way you can have a low level party beat a high CR creature. I think I got that from Zipperon Disney. Something else I do when my party is having trouble due to not all of them being the greatest players around us discarding monster’s resistances (I tend to forget about them too) which is another way you can have lower level characters fight more interesting boss monsters

[@Paxladar]

My players wanted a combat heavy campaign, they are level 12 right now but after level 8 I had to start building encounters that were Ultra Deadly to deal with just the feat damage (sharpshooter, GWM etc) plus the magic items I gave them. They usually end a dungeon around 25% of their HP and empty spell slots but they love it but one of my fighters was able to dish out 250+ damage in a single turn so I'm digging thru the monster books to keep giving them challenges.

[@honoratagold]

The table where I play is level 18 and has a lot of good magic items and my DM told me he basically stopped seriously balancing encounters when we got to level 14-15 outside of "will this kill the wizard in one hit?" type questions. He also often doubles or more the HP on boss/named/important monsters. CR and monster health really breaks down in tiers 3 and 4 and you just gotta go on vibes.

[@Paxladar]

@@honoratagold hard agree

[@honoratagold]

Where I land on this scale depends a lot on the campaign. I'm building a sandbox-y world to run something West Marches-adjacent in someday, and that's very much situational/"what's there is there" encounter building. I'm also working on a short campaign to potentially run in my DM's usual setting when he's between campaigns, and that's more in the middle of the road between balanced and situational. However, I'm currently running a duet for my fiance [who is also my table's usual DM], and I'm much more careful about balance *and* signposting in this campaign, since even though his character has a sidekick, a PC death is also a TPK in a duet. I will say that I definitely tend more toward situational encounter building at heart, though, which I learned when I was thinking about getting into PF2e and while there are a lot of things I like about the system, its tight balance didn't vibe super well with the kinds of games I like to both run and play.

[@danielmcgillis270]

I always try my best to make combat different in some way, I will change the environment or the circumstances to ensure the players have to think to use their resources to the utmost to secure victory. In my last game, the group is defending their home city from a hostile takeover and they had a combat encounter that occurred in the city marketplace while a low-scale riot was taking place. They were restricted from using normal AoE attacks for fear of hitting innocent civilians from both sides ( The brawling groups were just people with differing political points of view) and both sides were able to hide in plain sight, melding into the crowds of people pushing and shoving and insulting each other's mothers. The ranger on the rooftop could not just start sniping anybody on another roof, they could just as easily be just people watching the fight, or agents working for the city they supported. It made for a very interesting sneaky, hide-and-seek, ambush, and single combat whirling confusing combat where the players could not coordinate easily. It was the final battle in the story arc so I was using bad guys with the same levels as they had including a mage as well as assassins. It was nothing like they have ever done before and made them think on their feet and act in ways they never had before. In the end, when the group had the advantage, the bad guys pulled out all the stops and no longer considered civilian casualties. This had the effect of ruining any goodwill the insurgent group had with the populous turning the citizens firmly back into the city's camp. It was a unique combat.

[@artistpoet5253]

Asymmetrical fights are exciting. I do prefer the 'situational' approach and do provide my players and monsters a chance to disengage. If a retreating monster happens to run for help and the party wants to pursue, they know what they're getting into. My session zero always includes these points. That being said; I've been experimenting with using Tomkin's combat mechanics from Ironsworn for OSR and 5e clone games.

[@aquamage10]

Okay you caught me on a day when I needed coffee soon! I love to try new coffee, I ordered a bag of the Dragon's Nest!

[@dolphin64575]

Thanks for your thoughts, Mike! I'm prepping a one-shot for new players, so I'm going to have them fight a couple baby bulettes with 1/2-1/3 stats of adults (that may start trying to run away when the party starts doing damage). So I think I fall much more on balancing monsters to the party ATM.

[@hodgepodgesyntaxia2112]

Honestly, I’ve found that structuring combats as problems to be solved is usually more worthwhile than spending a significant amount of time on encounter math. If players devise a solution to the problem, they win. If they don’t, then they won’t without retreating and strategizing. The simplest example I use regularly for new players is a nocturnal monster that is completely invulnerable in the dark. The encounter challenges players to come up with a way to expose the creature to sunlight while they engage it. At the end of the day, ‘how do we reduce its HP to 0’ is almost always the most boring strategic question, regardless of the system.

[@Pumpky_the_kobold]

Rather than a spectrum, I see my encounter as a recipe. A bit of this, a bit of that. I personally am heavy on making first amd foremost interesting encounter for my player, both in game for dramatic reasons, and out of game for mechanic reason. But at my table, all my players are aware when they can safely leave a combat or when it is unavoidable. I know I tend to create harder encounter than what they might expect, but often the difficulty comes from the way they trap themselves into their character sheet. So as soon as I see they're mechanically engaging and that it won't be sufficient, I let them know. "Guys, this isn't the way you're going to win." I don't know the way to win, but that's not my problem, that's theirs. Any solution, be it retreat, change in tactics, even sometimes bullshitting dramatically interesting actions that the games doesn't... Fully support, might change their fate. It usually takes only 2 or 3 encounter before my players starts engaging with the world in that way everywhere in the game.

[@falionna3587]

Funny little note, there is one lil bit in monster statblocks that account for magical items, it's that the value of resistances and immunities go down as the monster increase in CR as it's expected the party would be able to bypass them, for physical damage this is included. IE it's an expected part of the game that magical weapons for martials would be found. (ofcourse this begs the question of why such resistances are even there, but the immunity to P/B/S from weapons not magical is a larger topic than one video comment)

[@ljmiller96]

Mike Shea also said he thinks the ratio is 1:1 once the PCs get to level 11. 4 characters at 11th level might be in a deadly encounter against a total 44 CR of enemies. I mostly use story based enemies for fights, but will balance climactic fights with adds. When a fight isn't against a big boss I don't make it deadly, and the players enjoy it as they use up their resources.

[@Buttonpusher42]

Who's that mob? It's Pikachu! No? What do you mean you weren't describing Pikachu?

[@neutronjack7399]

I remember reading somewhere that 5th Edition was designed so the players could play it without magic items. (Maybe the Player's guide? Maybe the DM manual?) That would go a long way in explaining why the encounter design tables seem to create encounters that are too easy for the party, especially after the party has accrued a few magic items.

[@TheAciddragon069]

i don't worry about balance that much, if an encounter is too hard the players retreat get magic items or level up and try again, if it's showing to be too easy here comes a hoard of goblins looking to pick the scraps of the battle

[@garyboyles5762]

A suggestion for a new video: Going over the use of spell point variant. All ideas I give are royalty free, and encouraged to share

[@disembodiedvoicek]

Awesome video! I'm with you on the "not giving WOTC any more money" train.

[@gatonegroloco]

I’ll buy many world taverns stuff ONLY if “O Tea L” is a flavor

[@f.a.santiago1053]

With SRD 5.1 in the CC, how does that influence your plans?

[@FlutesLoot]

Situational all day!

[@Teethmafia]

Would love one of these videos for cyberpunk red

[@haysmcgee801]

The question isn’t how to build more balanced encounters but to realize the truth… there is no balance. There are only… encounters.

[@mnm1273]

"truth", if you want to kill off your PCs with a Tarrasque at level 1 be my guest. Any good DM should be able to have a sense of scale on the difficulty of a fight for a group they've been running. 5e is a heroic fantasy, encounters that challenge the players while letting them win most of the time is part of how the play is expected to be. That's the canonical way to play the game, you can play it differently but it's not "the truth" it's a quirky choice that doesn't really fit the system.

[@DocEonChannel]

Deadly? Uhhh, I've found the DMG math gives a lot of encounters that are walk-overs. But YMMV I guess. (As an aside, the 4e math was better at lower levels, but at high levels it also produced encounters that were too easy.)

[@SupergeekMike]

A few folks have commented this - I wonder if this is because of the power creep since the Player’s Handbook? Or just, like you said, maybe different results ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@DocEonChannel]

@@SupergeekMike No, they were bad right out of the gate. The biggest problem is the multiplier for multiple monsters, which assumes a normal encounter is a single monster. That's just bananas. The baseline should be equal numbers on each side. But even removing that it's a bit too easy if the players know their character abilities and play tactically.

[@angelalewis3645]

Cool video

[@DavidCookeZ80]

I've never been happy with the WotC encounter design methods, so I was messing with a different approach - running a monte-carlo simulation of the encounter to work out the real challenge. It's early days, and I kind of put it to one side when this whole OGL thing blew up, but it can give a good idea of how long an encounter might last and the likelihood and sd of a player death or TPK.

[@fuzzlemacfuzz]

I tend to run things using Mike Shae's dials. As building encounters is not a mathematical process I put in monsters in that I feel appropriate and then dial up and down damage and hp on the fly so it keeps pace with the players. I want it to last between 3 and 5 rounds and push the players.