Questions tagged [encounter-design]
For questions about designing challenging and engaging situations in which player characters come into contact (and often conflict with) NPCs, monsters, or other potential opponents.
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In Princes of the Apocalypse, is this monster “supposed to” kill a player character?
In Princes of the Apocalypse Ch. 6,
has plenty of time and warning to prepare for his encounter with the party, along with the spells to do so:
He is also in possession of a powerful magic item,
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How can I make a single level 20 Warlock/Paladin a climactic challenge for a party of 4 level 12 PCs?
So, I know this question seems silly on face because of the level disparity (and I'd even be willing to adjust the character level down if necessary) but what I'm most concerned about are action ...
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What is the damage output of an average level 20 character in dnd 5e? [closed]
I would like to know how much an average level 20 character is capable of doing per turn and per ten turns, and how much a level 20 party is capable of doing per turn and per ten turns. I intend on ...
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How to fix Orm Shieldbreaker's build? [closed]
Spoilers for Giantslayer book 5: if you suspect you're one of my players, don't read further!
Preamble ramble
Anvil of Fire, the fifth installment of the Giantslayer original Adventure Path for ...
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How should the encounter level calculated for creatures with Summon abilities?
When I write a campaign, I see most people will give an EL for every encounter they write. Basically, it would be equal to the encountered creature if that's an encounter with just one creature.
And ...
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How should I adjust CR if the monsters I introduce are fighting each other?
I'm planning a long one-shot, the setting of which is a large island with half of it sectioned off in an area where massive wild beasts roam and battle each other, through which the party must trek.
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What CR should my party of 9 be facing at level 16? [closed]
My party grew from four players to nine who are all level 16. I have taken over the campaign from the previous DM and need some pointers.
I love all my player's dedication but they blew through an ...
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At what level for a 4/5-player party would a CR 2-3 monster be considered a "miniboss"?
I'm working on a dungeon and I want to have a solo encounter with a single basilisk in the hallway. It isn't the last monster in the dungeon; that I'm going with a surprise, however it shouldn't be a ...
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Looking for a DM solution to a Squishy group
I've been playing tabletop RPGs for a while off and on, only a little as a DM, but I get the basics of it. I've convinced some of my immediate and extended family (most of whom are NOT gamers, let ...
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What could attract the attention of hostile creatures? [closed]
So in my game of D&D 4e, the PCs are going to travel through the woods and the swamps, and an idea I have for this section, is that there's a type of creature in there that is more agressive than ...
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How do I deal with an Umbral Sight Ranger's enormous advantages in Curse of Strahd? [closed]
I'm playing the module Curse of Strahd. The Tabaxi Ranger with the Umbral Sight ability causes a lot of problems.
Fights take place in dark rooms or at night. Almost all undead have darkvision, but ...
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Balancing a combat around the surprised condition
I'm a new DM trying to put encounters together. My players are often either surprised by monsters (eg: mimics) or surprise the monsters (because they stealth into the lair) and I've noticed surpise ...
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How to properly boost monster damage?
So here's the situation:
In D&D 4e, I have began to reduce monster's HP by a lot (at least by half or even more than that).
The reason for this, is that I realized the combat encounters can take ...
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How can I design fun combat encounters for a party traveling down a river on a raft?
So in my adventure, it is possible that my players will travel down a river, on a raft. The river itself is haunted and they will come across enemies.
I already have ideas for some specific enemies ...
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What spells or abilities would a 17th level cleric use against a horde of demons? [closed]
I don't know much about clerics in 5e. I've got a very powerful cleric and a bunch of soldiers (some decorative, some battle hardened) defending an underground temple from a horde of demons. I'd ...
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How to justify time-sensitive encounters without it seeming convenient?
I'm running an encounter in Cyberpunk Red where the baddies are chainsawing a hole into an immobilized car to kill the driver, and our heroes have to rush in before the bad guys finish drilling!
How ...
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I want the most fun for my players but they got angry second session because of combat. Any tips?
So I am a new to D&D but I have researched hours upon hours about it, to the point I know more than probably all my players. They are 7 for now (third level bard, forge cleric, ranger, arcane ...
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Is there a system for determining the difficulty of a combat encounter with a monster is in Call of Cthulhu 7e?
Is there a system to determine how difficult an encounter with a monster or group of monsters is in 7th edition?
user71562
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How would resistance to non magical weapons change a creature's challenge rating?
Suppose we took a normal monster - say, perhaps, a lion (CR 1) - and gave it resistance to non-magical slashing, piercing, and blunt damage. How much would this affect the threat to a party?
I'm ...
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What's a reasonable Green Hag Coven encounter for a party of 3 level 8 PCs?
Novice DM trying to make my bad guys intimidating.
My party is fighting a Hag Coven and I want to make this fight pretty hard without killing anyone hopefully. So three Green Hags (Coven Variant) are ...
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How to calibrate combat encounters for high level play?
The DMG contains recommendations for the XP values of encounters that are supposed to help you create engaging but survivable combat encounters (page 82).
They work pretty well for low- and mid-level ...
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Non-Combat Encounter Rewards - A Homebrew Review
Awarding non-combat encounters with XP consistently for the party level - A homebrew review
A frustration I have had for a long time is how D&D claims that there are three pillars to the game, ...
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What printed spells and magic items would be especially useful for an 8th level Wizard to cast or craft to create a fortress?
The scenario is as follows - an 8th level Wizard, Dormouse Bladefist, has a cave mouth he wants to defend at all costs. He has some money and magic materials, and can probably craft some weaker magic ...
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How many ghosts can I use for an ambush?
I'm trying to set up an ambush in a tower where there are ghosts or some creature like them that has the ability to walk through walls.
If I had a room 20 feet by 20 feet and a party of 5 Medium-sized ...
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How to have enemies that use tactics while also making sure that the encounter is fun for all players?
I am currently running a 5e game for a party of 5 players (level 3).
I tend to make my enemies use tactics. My encounters involving a large number of low-CR enemies tend to have roles (so a tank, some ...
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How can I avoid accidentally deadly encounters from monsters that are more deadly than their challenge rating suggests?
Monster Deadliness: In the DMG (p.82) there is guidance about the calculating encounter deadliness. This is entirely based on the XP of the monsters encountered, and each challenge rating (CR) has a ...
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Can CR be directly lifted from 3.5 to 5e?
I am looking to convert a few modules from 3.5 into 5e and while I am going to change the nature of the creatures encountered I am not 100% sure how.
Does 3.5 follow the same kind of encounter and ...
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As GM, how to implement an enemy that erases the PC's memory [closed]
I like the idea of an innocent-looking enemy, or even just a zone, in some dangerous place, that slowly erases the memories of anyone near it, whether randomly or starting from the newest memories.
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How to calculate D&D 5e challenge ratings when party has improvised weapons and no armor
I'm running a game where the players are planning to attend a grand ball. At this ball, the players will not be able to wear their armor with their finery or smuggle in their weapons. The players are ...
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What magic items would best make a (corrupt) city guard competitive with Paragon tier heroes?
The Problem
Assuming that the guards in and of themselves are not worthy of being Paragon-tier, what magic items would best justify giving them Paragon-tier stats, narratively? I want to convey the ...
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Is this encounter in the Frozen Sick adventure unbalanced?
In the DND 5e Critical Role source book Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, there is an adventure Frozen Sick. One of the encounters in it seems a little strong to me. (The adventure is also available ...
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How to calculate Adjusted XP for heterogenous monster groups?
To recap my understanding...
The point of Adjusted XP is provide a metric with which to judge the difficulty of a combat, to give your party well-balanced encounters and well-balanced adventuring ...
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Petrification at low levels
I was considering using a Medusa in my home game against a group of 4th-level characters. With a CR of 6, a Medusa is well within the proper XP range for such a group. However, I'm nervous about using ...
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How can I give my players more short rests without breaking immersion?
While there are a lot of questions concerning how to give players fewer resources (usually by reducing the frequency of rests), this question is the inverse: I've had issues at my table with the ...
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How to handle breath weapon recharge when combat is interrupted?
I have a question about monster abilities that recharge, like a dragon’s breath weapon. Is the ability considered “charged” on the first round of combat, no roll required?
If the answer to that is “...
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How do asymmetric PC exhaustion levels affect the difficulty of an encounter?
As a DM, I have planned a medium encounter for my party of 5 characters.
Before this encounter, as a consequence of some non optimal choices, one of them suffers from 4 exhaustion levels, and there ...
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How do I make a fourth-level Fighter a deadly challenge for a party of four level-ones?
I'm planning an adventure in which the antagonist is a schlubby first-level Rogue who has drawn the Knight card from the Deck of Many Things and is using his new, perfectly obedient fourth-level ...
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What can I do to make a Kobold encounter interesting? [closed]
I have painted myself into a bit of a corner here.
My party is approaching an encounter with a gang of Kobold thieves who have been stealing from local church groups - they've been tasked by the 'mob ...
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Which CR 5-13 monsters can I use against an all-flying party? [closed]
If I run a 5e game for a crow-man party who naturally have all-day flight as part of their basic movement modes, which existing published monsters / encounter types am I left with who have either ...
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How to handle a party's bad choices? [closed]
Not too long ago I started a campaign in Pathfinder 2e, and at a certain point I hinted at an enemy group's location and (superior) strength, while telling the party to go somewhere else and complete ...
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Should players know the name of monsters when they are encountered? [duplicate]
This is a question that I frequently ask myself as a DM. I usually play a (home made) rule that you must first succeed on an intelligence check with a DC that varies depending on the knowledge of the ...
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How do you balance encounters between NPCs?
Right now, I’m planning a situation where faction “a” is going to fight faction “b” and the players pick a side, and the side which the players choose is fairly likely to win, in which they have to ...
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How should a GM go about handling a combat encounter against an enemy team of runners?
I have a group that is about to encounter another runner team in combat. They both want to do the same job and are going to be fighting for the package. The two thoughts I had were to make some of ...
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Is the encounter in area 11 of the "Isle of the Abbey" adventure in Ghosts of Saltmarsh overly difficult?
I did the math for the encounter in area 11 in the Isle of the Abbey adventure from Ghosts of Saltmarsh (p. 108), and I came up with an encounter difficulty of 7200 XP. This is way, way more difficult ...
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How would you challenge a party of 8 players characters without killing them?
I have a party of 8 players, and more continue to join (against my wishes). How would you recommend challenging low-level (4 or lower) players that are in a large group? How do I give everyone a ...
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Balancing Encounters around a very proficient Necromancer
In a game I am a part of there is a player who considers themself a necromancer. They are fully specced and invested around the spell "Animate Dead". They are very effective and efficient at ...
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Am I correctly calculating the difficulty/XP for this encounter for a 15th-level party of 5 PCs?
I am putting together a campaign and have been experimenting with the guidelines for creating encounters and managing difficulty. I've done the math for quite a few encounters at each of the "...
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How do I recalibrate this encounter from D&D 3.5e's Red Hand of Doom for D&D 5e?
I'm running D&D 3.5e's Red Hand of Doom updated for 5e. So far it has been effortlessly straightforward. I've been keeping the basic combat encounter structures and simply swapping out 3.5e ...
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How to design a level 1 encounter with 7 level 1 characters
Me and my friends decided to play some D&D 5th edition. The issue is, though I am a long term DM I am only well-versed in the rules for 3.5e and Pathfinder 1st, same as Open Legend but it uses a ...
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What is the best way that I can provide a challenge to a PC that can fly? [closed]
So I am a new DM and I am running a campaign in Curse of Strahd. I have a PC that is doing a long range build and has picked the Aarakocra race and I want to build encounters that will threaten him as ...
