I'm planning a yuan-ti attack (part of it, a troupe, 3 Abominations (CR 7), 4 Halfbloods (5), 9 purebloods of regular) against a group of mixed level NPCs (14 7 ftr/7 warmage, 4 barb, 5 ftr/rgr, 11 clr, 12 wiz) and a PC (1st wiz, with scrolls from 12th level wiz) Defending a part of the capital city in Sura-Khiri (from the Ghostwalk setting).
I'm curious as to the encounter level, I'm hazy on how to calculate it, otherwise I'd sit down and crunch the numbers myself. I'm not asking for someone to tell me the answer so much as give me advice on the encounter (is it too overpowered or ar all the npc's needed at 11th and 12th level at that), and tell me HOW to calculate the Encounter Level. Any opinions on the Encounter Level are also welcome
Save yourself the nightmare of trying to figure these things out using the table in the DMG.
Go here.
In fact all DMs should have a shortcut to www.d20srd.org, it just comes in habdy way to often to not have access.
Now for fun I fed this information into Hypertexts encounter calculator.
Lets see that was 3 CR7 + 4 CR5 +9 CR3 = EL 13
Facing what I think is a party of a 5 characters of 1st, 4th, 5th, 10th and 12th level. I'm not 100% on this part as I found the sentence where you explained what the good guys conisted of hard to decipher - but for an example its fine to make that assumption.
We learn that the parties average level = 9.5
The 1st level character will earn 5220 XP from the encounter while the 12th level character will earn 600 XP.
This encounter is rated as Very Dificult by the DMG and should compose approxiemntly 15% of all encounters.
The Yaun-Ti should have 12090 GP worth of treasure.
All this from the encounter calculator. Its a great resource.
Jeremy,
YOU ARE A GOD. I will pour sacred libations in ceremonial jars and offer them to you in clouds in incense while I slaughter animals in your name. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
The only problem seems to be that I plugged in an encounter that the system regarded as EL 5, and then plugged in a 5th level party, and it still came up as "Very Difficult". I then raised the level of the party to 6, and it dropped immediately to "Easy." Other than that tiny and largely meaningless glitch, this is an unbelievable resource.
I must agree with Saern, thank you Jeremy. I might even use this site.
Wow, that is a pretty cool site. The less math I have to do on my own the better! Something you should keep in mind Punk, EL is a useful guildline, but it is just that, a guideline. Don't get too surprised when things are either more or less difficult for the players than you might have thought.
Save yourself the nightmare of trying to figure these things out using the table in the DMG.
Go here.
In fact all DMs should have a shortcut to www.d20srd.org, it just comes in habdy way to often to not have access.
I don't know what to say, other then THANK YOU, Jeremy.
This will be an invaluable resource for calculating exactly what I need to know about my encounters.
For instance, I have a method for reducing difficulty, I call it "waves of enemies" instead of sending an entire troupe of Yuan-Ti at the characters, I send in some of the purebloods first, as shocktroops to get the pc nice and distracted, then come the rest of the purebloods followed by the halfbloods and finally the abominations...the yuan-ti tend to use this sort of tactic in their own methods, so I figure this might both reduce the immediate difficulty of the encounter, by chopping up the troupe into charging yuan-ti that can be seen at the maximum spot distance for let's say medium forest (thanks again Jeremy), and it should make things interesting...if the pc underestimates the force and blows all her spells before the second wave, then things are going to get REALLY messy, but with the NPCs I already have and the two higher level ones I plan on creating, it should be a walk in the park.
(With the waves of enemies tactic I kept a 1st level fighter from just fleeing and let him kill 9 gnolls, it would have been 11, but he avoided the last 2 I think, they would have flanked him if he stayed put though.)
Since my goal was to get all the pcs up to 3rd/4th level when they get into the plot together, I think I'm doing pretty good.
Sure I had to actually KILL one PC and still give him the XP *at half* for what was an "unbeatable" encounter, but that was because he wanted to play a ghost in the campaign, so I gave him a backstory encounter and to be fair to the rest of the party I'm giving them encounters that bring them up to 3rd level and then another that brings them up to 4th too.
in addition to the "waves of enemies" I consider this method to be Trial by Fire...if the Players pass the first test, they're almost instantly hardened adventurers...the fighter that started to flee (but afraid to call his horse and alert more gnolls to his prescence), was cut off by Gnolls, he'll expect the worst from encounters, but he'll know how to handle himself from now on.
Anyway, the Encounter Calculator is making it easier to distribute XP and to figure out what I can throw against my players and expect them to bounce back.
Btw, I'm not sending hordes of monsters against single PCs in most cases, I've given them NPC guides to help them against such monsters as Wyverns and Ogres for just one example from one character's experience. (Funny thing about the Ogre encounter was the highest CR wasn't the Ogre or the goblinoids, it was the cave in the ogre caused as it was dying...the characters were hiding in a cave the ogre couldn't quite enter, but could attack them- until its club was shattered by the cleric.
As you can probably tell, as a first time DM, this is an exciting experience for me, and I think it's been pretty good for m players so far. I think the one that faced the gnolls might get a little worried, and probably for good reason since I'm considering letting loose an Athach on his homestead (he'll have help from the level 4 barb/druid, level 9 cleric NPC and a level 4 Dwarven Ghost Fighter with a ring of manifestation and a ghost touch waraxe. but plugging in THAT encounter hasn't yielded favorable results yet, I might have to enclude another NPC, possibly a Hill Giant, just to keep the Huge monster from overpowering my characters)
Sorry for all the storyline and encounter talk, but I'm excited as the campaign is starting to heat up and I'm getting closer to where the players meet each other.