|
Should you modify the EL of an encounter for extenuating environmental/situational factors? What does Dungeon do?
I'm referring to the kinds of things mentioned in the DMG on p. 50, under "Modifying Difficulty": cover, water hazards, rough terrain, natural heat/cold effects, etc. On p. 39 the DMG discusses modifying EL.
For example: The PCs must cross a pool of deep water to get to an exit. Wading through the pool, they're attacked by a giant snake, which has cover due to the water, and is difficult to attack with ranged weapons. Would the EL in a Dungeon adventure be raised relative to the monster's CR?
Now what if the PCs are attacked by stirges while dealing with the underwater snake? Do you modify the EL directly, or do you raise the snake's CR and use that to calculate the EL?
Does it matter if the snake would leave the water during combat and lose its defensive benefits?
Another example: The PCs enter a large dungeon magically kept at a temperature of 20 degrees F to induce hypothermia (i.e. fatigue). In the dungeon, they encounter a remorhaz. Is the EL raised for this encounter, since some PCs will likely be fatigued?
What if they happen to encounter the remorhaz on the open tundra? Do all encounters in severe environments have their ELs raised?
Not sure if your looking for an official answer or not (and here's hoping we get one), but this is what I would do.
In most instances, if the environment affects the party in a noticable way, but does little to nothing against the opposition I would give bonus experience. Possibly one encounter of a level equal to two or three below the parties average level, depending on how much it affected them and how little it affected their opponents. There should also be an increase in EL, though I'm not sure if I would worry about finding a formula to precisely guage this, or just try to "eye ball it". Though, I get the impression you might be asking this because you want to submit an adventure to Dungeon, and want to know how much you should adjust the EL? Hence needing something closer to a formula. Hopefuly one of the editors can help you with that.
For the twenty degree dungeon, again, depending on how much it actualy affected the party I might or might not award them something. If they solve the problem pretty easily without much drain on their resources then no, I wouldn't give them any bonus experience, unless it was a particularly inovated solution. If they spend a few spell slots, or the money for some scrolls/rings of no-be-cold/whatever then I'd give them a little something extra, but not very much. If they walked in unprepared and suffered through the bitter cold, fatigued and frost bitten while fighting of cold based creatures, then assuming they survived I would increase the ammount of experience by up to a quarter.
|
|
There should also be an increase in EL, though I'm not sure if I would worry about finding a formula to precisely guage this, or just try to "eye ball it". Though, I get the impression you might be asking this because you want to submit an adventure to Dungeon, and want to know how much you should adjust the EL? Hence needing something closer to a formula. Hopefuly one of the editors can help you with that.
I am thinking of an adventure submission, but I'm not really looking for a formula for how much of an adjustment to make; I figure +1 CR/EL would do for most things. But I'm curious about if and when you would do such a thing.
Should you modify the EL of an encounter for extenuating environmental/situational factors? What does Dungeon do?
I'm referring to the kinds of things mentioned in the DMG on p. 50, under "Modifying Difficulty": cover, water hazards, rough terrain, natural heat/cold effects, etc. On p. 39 the DMG discusses modifying EL.
For example: The PCs must cross a pool of deep water to get to an exit. Wading through the pool, they're attacked by a giant snake, which has cover due to the water, and is difficult to attack with ranged weapons. Would the EL in a Dungeon adventure be raised relative to the monster's CR?
Now what if the PCs are attacked by stirges while dealing with the underwater snake? Do you modify the EL directly, or do you raise the snake's CR and use that to calculate the EL?
Does it matter if the snake would leave the water during combat and lose its defensive benefits?
Another example: The PCs enter a large dungeon magically kept at a temperature of 20 degrees F to induce hypothermia (i.e. fatigue). In the dungeon, they encounter a remorhaz. Is the EL raised for this encounter, since some PCs will likely be fatigued?
What if they happen to encounter the remorhaz on the open tundra? Do all encounters in severe environments have their ELs raised?
The short answer is Yes. The longer answer is if you have a minor environmental factor that makes the challenge more difficult you should adjust the EL by 1. Something a bit more challenging, adjust it by 2 to 3. That same section you refer to in the DMG gives very good examples of how this works.
Here's my own. I recently wrote an adventure for the Oerth Journal wherein the PCs board a skiff to row over to a sinking ship to investigate it. The water around the ship is shark infested and as the PCs near it, a pair of sharks begin Bull Rushing the skiff forcing Balance checks to avoid falling overboard into the shark infested water.
Because the PCs stand a good chance of being forced to fight sharks in the water while making Swim checks, the EL of the encounter is 2 higher than normal. Most encounters that are set up like this usually have an Ad Hoc Experience Award section at the end for suggested bonus xp. In my example, I would award the PCs an extra 50% xp for defeating the sharks if the PCs were forced to do so while swimming.
Hope that helps.