GM Advice, how to do encounters right?


Advice


It always seems like in my encounters so far that i cant trust it to work on its own. I either have to make the enemies hold back so as to not unfairly butcher the players due to a miscalculation of how powerful something was on my part, or, i have to ignore damage on enemies so that they don't immediately die. What are some tips to better design combat encounters?


Don't rely on challenge rating, go through and cherry pick monsters for your group...just practice it took me about 2 years to get really good at encounter design...use lots of weak foes to balance action economy in boss fights...build enemies to challenge specific PCs but not to kill them...can I have some info about your party? That would let me give you some specific information


More weaker enemies.
Having 1 big monster that is cr appropriate is an easy way to run into both of the issues you mention.

I find having 1 or 2 enemies of cr=player level and then fill in with support characters works well.

I recently had a very fun fight where a group of elves ambushed the party.

Party camps in a field in the middle of some copses of trees. Middle of the night 10 lvl 3 Rangers with favoured enemy human take out the 3 npc watchmen and leave a 4th barely alive. He sounds the alarm. The 2 bards positioned with the Rangers start to play a dirge to inspire.

The party decided to split which nearly killed them. Half going off to fight each group of archers. They had to cross 300 ft of empty field against people attacking them from range.

Once they reached the trees the spiders the elves had ridden in on engaged them in melee while the Rangers continued to fire down from the trees. Injuries to spiders or archers or the bard was healed each round by a cleric with selective channel.

Was honestly the closest I have ever come to a tpk simply because the party made poor tactical decisions.

This was all at lvl 7


Dox of the ParaDox twins wrote:
Don't rely on challenge rating, go through and cherry pick monsters for your group...just practice it took me about 2 years to get really good at encounter design...use lots of weak foes to balance action economy in boss fights...build enemies to challenge specific PCs but not to kill them...can I have some info about your party? That would let me give you some specific information

Wizard, Alchemist, Daevic (if you know about Akahsic mysteries, they are a martial-ish class), a Fighter with maneuvers (Path of war) and a harbinger (also path of war),


Alright, what level are you? And you have a decently balanced party...hmm...I'd suggest weak undead to challenge your casters and some maybe a golem depending on level. As for not tpk-ing them...just make sure your party will kill it with average rolls and have time to run with poor rolls


J4RH34D wrote:

More weaker enemies.

Having 1 big monster that is cr appropriate is an easy way to run into both of the issues you mention.

I find having 1 or 2 enemies of cr=player level and then fill in with support characters works well.

I recently had a very fun fight where a group of elves ambushed the party.

Party camps in a field in the middle of some copses of trees. Middle of the night 10 lvl 3 Rangers with favoured enemy human take out the 3 npc watchmen and leave a 4th barely alive. He sounds the alarm. The 2 bards positioned with the Rangers start to play a dirge to inspire.

The party decided to split which nearly killed them. Half going off to fight each group of archers. They had to cross 300 ft of empty field against people attacking them from range.

Once they reached the trees the spiders the elves had ridden in on engaged them in melee while the Rangers continued to fire down from the trees. Injuries to spiders or archers or the bard was healed each round by a cleric with selective channel.

Was honestly the closest I have ever come to a tpk simply because the party made poor tactical decisions.

This was all at lvl 7

I normally try to give each fight a fun gimmick, i just ran a boss encounter with a lady who had a specific power each tied to the head of a giant serpent, she had a teleport, a laser, maneuvers, and a few other powers, if they killed one of the serpents heads (which i made effectively separate creatures), and a big thing i try to focus on is trying to have battlefield control to have placement have a lot more tactical value.


Dox of the ParaDox twins wrote:
Alright, what level are you? And you have a decently balanced party...hmm...I'd suggest weak undead to challenge your casters and some maybe a golem depending on level. As for not tpk-ing them...just make sure your party will kill it with average rolls and have time to run with poor rolls

They are all level 5


Ah okay, I like the concepts of how you run battles. Try a wizard or other caster that specializes in some sort of weird tactic and make him a higher level and you'll get memorable character to fight and he probably won't be to tough for your party


Dox of the ParaDox twins wrote:
Ah okay, I like the concepts of how you run battles. Try a wizard or other caster that specializes in some sort of weird tactic and make him a higher level and you'll get memorable character to fight and he probably won't be to tough for your party

An idea ive been playing with is having enemies that can copy abilities the players have by drinking there blood with special attacks, so maybe a vampire caster? in our campaign so far there has been a bit of a focus on undead, so i think that would fit.


That would work great, just remember that if your wizard focuses on enchantment they won't work to great. Otherwise that would be great fight. Oh and give him minions so that your players don't roflstomp him


Dox of the ParaDox twins wrote:
That would work great, just remember that if your wizard focuses on enchantment they won't work to great. Otherwise that would be great fight. Oh and give him minions so that your players don't roflstomp him

ok, he doesnt hes more of a evocation focused wizard overall. thanks for the advice.


Ah sweet, that will be great than, and no problem I love being able to help


I'll leave this collection of links about encounter design here


You definitely have the right design philosophy for encounters. Honestly its an art form to get the numbers right. The more you gm a system the better you get at it. I've GMed for 11 years and still mess up. My current group still laughs at the words "5 lightning bolts" :)

Also know that mid encounter adjustments are not necessarily a bad thing. Players will be much more forgiving of a homebrew monster suddenly losing 4 str than an accidental TPK on some random monster. At the same time they will have more fun with a good fight than a one round faceroll. Homebrew monsters are just that, homebrew. Not necessarily completely balanced on initial release, needing adjustment

Specific tips(warning houserules may be suggested)
1. Lower enemy dps and increase hp at higher levels. High levels often turn into rocket tag. These changes add length to high level encounters which allows you to continue using fun encounter design
2. Solo bosses as written don't work. As with most turn based games action economy is king. Adding minions is the most common solution and it works well. Assuming you are running a home game, I recommend using a variation of Legendary rules from D&D 5e or the boss template from Pokemon Tabletop United to keep solo bosses viable
3. Add the unexpected. There is often room to add surprises to an encounter to balance an encounter rather than adjusting statblocks or enemy tactics. Used sparingly, this can keep things interesting. EX: the kobolds are getting wrecked so you add a trap or make them simply a distraction used by something worse.
4. Don't use Save or Die on players. Save or Die is not necessarily a completely bad mechanic but it just sucks when used on players. They either make their save(meh) or they don't(not fun). Exceptions exist, like agianst characters with immediate action counterspelling, but are rare
5. No turtle enemies. Enemies that only exist as a collection of defensive stats are generally bad. Unless they add some tactical decisions avoid things with dr20/- and AC of hit on a natural 20 only
6. Reward player choices. If a player takes cleave or fireball give them the occasional mob of mooks to nuke. Players pick what they want to do. Their choices will show you what type of enemies they want to kill

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