Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Maladomini Aug 15, 2015 8:52:08	Hi All,   I am new posting here and my search attempts kept coming up empty so I apologize if there is already a thread on this topic.   I recently got back into D&D using the 5th edition a few months ago. Game of Thrones had ended and there was a void created and thus I convinced a couple of friends to give D&D a try. 1 person is completely new and myself and 2 others used to play way back in the mid 80s alot.   5th Edition is quite abit different (to me anyway) from what the old 2e system used to be. I am the DM in our group and back in 2e I could very easily whip up a monster encounter or some such and be reasonably assured that if I wanted to push the players, they would be pushed or if I wanted to go really easy on them it would be really easy, etc etc. So with the new edition CR has really been alittle bit perplexing, not to mention the "easy" monsters now have higher stats, hps little changes to their tactics etc etc.   Our first session I had spent alot of time designing and working it up. We all had fun, however, it was way to much of a cake walk. The players basically breezed through it and every one agreed it was easy. That said, we are all still learning so it was a good way to break everyone in and help them learn, including myself.   I have improved as i've learned how to better select and better use certain monsters and I have gotten better using the challenge rating. So as we have been moving forward, the fights and encounters are definitetly starting to push the players abit more. The problem I am having is that my players are having so much fun, they are spreading the word so to speak. Any given week it seems we can have anywhere from 4-6 players.   I do alot of prep work, designing my own maps, setting up the room encounters etc etc. Using the CR based on our usual 4 person party (three 4th lvl and one 3rd lvl). Since everything is carefully planned, 1 or 2 additional players can pretty much swing a hard or medium encounter into a cakewalk.   Is simply adding one more ghoul/kobold/hobgoblin to the fight the best way to ramp it back up? With the multipliers in the DMG it seems not to be that simple. Or am I looking at the CR and mulitpliers as too much of a hard rule? Because it seems that sometimes even though the encounter math says "medium difficulty" one sleep spell or round later it still was very easy.   Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.   Thanks!
#2 sirkaikillah11 Aug 15, 2015 11:13:09	The multipliers are all guess work. A few bad rolls and an easy encoutner with a pack of kobolds can turn deadly. I have found the CR tables a little easier than advertised. I've thrown deadly encounters and the players have come away unscathed. But I've seen easy encounter pcs go bad with a few lucky rolls for the enemy and a few poor rolls by the pcs. I will neer forget the pack of kobolds that killed two pcs of a five party group and sent the rest fleeing for thier lives.   I dm a party fluctuates from 8-12 players. We are playing through the HotDQ adventure path. Some times I do not adjust the encounters and some times I will add an additional cultist for every pc over 5. Making sure every encounter is a challenge is less important to me than the unfolding story. But thier are those moments when the party must be pushed to the brink to keep it exciting.
#3 Mad_Jack Aug 17, 2015 16:27:11	The longer you run this edition the easier it will get to adjust encounter difficulty. (In fact, 5E is still relatively new as an edition, so a lot of folks are still getting their feet under them, so to speak..) But, if you're expecting between four to six players on a regular basis, you may want to plan for a default assumption of five characters. It will make it a little rougher when only four show up, but that shouldn't be too difficult for the party to handle if they're currently having an easier time in combat.   Also, is there a particular reason one of the characters is lower level? The default assumption of the past few editions has been that the party generally all levels up at the same time rather than each character individually (thus, the unified experience table rather than having a separate table for each class and alotting xp to the party rather than individual characters...) I've also personally never been a fan of requiring new characters joining the party to be of a lower level than the rest of the characters. In your party, if all the characters aren't leveling up at the same time or recieving the same amount of experience, then the lower level guy and the two who don't always show up are going to quickly fall behind as far as power level goes, if not character level.
#4 AaronOfBarbaria Aug 15, 2015 17:34:49	I have a fluctuating party size in most of my campaigns. The way I handle things is simply to set all challenges up by the numbers for the average party size (4 in my case) and make no further adjustment whether only 3 players or all 5 show up. Difficulty, in my experience, doesn't need to be any more finely tuned than that.
#5 iserith Aug 15, 2015 17:57:25	What I do is have 4 regular players and 2 alternate players. If any of the regular players can't make it, the alternate players take their spots. I always end up with exactly 4 players (unless by some rare circumstance three regulars can't make it). This makes it easier to plan and lessens the chance of a cancelled session.   Use this tool to check the XP budgets and expected difficulty for any given party. You can easily adjust it to see what the numbers look like given a particular number of characters.
#6 Rya.Reisender Aug 17, 2015 1:35:42	Just as sirkaikillah11 said, combat is quite a bit depending on roll results, so a deadly encounter can be normal and a normal encounter can be deadly. I wouldn't worry too much about adjusting encounters. If there are singificantly more players (say 6 instead of 4), I would just add one more of the lower CR (CR must be lower than player level) enemies in.   But generally, what I do is steering battle balance more with monster behavior. If I see the PCs are winning I'll try to think of effective tactics to deal damage, if the PCs are starting to lose I'll narrate more sub-optimal decisions (but in a way it stays realistic).
#7 BRJN Aug 16, 2015 10:44:25	I'm struggling with the same problem.  Running Tiamat as part of my FLGS's "Welcome to D&D" promotion.  I really don't know if I will have 4 or 8 people on a given week.   So far I've been using the book encounters as written; sometimes this is way too easy for the group.   Upcoming is an asassination attempt, which I'm going to devise teams to go after each PC individually.  (I set this up: a few weeks ago they were questioned by a mercenary recruiter as to their capabilities.)  Whoever shows up that week, I'll be ready.  Whoever doesn't, just lucked out.  I'm going to try arrange so the session can begin with "You are resting in the inn for the night.  Somebody kicks in the door !  And..."
#8 shintashi Aug 16, 2015 12:06:29	at low levels, its all dice rolls. A sequence of natural 20s on either side and it's over, so it's better to just try to keep the encounters weak enough that they don't randomly wipe the party, something im still having trouble doing because I'm used to people clearing 3 orcs a round, not one orc taking out PCs in every hit. You seem to be faring better than I did. Around level 3, the characters should stabilize, and decisions and encounter design will have more impact than dice rolls. You should use Schrodinger's Bushes, and fill them with Quantum Bad Guys. By that I mean, the badguys both exist and don't exist - they exist if you need them, and don't exist if you don't need them. The Players have no way of knowing if and how many monsters are in the bushes. If you have a leader monster, they can hold their action, and have whatever stats you need, and use hand signals or a wave or horn to summon the quantum (there/not there) bad guys.   it's ok to have an encounter once in a while that was totally easy, and it's ok to have an encounter where the characters run screaming for their lives "Retreat!!" or get captured. My last group got captured and the dragon born bit the ropes to free the party. It was much preferable to having them all roll up new characters.
#9 Barky Aug 17, 2015 1:56:57	I always build encounters as if all my players are showing up. If one or more can't, I then prune the encounter down. I find that easier than adding up on the fly.
#10 Ralif_Redhammer Aug 17, 2015 7:51:56	I also have a group that fluctuates pretty dramatically, from 2 – 7 players. It can be pretty rough. When writing an adventure, I tend to craft encounters that can be upscaled or downscaled pretty easily by just adding or removing monsters. But for big bad fights, I will generally have an alternate lower CR encounter with a different “centerpiece monster.”   But sometimes I leave things as they are and let the cards fall where they may. Those adventures tend to be tough, but my group tends to rise to the occasion. And they certainly don’t complain about the extra XP…   What I find harder to deal with is the class/role breakout varying so much. This month, for example, we’re entirely without healing magic.
#11 WorBlade Aug 17, 2015 16:13:10	If you expect 4 to 6, plan for 5. Adjust on the fly, if you only have 4 players and two encouters has them on the ropes then start pulling a monster or reduce monster HP. If 6 players are tromping too easily, increase HP 20% or add a monster. A moderate encounter for 5 if usually about a hard for 4 or easy for 6.
#12 Ralif_Redhammer Aug 18, 2015 7:29:36	Another thing I’ve stopped worrying about is working the PCs in and out of the game. If someone isn’t there the last time, and is the next time, or vice versa, if we’re in the middle of something, they just appear as if they have been there all along. It’s lacks realism, but it's easy and enables them to jump into play right away.
#13 BRJN Aug 19, 2015 14:30:08	Ralif_Redhammer wrote:
#14 Barky Aug 19, 2015 15:43:28	Ralif_Redhammer wrote: