Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 DontEatRawHagis Sep 10, 2014 18:50:48	My background has only really been with 4e and some of the playtest packets as far as encounter design goes.   Normally I stick with throwing what would thematically work, but I decided that the encounters I've been putting them up agianst have been too easy. So I pulled out the Online Rules and started building some encounters. Here are the the stats I came up with.   Six Level 4 players =  a Target XP of 750/1500/2250/3000. Easy/Medium/Hard/Deadly.   Party Composition: Fighter Rogue Wizard Cleric x 2 Ranger   Fluff: A Paladin that the party left to die in the wintery wastes is discovered by one of the BBEG. In return for saving his life so he may avenge his fallen comrades he pledges his Oath to her and is transformed into a Knight of Ice. As part of this arrangement he is considered undead, but sentient, and given control over several frostwolves to help track those who killed his companions.   Crunch: The XP budget after taking into account the XP multiplier turns 750/1500/2250/3000 into 375/750/1125/1500   Now lets say I want at minimum 2 Winter Wolves to accompany him that equals about 2100 XP. After looking at the statlines for the Winter Wolves, maybe I am entering into TPK territory. It just feels like having so few targets compared to the party's 6 will lead to target saturation.   Here are the example encounters I've built so far using whats in the PDF on Wizard's site. This is a group encounter of 2-6 monsters budget is 375/750/1125/1500 Encounter 1: Winter Wolf x 2 Wight Total XP = 2100 Difficulty = 600 above Deadly.   Encounter 2: Wolf x 5 Wight Total XP = 950 Difficulty = In between medium and hard.   Encounter 3: Death Dogs x 2 Wight Total XP = 1100 Difficulty = Close to Hard   Encounter 4: Worgs x 4 Wight Total XP = 1100 Difficulty = Close to Hard   If you were to run a similar encounter what would you do based on the rules? Feel free to make suggestions changing any of the monsters if you'd like. I am just using them because they match the theme..
#2 Ansbach Sep 10, 2014 23:06:00	6x 4th level characters = 750/1500/2250/3000 budget   2 x Winter Wolves = (700+700) x 1 (not x 1.5 for pair.  You have 6 party members, so move down one multipler to "---") = 1400 1 x Wight = 700 Total Encounter XP = 2100   Encounter is medium, very close to hard.   5 x Wolves = (5 x 50) = 250 x 1.5 (pair multiplier instead of x2 group multiplier, because you have 6 party members) = 375 1 x Wight = 700 Total Encounter XP = 1075   Encounter is closer to easy than medium.   Multipler is for multiplying monster XP, not for dividing(???) party XP.
#3 DontEatRawHagis Sep 11, 2014 6:05:52	I just reread the rules and see the part about lowering the multiplier for larger parties.   on the subject of the multiplier, it is meant to be used after you know how many monsters in total will be in the encounter. So a wight and two wolves would mean a total of 3. Then multiply their XP total by the multiplier value.    I knew I was going to aim for a group encounter so I divided by the total XP budget I had just so I could just add the monster xp values without having to multiply then to find out if the encounter was hard or deadly.
#4 Ansbach Sep 11, 2014 7:31:27	DontEatRawHagis wrote:
(Reply to #4) DontEatRawHagis	Ansbach wrote: