Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Orzel Aug 20, 2014 3:52:44	One thing that could easier be missed is the effect of very low CR and XP enemies in fights with ligher level monsters and PCs.   Veteran DMs and adventure designers might catch them it but maybe not novices. And there are bad days,   The effect of low XP monsters on Total XP.   Imagine an evil necromancer Gatjeo* goes to a graveyard and raises a ton of zombes. Then he takes a walk in the woods with 4 of them. He's CR 6, the zombies are CR 1/4.   Add them up and they make a moderately challenging encounter for PCs. But when you adjust the XP budget for judging, the table makes them into a deadly one.   Why? Because the 4 zombies multiply his XP by 2 because they raise the group from a solo to gang. 4 zombies don't make that much of an effect on the enocunter. So the XP from the mage should not be multiplied.   It gets worse and worse as the monster gaps grow.   A minotaur and his pet wolves A major Orc NPC and his hunting party. A dragon and his kobold worshippers. A vampire and some skeletons   It's a minor thing but it has to be discussed and informed.   *Gatjeo's name created via random punching of keyboard and removing numbers and triple consonants.
#2 Arithezoo Aug 20, 2014 6:04:23	Yup, this has occurred to me too.  I'm guessing the DMG will have more detailed rules.  Perhaps something as simple as only multiplying the XP of the group of low level monsters.   So in your example, the Necromancer by himself would be 2300 XP (a medium encounter for 4 PCs of 6th level).  Add in the four zombies (50 XP each, doubled to 100 because there are between 3 and 5) and you have 2700, slightly above medium, but still well below the upper limit for a hard encounter (3600 XP).  This sounds much better.  Adding the zombies certainly does make the fight more difficult, but not drastically.    To make a hard encounter, you could add 10 zombies (125 each for a total of 1250, plus the 2300 of the necromancer) to get to 3550.
#3 AaronOfBarbaria Aug 20, 2014 6:32:53	That's actually why the XP multiplication is done only for the budgeting of the encounter, and not for the rewards actually gained from the encounter - because having more numerous threats can complicate things, but is not necessarily always going to do so in a notable fashion.   Especially when a party member is pre-disposed to dealing with a particular sort of threat, like a Cleric being likely to cause the low-CR zombies to die or flee (depending on the cleric's level) with a single action.
#4 Orzel Aug 20, 2014 6:55:15	AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
#5 Alynn Aug 20, 2014 7:07:23	Part of me thinks that this may actually be intentional.   Many DM's, and I would almost venture to say nearly ALL of them, roll initive for the entire group of baddies, or by smaller mid groups if they are of different types. So, the 2 hobgoblins go at the same inititive, and the 3 goblins go at the same inititive instead of rolling 5 different inititives. This grouping allows for the chance of a focus fire. They took that into account when coming up with the horde multiplier.   When 2 orcs go at once they have a 1.5X better chance of ganking someone... When there are 16 goblins, they are 4 times more likely to do so.   It's a theory, anyway.
(Reply to #5) Orzel	Alynn wrote:
#7 Alynn Aug 20, 2014 7:50:21	So a CR 1/4 goblin has to roll a 14 or more to even hit him. To deal ~5 damage to his 65+ HP at full.   Indeed, 35% hit chance which for 16 goblins means 4 hits and 1 crit (or 5 hits and 1 crit depending on how you decide to round) between 30 to 35 damage. Doing 50% hp damage to a single character out of a party of 4, and quite likely the hardest one to hit (the studded clad rogue would fare much worse with less HP and lower AC) seems about right for a medium level encounter. T Which is what 16 goblins are for a party of 8th level characters.   Granted, in the situation you mentioned with the leader with his 4 undead minions could be a slightly different ball of wax, so it may indeed be better to do the multiplication of each "group". A pair of hobgoblins and 3 goblins end up being 600XP instead of 700XP but still pretty ballpark near each other in difficulty. I just feel they probably erred on the side of caution, a lucky dice streak can totally decimate a party no matter how carefully you craft encounter building rules.
#8 Shadewyn Aug 20, 2014 8:13:59	Orzel wrote:
(Reply to #8) Orzel	Alynn wrote:
#10 Iorwerth Aug 20, 2014 8:52:32	Arithezoo wrote:
#11 Arithezoo Aug 20, 2014 10:44:26	Iorwerth wrote:
#12 UngeheuerLich Aug 20, 2014 13:47:10	If the higher level character has abilities to boost the lower level ones it becomes different again.   I also hop encounter building guidelines will be more detailed and even revised in the final rules. CR could really help judging how to multiply. I do agree, that maybe 16 zombies and one necromancer should not have the high level necromancer xp budget multiplied but we need to test it. 16 zombies are annoying. But a single fireball will decimate them easily. A fighter has a harder time.   I guess we need additional guidelines for the xp budget, depending on how much area damage the party has access to and how much single target disables they have.
#13 CCS Aug 20, 2014 19:27:25	Hmm. Once again, WoTC comes up with a pointless encounter building system..... they keep trying to build encounters mathematically - like assembling an army in a miniatures game - instead of realizing that it's the STORY being told that should be dictating what & how many of what is fought.....
#14 Noon Aug 20, 2014 20:42:21	I don't know if the text says it, but you wouldn't include the summoning spells of a creature. They are already built into the CR.   CCS wrote:
#15 Daganev Aug 20, 2014 22:40:36	I understood the rules to be that you multiple based on how many monsters of a cr you have.
#16 Arithezoo Aug 21, 2014 5:37:55	Daganev wrote: