by Mike Mearls
Mike presents a preview of the guidelines for designing and balancing encounters. You can use these guidelines with the monsters in appendix B of Lost Mine of Phandelver to continue your campaign or create new adventures. Disclaimer: These rules are not final.
Talk about this article here.
p.s. I know Plaguescarred usually does this, but I don't see any posts by him (or anyone else for that matter) about this article, so I figured it would be OK if I went ahead and did it.
I've also converted adventures by simply replacing original stat blocks with their fifth edition versions, using the indicated number of creatures and not worrying about CR or XP budget. I ran a successful play-through of The Forge of Fury this way, and found the action to largely mirror my experience of running that adventure in third edition.
Very nice, I have always eyeballed encounter design, and I have not used XP in years, so the CR is a nice guide (but in monster entries it is simply called Challenge, not sure why they are still using "Rating" as well).
I am burning to see more monsters (my favourite part of the game), I have to wait until the 15th to get the Starter Set.
I really like the way bounded accuracy means that getting your encounter design exactly right isn't as important as it was in previous editions. I didn't do much of my own encounter design when I ran 3.5, but it became obvious to me after a while that the adventure authors WotC hired often didn't know how to get it right either ~ case in point: an EL 8 tomb spider is nowhere near a fair fight for a party of 4th level PCs, no matter how "wounded" it is from a fight with the bad guys the PCs are pursuing (see Barrow of the Forgotten King).
pukunui wrote:
This is a hypothetical question, because I don't have Starter Set yet and haven't seen many 5e stat blocks, but have people come across any examples where the 5e monsters' special actions are so different from the old ones that monster tactics would play out quite differently ?
Can you clarify what you mean by "old ones"? Do you mean from earlier in the 5e playtest, or from earlier editions entirely?
So a "Challenging" encounter for 1st level PC's is 4 Hobgoblins... Dear lord, do not "challenge" your first level parties. Then again a Hobgoblin with 6 goblins might be okay, it's just that Hobs are disgustingly synergistic. Similarly two bugbears seems like an auto TPK. These numbers clearly need some tweaking.
mestewart3 wrote:
Brock_Landers wrote:
One thing, at least dropping to 0 is not as brutal as pre-4th Ed.
pukunui wrote:
mestewart3 wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
mestewart3 wrote:
I'm not against giving the PCs extra hit points at 1st level either. I may make that one of my first house rules, in fact.
pukunui wrote:
I don't think that will be necessary. Just bump up their HPs at 1st level and leave the advancement alone. It should work out fine.
pukunui wrote:
When I was running 3.5, I gave the PCs max HPs up to 5th level (not to mention 36 point buy stats), and even that wasn't enough to save them from the horrors of Barrow of the Forgotten King and Red Hand of Doom. 
mestewart3 wrote:
seti wrote:
Brock_Landers wrote:
mestewart3 wrote:
JohnLynch wrote:
JohnLynch wrote:
I like 5E Encounter Building Guidelines. Its a good mix of 3E Challenge rating and 4E XP Budget!
I love this L&L post and it highlights for me what is good about 5e. Mike seems to understand this aspect of the game and DMing very well.
I am thrilled that we have the "tutorial" levels. If nothing else it greatly facilitates using the classes for NPCs in the world. Whatever 1st level is in the game, that is what a lot of NPCs are going to be in my world. So a game where 1st level is really powerful moves the whole world that way in my opinion. I much prefer it the way it is right now. For those wanting to start more heroic I'd start at 3rd level and alls good. Personally I like starting out "green".
Plaguescarred wrote:
I'm going to have to give my players class HD + Con score hp at 1st level. I don't want them to get one-shotted by hobgoblins or bugbears and never want to play 5e again...
FallingIcicle wrote:
FallingIcicle wrote:
Azzy1974 wrote:
Azzy1974 wrote:
Azzy1974 wrote:
Thanks, guys. 
I do like the new sŷtem as well. It still needs some tweaking and there are obvious ways to break it (when aren't there really). Ultimately however I think the system will hold up well.
I still say a good way to houserule HPs to front load but taper off, is to grant 2 full HD plus con mod at 1st level, and then only grant new HD at Even Levels
1st=2HD (Maxed)...........................11th=7HD (2Max+5)
2nd=3HD (2Max+1)........................12th=8HD (2Max+6)
3rd=3HD (2Max+1).........................13th=8HD (2Max+6)
4th=4HD (2Max+2).........................14th=9HD (2Max+7)
5th=4HD (2Max+2).........................15th=9HD (2Max+7)
6th=5HD (2Max+3).........................16th=10HD (2Max+8)
7th=5HD (2Max+3).........................17th=10HD (2Max+8)
8th=6HD (2Max+4).........................18th=11HD (2Max+9)
9th=6HD (2Max+4).........................19th=11HD (2Max+9)
10th=7HD (2Max+5).......................20th=12HD (2Max+10)
Given a Con Bonus* of +2 @ 1st level, you get
Wizard: 10hps, Fighter: 22hps
Given a Con Bonus* of +4 @ 10th level, you get:
Wizard: 37 to 52 hps, Avg: 47hps Fighter: 49 to 94 hps, Avg: 74hps
*This is assuming Con bonus only adds on levels when HD are added
Currently method:
Wizard: 6hps, Fighter: 12hps
@10th
Wizard: 53 to 80 hps, Avg: 71hps, Fighter: 59 to 140 hps, Avg: 104 hps
using the same basic guidelines (Con Mod of +2/+4 as above)
still a bit of a range, but max HPs is lower, as is Avg, very much frontloaded, so difficulty should go up apace.
In case anyone else hasn't seen it yet, here's the list of monsters that are in the Starter Set along with their listed CRs (I found the list on EN World):
The monster list is:
Bugbear CL 1
Commoner CL 0
Cultist CL 1/8
Doppelganger CL 3
Evil Mage CL 1
Flameskull CL 4
Ghoul CL 1
Giant Spider CL 1
Goblin CL 1/4
Grick CL 2
Hobgoblin CL 1/2
Nothic CL 2
Ochre Jelly CL 2
Ogre CL 2
Orc CR 1/2
Owlbear CL 3
Ruffian CL 1/2
Skeleton CL 1/4
Spectator CL 3
Stirge CL 1/8
Twig Blight CL 1/8
Wolf CL 1/4
Young Green Dragon CL 8
Wraith CL 3
Zombie CL 1/4
Left out NPC's and important characters, these are just the monsters.
pukunui wrote: