D&D Next - 5e Discussion

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Balance in extremely creative combat encounters (ttrpg.network)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hi guys,

I'll start by saying that I'm not posting this to ask for basic balancing tips, as I've that down already. I can create encounters that are mathematically aimed towards a specific difficulty level, as long as they are creative but not insanely complex. Big action oriented guy, minions, multiple medium guys, spicy terrain, simple lair actions, sure.

Now, I love actual plays (D20 veteran), but how dahell do DMs like Brennan and Matt balance their insanely creative final bosses? This fights have VERY swingy terrain features that can straight up murder you, powerful lair actions, powerful spellcasters (a personal bane to balance i have no idea) AND change something basically every turn.

I really wouldn't know where to start to put down the actual numbers for anything here, there are so many variables opposed to a couple damage variables you can average to make a very educated guess on the actual difficulty it will pose. These fights come up very swingy thanks to all these impediments, without really giving you the chance to average down any expected DPS by the party, and that's just to decide the enemies' HP...

How do you put the numbers down on sheets here?

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[–] jake_eric 2 points 11 months ago

I take whatever Kobold gives me for extremely deadly and then multiply the difficulty by about three to actually have a difficult battle.

Yup, always go higher than the book says, especially with a high-level party. Tier 4 PCs have so much stuff they can do it's really hard to challenge them, so you gotta get nuts.