You roll on the chart of random monsters. Then the group fights said monster(s). If all the PCs die, the encounter was too hard!If I have 4 characters (fighter 4, cleric 4, m-u 4 and thief 6) how do I determine if an encounter will be difficult, moderate or easy for them?
Very helpful ! I played B/X a very long time ago. Restarting soon.In old D&D monster difficulty was measured in HD and stars. 8* would be an 8 HD monster which has extra nasty ability of some kind. IIRC, there was also 8**.
Random encounter tables for a dungeon generally had 1 HD on the 1st floor, 2 HD monsters on the 2nd, etc, with some variation. Such monsters would also have a # appearing entry.
PCs where expected to calibrate their own risk tolerance; the slope of difficulty of the dungeon would give players information about if they are ready to head down to a lower level. If the dungeon proved too challenging, you would get more hirelings or approach it more carefully.
Players where expected to learn how cautious they should be (in general) by having PCs die. Making low level PCs quick to generate was part of this.
Wilderness encounter tables had a higher variation, with a larger # appearing, but because sight lines in the wilderness tend to be larger, short-range surprise was rare. And PCs able to boot it could survive if they "ran into" a warband of 400 orcs.
If a party runs into a warband of 400 orcs, they where expected to deconstruct the problem rather than fight it head on.
The XP-for-GP rule meant that the general rule when running into hostile creatures is "do they have treasure we want", not "are they a worthy foe to fight".
But, the closest thing to CR was usually counting HD.
How you want to map those levels to "Easy," "Moderate," and "Difficult" depends on where you want to draw those lines."RC wrote:
- 1-10% Minor: Most random encounters should be of this level. Often minor encounters are used to warn a party of something worse ahead.
- 10-20% Too Easy: An encounter that is too easy is best ignored or played for humor. It is not a real challenge unless the party is weaponless or injured.
- 20-30% Distraction: This is a smaller encounter that will cost the party some hit points but should be easy to overcome. This level should be used when there are many encounters and the party has little chance to recover from previous ones.
- 30-50% Good Fight: This is the most common level of encounter and can make up half of an adventure. A good fight may also include tough random encounters.
- 50-70% Challenging: This encounter will challenge a party's might, but the party has the odds in its favor if the encounter is played well. If the ad- venture is short, three to five of these encounters may be used.
- 70-90% Major: This type of encounter is usually used as the main fight or climax of an adventure. If an adventure has little fighting, the DM may want to include one or two of these encounters.
- 90-110% Risky: The monsters are equal to the party and there is an even chance that either side may win. This encounter may require many of the party's resources, and some members may die. Risky encounters are sometimes used for the grand finale to a quest.
You don’t. You rethink your approach to creating adventures. The older editions had a different philosophy to new editions. The world is not balanced around the players. Create a ”natural“ environment and let the players figure the best approach. Fight head on (bad idea)/ find a way to fight with advantage/ negotiate/ sneak by to get the loot. Also note, if fighting, make use of the morale checks. If they decide to take on an orc den of 200+ orcs head on, then all power to them. Bring spare character sheets! Alternatively, sneak by, listen in on a conversation with a disaffected orc lieutenant and his minion, use that to gain a negotiating position. Create factional strife and as they are tearing each other apart, get the all powerful gem of macguffin and get it home to get that sweet xpIf I have 4 characters (fighter 4, cleric 4, m-u 4 and thief 6) how do I determine if an encounter will be difficult, moderate or easy for them?
That is a play style that has nothing to do with the edition. It's called sandbox. You can do it with any RPG or any D&D edition. I was there in the early 80s and we played different types of campaigns. Some were sandbox, others were arc story style, some pure dungeon crawl hack & slash.You don’t. You rethink your approach to creating adventures. The older editions had a different philosophy to new editions. The world is not balanced around the players. Create a ”natural“ environment and let the players figure the best approach. Fight head on (bad idea)/ find a way to fight with advantage/ negotiate/ sneak by to get the loot. Also note, if fighting, make use of the morale checks. If they decide to take on an orc den of 200+ orcs head on, then all power to them. Bring spare character sheets! Alternatively, sneak by, listen in on a conversation with a disaffected orc lieutenant and his minion, use that to gain a negotiating position. Create factional strife and as they are tearing each other apart, get the all powerful gem of macguffin and get it home to get that sweet xp