Ars Arcana Blog 2.5
Travis Joseph Rodgers
Levelling Encounters
You’re planning a scenario for a new party, but you’re not
sure of their precise capabilities. You don’t want them to be able to walk
through every encounter without fear, but you also don’t want them to die
before they have a chance to explore the scenario you’ve plotted. You need help
levelling encounters.
The advice contained herein comes with a few important
caveats, but if you observe the caveats, you can tailor and tweak encounters to
give the precise feel and flavor you and your players are striving for. First,
this approach works best with games that use levels, but it can apply well to
games without levels, too. It just takes another step. Second, levels might not
scale exactly similarly in different games. Still, that doesn’t mean that
helpful guidelines cannot be constructed. Third, parties and players are
individuals; they may have unanticipated skills, plans, and the dice may be
ever in their favor (or against it). Bearing these things, in mind, understand
that there probably isn’t an algorithm for creating the perfect encounter.
Consider this a heuristic for success instead.
Levels for the
Unleveled
Every system has some way of measuring character capacities
relative to one another. Let’s call this the proxy. It could be levels, total
points, total skill ranks, or the like. Find what it is in your game. In the
Dungeon Chatter system, it’s total skill slots. Characters begin with three to
five, and every four slots is roughly a “level” if that’s the terminology you
like using. Sum up your party members’ levels to produce a Party Level.
Conversion Rates and
Challenge Levels
Once the proxy is settled upon, the next step is to find the
rate of conversion. In some systems, this is simply arithmetic. For instance,
if every level is of roughly equal value, then a level 2 character is twice as
strong as a level 1 character. A level 10 character is roughly ten times as
strong as a level 1 character and so forth. Let’s suppose for now that a system
you’re playing has a roughly balanced level, where every two levels a character’s
power doubles. We’ll call the Challenge Level whatever it is we are to pit against
the PCs, levels totaled.
Relatively Challenging: greater than three-quarters of the Party
Level.
Moderately Challenging: from one-quarter to one three-quarter
of the Party Level.
Relatively Easy: less than one-quarter of the Party Level.
The Test (Part I)
A group of four third-level PCs encounters a group of kobolds
or goblins or whatever the tiny, wicked creatures are in your world. Is it true
that nine Challenge Levels is sufficient to do the job, offering a relatively
challenging encounter? Well, if the kobolds were simply thrust directly against
the party, that would be 18 kobolds (level is ½) against four PCs. The kobolds
might deal a total of ten hits, for 1-4 damage, before being destroyed. That’s
approximately 25 damage dealt. Hardly a challenge to a low level party.
But kobolds are not any stupider than PCs, so they might
attack in different ways, employing a hit and run strategy, or taking twice as
many attacks with certain missile weapons. If the same number of kobolds
attacks twice per round and dies at the same rate, they might deal 22 hits and
an average of 55 damage, which threatens the life of a party. Or, if they were
to die at half the rate as in the initial scenario, offering up 21 hits and 52
damage.
Those Numbers?
So, I simply assumed that overall the Kobolds would need a
17 on average to hit a party member and used a die roller to simulate the
combat. I assumed the PCs would drop four kobolds per round in the initial
scenario. They might drop more, of course. The point are these:
Formulate a proxy for encounter difficulty.
Some
games offer methods for doing this, and I have just offered one here.
Test the Proxy.
Use this
method, seeing how easily your party deals with the challenges.
Scaling Up.
If the
party blows through every encounter at that level, before just throwing more
creatures at the party, first try implementing some tactics – like hit and run,
min/maxing like PCs might, feints, formations, and other strategies that would
be available to the creatures given their intelligence. If that fails, then you
can try awarding max HP per die type to all encountered creatures. If that
fails, then consider adding a greater number of enemies. Just understand that a
greater number of enemies is not always better; in fact, it can transform
combat into a giant wargame, like a mini-game attached to the roleplaying, and
not all parties are on board for that.
Scaling Down.
Conversely,
if your party is struggling too much, your first step might be to decrease the
number of enemies. Or perhaps you can have your players experiment with tactics
in combat. Sometimes they must be introduced to these things in order to get
the hang of it.
Disclaimers
Isn’t this just combat? Yes, but the same ideas can be
applied to other aspects of an RPG as well. Check the type of game you’ve all
agreed to play. If it’s too easy or too hard, modify. Do so by exploring the
capacities and capabilities of the creatures and by helping the PCs understand
their options better.
Isn’t this pitched at a high level of generality? Maybe, but
I’m not sure that’s a problem. This advice is to be widely applicable, so generality
is a necessity. The task is for you to experiment in your game, your party, and
your system to figure out through experience what the best way is to proceed. I
haven’t played your game, in your party, etc., so I can’t give you precise
recommendations.
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