Why I no longer level encounters for the party...

[Shackel]

This is another reason I tend to avoid D&D - if you've got a skill based system with hard limits, you can reasonably conclude that the best knight is at or near the top for various combat skills, which produces a much lower range.

Yet even by that, it doesn't really come down to the system's fault. To me, a level 10+ is legendary, a level 15+ is dealing with international, even interplanar incidents. By my logic, for instance, the jousting champion could be level 5: down where most mortal adventures exist. The greatest knight who ever lived could easily be level 10+ just from that reputation, and a King's personal champion agent and bodyguard would be what might warrant a level 15 or higher.


This being if you don't have monsters to serve as measuring sticks("he killed four wyverns by himself? Oh now we know he's above level 12!") of course.

[Clistenes]

I have always theorized that the reason there aren't more high-level characters in D&D worlds is that NPCs lack a DM picking their fights for them (also, the NPCs lack of meta knowledge of their world and its dangers).

So, if an NPC becomes an adventurer, he could spend months fighting nothing more dangerous than goblins, and suddenly one day, he or she would blunder onto a family of hungry Wyverns.

PCs have the advantage of their DM, who wants them to suvive and rise in power, and picks their fights accordingly. The DM plays the role of their special luck/fate/the gods whatever...

Also, players aren't afraid of death or of a ****ty afterlife. The NPCs are afraid, and will be very cautious when moving around, and won't seek a fight unles they are REALLY sure they can survive it.

As I said in another thread:

Another issue is that we don't know how NPCs gain their levels in 5th edition. They no longer have class levels as such, and they don't seem to gain xp.

If they gain xp and lvls like PCs, then a 9th level wizard had to kill 1920 foes of the level of an average Guard/foot soldier, or do something equally difficult/dangerous/impressive. That would make each lvl 9th wizard a legendary combat monster. Or a legendary genius, if their achievements were scholarly rather than adventurous in nature.

To put it into context, freaking Simo Häyhä, "The White Death", killed "just" 505 people during his whole career, and he became a legend. Flamma, a famous gladiator who refused to accept freedom and retirement four times, only fought 34 combats to death (his 34th foe killed him). François de Montmorency-Bouteville, the man who probably fought most duels under the reign of Louis XIII is known to have engaged in 22 duels only. Mushashi Miyamoto, who is considered the top swordman in Japan history fought sixty duels to death before switching to non-lethal encounters.

In short, that 9th level guy who killed 1920 foes would be a legend. There couldn't be many like that.

It's not impossible. The Conquistadores were known to have killed a mean number of 42 foes each in some battles, and the survivors of the Sad Night and the Battle of Otumba probably killed more than that. However, it was far from normal.

A PC who fought only one-on-one duels would need to kill 7 CR 1/4 monsters (like standard goblins), 18 1/2 monsters (like standard orcs), 45 CR 1 monsters (like bugbears or brown bears) and 30 CR 2 monsters (like ogres or griffons) in order to reach level 9.

That's 100 duels, quite more than the likes of Flamma or Miyamoto Musashi or François de Montmorency-Bouteville ever fought. And 45 of those duels would be against creatures as dangerous as brown bears and 30 against creatures as dangerous as polar bears. A guy who grabbed a sword and killed 75 bears would be quite the legend, and far from common (I don't think such person ever existed).

I don't think regular folk gain their xp killing stuff, but they should do somethig else related to their field just as difficult and impressive. That level 9th wizard has done scholarly stuff that makes him as impressive a person as a warrior who goes out to the wilderness and hacks 75 bears to pieces with his axe.

[M@XWeru]

I've never leveled encounters for the party, but I've made sure they have the Knowledge skills to tell whether a monster is going to be in their league or not, and I guide them toward adventures involving monsters of reasonable levels.

[Science Paladin]

I tend to try to make the leveling make sense for the area... So cushy little village that's part of a larger country? It's guards are probably warrior 2. Frontier town in a dangerous land far from help? Their basic guards are Fighter 5...

I feel like making the non-leveled world work does depend on letting the players get an idea what they're up against in different situations. If they get into a fight, get killed, then hear that the old farmer they attacked was actually an ex-pirate who was retiring and settling down to a quiet life, it's just unsatisfying. If they first spot a gently glowing cutlass on the farmer, see a parrot in his house, and hear rumors of a legendary pirate in hiding in the area...then it gets interesting.

[Beelzebubba]

You know, one of the most satisfying D&D experiences I had gaming was having a first-level group take on a mystery of a bunch of horses dying in one small village in a relatively 'wild' place. The DM planted it among other 'seeds' in a sandbox world.

Through a bunch of detective work, research, trial and error, we figured out it was some flying creature that ate on a predictable schedule. So we prepared a trap.

We used a combination of role-play, poison, organization and training of NPCs, face to face negotiations, bargains, and trap design to solve it - and when the time came, we caught the biggest damn Gryphon anyone had ever seen (100hp) and killed it.

This was a DM who never fudged a roll in his life for any party member's benefit. He said he was expecting a TPK, and we won.

I can't fathom how many 'level appropriate' encounters I've forgotten in 30 years of gaming. I'll always remember this one.

As long as the DM drops enough clues when the danger is high, I'm all for having a living, breathing, 'level inappropriate' world.

[JBPuffin]

Time to shill - I one hundred percent use the DMG prescribed numbers and shape plots around level-appropriate baddies. I've never had a reason not to.

[Quertus]

Time to shill - I one hundred percent use the DMG prescribed numbers and shape plots around level-appropriate baddies. I've never had a reason not to.

So, tell us the story - how does the party handle the 5% of the encounters that are CR 4+ above their level? Do they get bored with all the encounters (around 50%, right?) that are below their pay grade? You say you've never had a reason to deviate from the DMG distribution of challenges, so tell us how it worked.

[Bucky]

I'm currently co-running a campaign that uses a hybrid approach. The world as a whole isn't levelling with the PCs. But there are specific groups who are loosely opposed to the PC's goals that are gaining power the longer the PCs wait to confront them.

Take the example of a goblin tribe that recently moved in from the unexplored wilderness and started raiding villages. If the party encounters them at level 1, they find loose squads of standard Goblin Warrior 1s. If they wait until the party is level 3, the goblin squads have combat veterans among them, Goblin Ranger 2s. Put off dealing with the goblins until level 5 and the goblins have stolen knowledge also; there are Cleric or Wizard 3s supporting the now more experienced Rangers. And so on.

Meanwhile the dragon lairing in the nearby mountain isn't going to advance for years yet.

The key difference (in-world) is that the antagonist groups are new.

[FreddyNoNose]

I am all in favour of having a world that is not level appropriate for the group. As long as the group of players have some way of knowing what level things are.

lol. Levels printed over their heads........

[Knaight]

lol. Levels printed over their heads........

There are plenty of other ways to handle this. For instance, there's the possibility that it's a game where size actually counts for something, and is thus a reliable indicator (e.g. vehicular combat in a lot of sci-fi). There's the possibility that it's a game where there's a pretty standard position for a lot of common soldiers and the like, where the real threats are all known about and have extensive reputations (some wuxia). The list goes on.

[Actana]

I've been toying with a concept recently in regards to 4e D&D with its minion/standard/elite/solo approach to enemies and the separation of in-game and mechanical power levels. The general idea would be that while the narrative power level of the enemies does not change, how their mechanical power level is presented is relative to the PCs. Essentially, depending on the PCs' level, enemies would be presented differently with different mechanics.

For a group of level 5 characters, what would normally be a level 15 standard enemy would be a rather boring fight. The stats are just too high to make it anything but a curbstomp for the enemy and makes the encounter essentially meaningless as the players likely won't be able to do much at all. But instead, if we turn the enemy into a level 8 or 9 solo, the encounter suddenly becomes a lot more meaningful while retaining difficulty and without the need to handwave the lack of higher level entities in the world.

The same goes both ways. As the PCs gain levels, what were once elites would become standard enemies, and the enemies who were standards could easily eventually become minions taken out in a single hit. The degree of levels required to outclass the enemies would likely be significant, but still adjustable based on what levels the campaign operates around.

Enemies below minion level would likely just become terrain features or obstacles without much agency, and those above reasonable solo levels would instead become hazards to avoid, not something to fight head on, with effects that can easily incapacitate the PCs.

Of course, presentation and common sense is key. Using a level 15 standard as a solo enemy only works if the narrative works around it, likewise with a solo that eventually get outclassed (I'd have to have excellent reasons to ever demote what was originally a solo to anything except an elite). When an enemy type changes doesn't have a hard rule exactly, but would be more based around what is most appropriate in an encounter. Given my current apprehension towards actually running 4e I haven't got around to testing the approach, but I like the general idea of it.

[Grim Reader]

I am a fan of letting the players have a "panic button". A scroll with a spell well above their normal level, like a Summon Monster. If it is a consumable, they'll generally save it for when things go pear-shaped, and it'll let them extricate themselves from a misjugded situation.

[Jarawara]

I am a fan of letting the players have a "panic button". A scroll with a spell well above their normal level, like a Summon Monster. If it is a consumable, they'll generally save it for when things go pear-shaped, and it'll let them extricate themselves from a misjugded situation.

I am a big fan of this technique. It allows the players to be bit more daring, a bit more bullish, knowing that they have a get out of jail card in their pocket.

I was first introduced to this concept by a DM who didn't actually know what the outcome would be. Our party found a Wand of Frost, which the DM thought we would have some fun with and then run out of charges. Instead, I sewed into my robes a special pocket for it, stuck it in there and 'forgot' about it.

I never used the thing but the effects were immediate and immeasurable. We had been playing cautious, retiring from the adventure early while we still had hit points, spells, and consumables. What if we needed that extra combat power on the way out, so better leave while we are able. But now, we could push farther, stay longer, accomplish more, knowing that if we were attacked on the way out, I could lay down the freeze on any threat that popped up. (I also got myself a good fire spell on a scroll, just in case cold-based baddies ambushed us.)

Giving the players a "Get out of Death Card" is a great way to get them to be more aggressive, knowing they have a backup in case they push to far. But there is a negative side effect... and my DM found out the hard way.

We're deep in the dungeon, exploring a series of caves, which had been conspicuously lacking in sentient creatures... something had cleared the area out of threats, claimed the area as their own. Then we came to a much larger cave, and found what that 'something' was. Dragon! A massive beast, blazing red in color, classic Tolkien dragon sleeping on a bed of gold, the 'boss battle' of this particular dungeon. DM had been waiting on this all session long, the epic finale of his masterpiece adventure.

Dragon was asleep, or seemingly was, so that the party could muse and plan a strategy on how to tackle this fight (or more realistically, *should* we tackle this fight). My Wizard comes to the front to peer around the corner, assess the situation. I say to the party, "I got this.", and I pull out the Wand.

One blast, Dragon is awakened and stunned and instantly angry. Second blast, Dragon is shocked, breathes flame and howls, and begins to take flight. Third blast, Dragon dies.

I put the Wand back into it's little pocket and promptly 'forgot' about it, while the party began planning how to haul that huge pile of gold home.


So, ah, yeah, giving the party a magic item that can bail them out is fine, but make sure to never forget about it. And never, ever assume your players 'forgot' about it.

[Quertus]

I am a fan of letting the players have a "panic button". A scroll with a spell well above their normal level, like a Summon Monster. If it is a consumable, they'll generally save it for when things go pear-shaped, and it'll let them extricate themselves from a misjugded situation.

And, when they fail to successfully read the scroll, and it blows up in their faces, it's just adding insult to injury.

[Winter_Wolf]

@Jarawara, I'd consider that a "well played, well frikkin' played" moment. Even as a DM. Definitely a congratulations would be in order for recognizing the opportunity and having the right tool for the job, and being willing to use it. I do actually know a few people who would have the badass item, and it's an appropriate juncture to use it, but they simply won't because, "but then I won't have it anymore." Because apparently the item is more important than their character's survival, or something. (I'm a bit guilty of this myself.)

[logic_error]

So, I'm running a campaign at the moment, and as something a little experimental, I declared I would not level the world to the players. It is open world, and the world doesn't revolve around them. Things are the level they would logically be. You start at lvl 5, find a gladiatorial champion (lvl 18), get in a fight and immediately TPK? Should have been more careful.

This has gone down really well, with the players trying to work out what level NPCs are in the game before getting into fights, asking questions like "So...how long have you been a paladin?", appraising their swords, and generally thinking things through. It lead to a wonderful session where they were being hunted by a corrupt Church Inquisitor - they knew he wasn't leveled to them, he seemed more powerful than them, so they needed to flee and really carefully plan his assassination. When they finally poisoned him in his sleep they were so excited, and it gave a real sense of achievement. They didn't kill an NPC made to be a fair fight, but they killed a powerful Inquisitor who was never going to be a fair fight.

How are other people's thoughts on campaigning like this? Have other people done a lot of it? Any tips for keeping it good?

kudos. More power to you!!!

[Earthwalker]

lol. Levels printed over their heads........

If I am running something like DnD (well pathfinder) I would at some stage directly tell the players the level of the NPC they are interacting with.

Knowledge skills in the system do let the player know game information about the world so this doesn't seem to much of a stretch. Pathfinder also has a wonderful way of working where everything scales so if you want to know is this guy is too tought for me... then you are mostly likely not going to find any information because the guy is too tough for you.

Information finding skills also get harder depending on the level of the thing you are facing.

You can do it directly and just say the level of the thing or you can use what ever code you and the players pick up for it being too difficult for them to take on.