Balancing encounters

[Slimcreeper]

I know there has been at least one post about this, but I would love some general advice from everyone about balancing encounters. I know we talk about getting better with experience, but gaming time is precious, especially now that I'm running a small business. I want to plan some time this summer with new players, and I want it to go amazingly.

[etherial]

I'd say the book starts out in a pretty good place. Even with 8-10 First Circle PCs, 8-10 CR1s were an interesting enough challenge. However, as the PCs advanced, the buffs they used acted as a force multiplier and they began to outstrip their NPC opponents around Circle 4. At that point I started skipping CRs for bigger and bigger monsters but I think this was a mistake. In one 8th Circle encounter, the Scout was pasted in a single hit but the NPCs were quickly defeated without him. Instead, I recommend more smaller NPCs, especially NPCs with debuff powers like Crack the Shell or Overrun.

[Dougansf]

I'm still trying to figure out the art of encounter balancing as well.

The number of opponents is a huge factor, which is hard to quantify.

[Flowswithdrek]

For the most part I don't balance encounters. Its not natural. I do however build in a way for an encounter to be avoided, worked arround in a fun fashion, or describe it in a way that says 'yeah, this is best avoided'

Don't get me wrong, i dont throw The Hunter of Great Dragons at 1st circle characters, I just give them a choice of how much they think they can handle.

[Slimcreeper]

I know that it's great to have some encounters that the PCs won't be able to defeat with sword and spell and sharpened tongue. I'm talking about tricks of the trade to help GMs know where on the continuum the encounter they just designed falls. I'm asking for me, but I'm also asking for the community, especially for all the new, inexperienced GMs that we are hoping the new edition will bring in. Ways to lower the barriers to getting started, you know? For me, I figure I've got the 1:1 situation okay, but I'd rather have a mix of opponents because it makes it more interesting. I don't think a new cadaverman, Circle Rating 3 if I remember, would necessarily be a great match up for most 3 person 1st circle crews.

Does anyone have some examples of encounters and PC groups they've matched up and how it went? Maybe that would be a good approach.

[RazanMG]

The way I do it since First Edition, it was in one of the Rulebooks:
Lets take four PCs on circle 3. One close combat, one range, two whatever.

Enemies:
- four circle 3
- two circle 4
- one circle 5

- two circle 2 ( on each PC)
- group 3-5 circle 1 (on each PC)

Its not always balanced, but works very well.

Its PCs circle +2 is for entire PCs group.
+1 is for two PCs.
-1 is two for one Pc.
-2 is group (3-5) for one PC.

[Slimcreeper]

Thanks Razan! to make sure I understand:

If you have one NPC, add 2 to the party's average circle to get the NPC's circle.
If you have one NPC for every 2 PCs, add 1 to the NPC's circle.
If you have two NPCs for every PC, subtract 1 from the NPCs' circle.
If you have three or four NPCs for every PC, subtract 2 from the NPC's circle.

If you want the NPC to match the average circle, throw an extra NPC in there.

It seems like even with raising a single NPCs circle by 2 he or she would need a number of minions to survive more than a round or two with most parties. Is that the case?

What book was that from, BTW? It seems vaguely familiar but I can't place it.

[RazanMG]

Yes, thats is right.

Cant find it in my pdfs so I think it was in 1ed.

[xiaur]

Hi Slimcreeper!

I usually balance the encounters on the fly if I find that they are too easy or too difficult for what they were supposed to achieve in the story. It is actually pretty difficult to balance an encounter up-front, because there are so many variables to take into account. It is, however, much easier to decide that an enemy has a lower death rating or that it does not have access to an additional power if it turned out to be too strong for the group.

Just an option to consider .

Cheers,

Xiaur

[Slimcreeper]

Xiaur - I've done a lot of that in the past, but I'm going to be trying to move away from that going forward. Not that it's wrong, I just want to start running games that are more dangerous, and that means that it needs to be more honest. Otherwise, I'm just sort of indirectly deciding whether the PCs live or die.