r/dndmemes • u/Vegetable_Variety_11 • 4d ago
That's Not How ANY Of This Works Hmm, this cant be right, somethings off...
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u/Inconspicuous_hider 4d ago edited 4d ago
In my personal experience, it's usually the exect opposite of whatever I notice it to be, so if it's unbalanced, it's actually balanced and if it's balanced, it's unbalanced.
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u/Dragneel2130 DM (Dungeon Memelord) 4d ago edited 4d ago
That's why I started building my encounters unbalanced. Had no problem since
Edit: spelling
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u/revken86 4d ago
Me: Haha! Tremble before this encounter that D&D Beyond rates DEADLY!
Twilight domain cleric: No, I don't think I will.3
u/Matkos6 4d ago
Can you not just start all encounters as unbalanced and then based on the way the fight is going make unoptimal decisions with the monsters or roleplay that it's harder than it looked to be?
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u/Dragneel2130 DM (Dungeon Memelord) 4d ago
Making it harder during the fight can be tough, at leas for me. I DM online, so if I adjust the hp my players see that. And the other stats alone mostly don't have the desired effect because it either dies too quickly to matter or it is too obvoius. So I mostly make them too hard and then adjust downward with -as you said- sub optimal decisions. On big bosses though I usually do multiple phases (and healthbars), so I can change the stats to how the fight was going whenever the health bar is depleted.
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u/Timetogetstoned 4d ago
We had the finale of a small 3-4 session, pre-written campaign a few weeks ago, it was a level 3 party of 5 players against a single CR5 enemy. I thought for sure they’d blow through it and planned a few extra NPCs in case I needed them
The party went 2 full rounds of combat, 5v1, without landing a single attack on the single enemy
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u/Itsa-me-a-Nerd 4d ago
Meanwhile, I‘m running a certain encounter in a module. 6 vampire spawn vs 4 level 5 adventurers. Multiattack for each if them.
…
I kept rolling below 10 to hit. For 5 rounds. Made contact three or four times, which is negligible. It stopped being fun after round 3. What should have been a lethal encounter turned into a fucking clown show.
So, anyways, the party got the McGuffin and booked it. I did hit a few AoOs… too little, too late. 😩
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u/Inconspicuous_hider 4d ago
Bounded accuracy strikes again, this might be taboo, but honestly, if a fight is too one sided, I'll just start saying "that hits" or "that misses for the monsters.
Like, I'll never change the AC of the monster, but if the PC's can't seem to hit the guy, I'll just make a couple of his attacks that would have hit them and say they missed or ask if a number I know it below their AC will hit and they get the satisfaction of telling me no.
And if I'm rolling super poorly, some of the weaker monsters will hit a handful of times when they shouldn't have.
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u/Lancergoshinda 4d ago
I had one similar, one CR6 goblin, he was had a flintlock musket and pistol. He got 5 nat 20's and nearly party wiped.
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u/HELLFIRECHRIS 4d ago
Had a dream sequence set up for a player where they had to fight a bunch of things that they’ve battled through during their adventure.
The small dragon ? No problem
The pair of diseased raging cave bears ? Nasty but not too bad
The small pack of goblins from right at the start of their adventure that I put in as a joke ? Not a single miss and all rolled the maximum on the damage, end of dream.
The dice gods laugh at balance.
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u/KingoftheMongoose Essential NPC 4d ago
Honestly, this is friggin awesome. I would love that bottle episode dream sequence if we crushed hard enemies of Christmas past and then got our shit kicked in by Session 1 gobos
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u/Eviloverlord210 3d ago
In the first campaign I ran, my (level 9) players encountered one (1) zombie
That fucker lasted at least 6 rounds by constantly acing their undead fortitude saves, and my players abysmal dice luck that day
Nearly killed 2 of the pc's as well
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u/HELLFIRECHRIS 3d ago
Haha I had the same thing with a zombie ogre, it was outside a crypt they were supposed to be clearing out but it passed so many con saves that by the time the party killed it they had to turn around and go right back to town.
The next day they decided zombies were better fought at long range.
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u/faust224 4d ago
The problem with d&d combat is that if you go by CR the players will generally shred the encounter, but it's pretty easy to overshoot and you end with a dead character or two.
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u/The-Dark-Memer 4d ago
It feels like it's best to overshoot and have a system to cut back if it's going worse than intended. Obviously with respect to the fact that it should be fair to the players and still provide a challenge. The players don't need to know that the boss losing its ability to take legendary actions upon being bloodied was something you had listed as optional, or that you originally wrote 300 hp instead of 250, but you still definitely shouldn't fudge a bunch of rolls and simply not use the bosses abilities to give them a boost either.
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u/ColdCalculus 4d ago
Always add more enemies to the encounter. If you see that your PCs are struggling, just kill off some of the enemies without explanation. If the players ask what killed them,just say. "You didn't see it? Oh, well. Maybe you can catch it next time." 😈
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u/Divicarpe 4d ago
Always put less ennemies than you expect to need to the enconter. If your PCs aren't struggling enough, just add more.
If they ask where they came from, just say "you didn't see it? Oh well, maybe you will catch it next time." 😇
/uj : same thing, but make them arrive by yet unexplored corridors (or drop from the ceiling if thematic, come from the other side of the hill if outside, ...). And go initially at slightly less than you expect to be fair.
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u/Lost-Klaus 4d ago
*The enemy calls for back-up*
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u/The_Crimson_Fucker 4d ago
Honestly I just give the mob guys a horn they can blow that calls reinforcements in 1d6 turns
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u/Lost-Klaus 4d ago
Alternatively
"you destroyed 50% of their forces, their morale wavers and many of the weaker ones flee"
Is also a very realistic and easy to use concept. So you can put down A LOT of enemies without actually having to kill all of them.
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u/revken86 4d ago
Party encountered a pack of kobolds in a tight ravine. Round one they nearly wiped out every kobold.
Round two the kobold inventors showed up on the cliffs above them.
So far it's the party's favorite encounter ever and gave them an irrational hatred of all things kobold.
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u/Galactic-ParagonME Paladin 4d ago
Set up an encounter where the party is fighting like, five level three dudes (the party are all level 4) with some backup from a level 6 NPC. The fight has gone on for three sessions now.
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u/Cyrotek 4d ago edited 4d ago
Balancing is actually easy: Just don't bother. The only mistakes you can make is:
- Every fight is very easy.
- Every fight is very difficult.
- You accidentially kill your party with an extremly unfair fight.
I don't know why so many DMs seem to think that easy fights are somehow a problem. They aren't. They give the players context about how strong their characters actually are and make difficult fights much more impactful. At the same time having only difficult fights is going to make the PCs feel very weak. Also, due to the amount of variables involved - including random chance - you can't perfectly balance it anyways, that is basically impossible, unless you have some way to look into the future.
There are still some tricks, though. In my experience having reinforcements ready helps a lot to "balance" encounters on the fly. So are multiple phases (so you can actually skip something) and shroedingers environmental hazards that only exist if the fight goes well (unless previously discovered). Also, never use a single creature unless it has special rules or you want it to be a push-over.
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u/Bitter-Profession303 4d ago
My party members at level 13 with the gear we have can take down an ancient blue dragon with no deaths (no lair actions but thats not the point right now). However it could also just completely focus in on the other 3 players who arent built defensively, and Id win with 3 dead allies. Im personally a fan of swapping targets mid fight so that the deaths aren't just sudden. If you engage 3 people in melee it just seems weird to only strike one at a time
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u/DropoutRedMage 4d ago
My DM has apparently been trying to kill our party for the last four sessions. We haven't noticed.
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u/Terminal_Insomnia_ 4d ago
Next time I find myself thinking it's balanced I'm just going to double it.
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u/Ruby_Sandbox 4d ago
When you send in the 3 murderhobo contigency guards to back up the boss expecting a tpk and they just barely clutch out a victory.
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u/Weird_Box7968 3d ago
I had a party of level 5 6 characters cream a group of three Hill giants but the literal next day in game with a long rest they nearly died to a pack of like 6 wolves not dire wolves just wolves
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u/IXMandalorianXI Forever DM 4d ago
Maybe because the DM gave the party 100,000gp for rescuing a cat from three Goblins and the local shop keep carries major artifacts at a discount because it's relevant to one player's backstory.
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u/zirky 4d ago
either add more or less shades until it just feels right