[PnP] How do you balance encounters?

[Scott Adams]

Alex, Paul, David all had good points.
Balance is serious work.  I believe in balance a a lot.
But experience is the best judge.  Most GMS go from Grade E to A in 
my view.  Grade E newbies are those who are 80% hack
and slash and 10% characters and 10% plot.
Grade A tend to be the best 70% plot, 10% hack/slash and 20% characters.
I used to be Grade E in the 80s using CEL as a balance.  But it 
quickly fell through bad times.
Very few are Grade A+.  Oout of the hundreds I only know of 4-5 GMS 
that are grade A+.
So it is mostly experience.
CDF is good bu it can be dangerous.
A CDF 8 dragon might seem bad but for some characters they are easy.
Yet a CDF 1 monster that has a ability to kill with a look can be 
more dangerous.  So CDF is not a good factor.
If I reclal Soul Davias for example are low CDF?  But they are quite 
dangerous to underestimate.
I tend to look at it case by case basis for pcs.  I have a 8 foot 800 
pound Bard that can handle likley a army on his own with 70 odd 
hp.  But he can be downed by a simple spell.

I have a person who uses dual daggers.  I tend to konw she can handle 
more than one person so I figure more than 1 for her. Yet I have a 
small Faerry that is weak somewhat (not fully) but can be 
understimated by the bad guys who cna tke out a hundred bad guys with 
her bow.

I also look at the gear.  A person wearing AV7 magic armor  can 
handle a tougher bad guy than one who is weairng no armor.
I see a person who has magic toys is out balanced by their use so I 
may overwhelm that person so that the toys are useless.

I don't on purpose design some encounters to be mean.  For example my 
last enocunter I had
5 human npc males
2 great apes
1 unknown magic user (will not reveal here since aprt is looking:)  )

vs the
Giant Bard, Shman/Wizard, Dagger Maiden, Faerry
so 8 vs 4 more or less.
The humans are wimps and taken out fast.
But the apes do damage.
The unknown bad guy takes out he giant and could've killed him.
So I balance the giant with a simple few magical words.

There is no rule of thumb here.
One must see teh pc as a whole their gear, skills and experience.
a Newbie player who is doing a fighter with bogus gear and skills is 
useless if he can't figure out how to do tactics in a fight.

But a overconfident giant who fears nothing cna be taken down without 
even a blade.

A gm shouldn't every fight to kill.
In fact balance it.  3-3 easy ho hum batles.
This tends to make players cocky.
Then bam a hard fight.
Reel them in for their bravado.

A gm who sends 100 goblins against 10 pcs sees the pcs dead.
But a SMART player who can wipe them out with a simple XYZ spellcan 
be a great balance.

In my mind I have a irrational math for balance.
If I see a player pick up a Sword of Doom and Chainmail of the Gods then
I see that as a certain factor of points to balance it out.
So let's say in my mind I have 20 points vs 25 a fair balance.
But if i see naked pcs with nothing but a few sticks swarmed by a 
trible of goblins then in my mimnd it might be 50 to 10 a unfair balance.
So I allow outs.  Outs are critical to every encounter.  If your 
stupid enough to need the cup on the altar across the room then go 
get it.  Just be careful of the lava on the floor.  If you need to 
cross a roof with 200 archers on teh ground below then you deserve to 
die playing pin cushion.
But there is always a out.
The same lava can be skipped by that vine in the roof if only you can 
get there.
Same roof can be crossed with that tower shield the guard left.
If you can see a out it is always there.

For the goblins if you can simply jump off the cliff to th eriver 
below to avoid them then do so.

Balance is hard to figure out.  But give folks a way out.
Kobayshu Maru no win things are NOTFun for players.








  PM 4/19/2014, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>how do you manage to balance encounters in P&P?
>
>I have a group of four players:
>
>Ennon: OCV 2, DCV 4
>Gunnard: OCV 9, DCV 8
>Darrel: OCV 3, DCV 5
>Habbakuk: OCV 6, DCV 5
>
>the average hit point value of each character is around 20, except 
>for Gunnard who has 33 HPV.
>
>Given this situation, i always have doubts as to which creature 
>(monster) they should face.
>As you probably remember, Richard Snider at the end of book IV 
>stated that "the situation that evolves in your game must be 
>designed such that:
>
>A) they are not automatic victories for your players
>AND
>B) they are situations that the party involved can win
>
>I always try to stick to this (apparently simple) rule, but it is 
>not so easy, so i would like to know how you are used to managing encounters.
>
>I think it is a mistake for the game master to throw monsters at the 
>party that are too strong to beat, but at the same time the player's 
>skills must be put to test, that is why i think that encounters 
>should always be balanced.
>
>Now, how to balance them? How to pick the correct monster (one which 
>is as strong as my players are) from the monster list in book III?
>
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