Building 5e Encounters

[Nalfien]

https://dhmholley.co.uk/encounter-calculator-5th/

Check out this encounter calculator for 5th edition. I'm new to 5e, and I'm trying to make sense of the DM Guide's rules for appropriate challenges. I'm coming from 3.5ed so from what I can tell, expecting a group of 4 players of level 1 to take on a CR of 1 can be really deadly. In fact, using the calculator, simple 1/4 CR skeletons can go from 2 being easy to 3 being hard with no middle ground.

I notice that in Fantasy Grounds there is a great encounter builder that will tell you a CR value. If it included the linked calculator, it sure would help out new 5e DMs such as myself. XP awarded will not be the sames as adjusted XP for determining difficulty, and although it's a bit rough to learn, I think it accounts for more variables than the 3.5ed ECL system did.

So I think I've got this down, but please feel free to reply your methods of how you dish out your adventuring days. Also, if it looks like I have some wrong idea about all this, please speak up and thanks in advance.

The DM guide section on The Adventuring Day (pg 84) gives an XP pool you can segment out, and assumes the party will take two short rests that day. It also mentions the typical party can handle about 6 to 8 medium or hard encounters each day.

The xp threshold for (4) 1st level PCs is; Easy 100, Medium 200, Hard 300. The Adventuring Day chart budgets adjusted 1200 XP for the day. Expected short rests are at about 400xp of challenge and 800xp of challenge. This is enough to award each player 300 xp at the end of the day and level them to 2... if you make them fight one monster at a time, which wouldn't be fun. I always level my players up at the end of the first session, it's just a personal tradition that has worked well. I suppose that story rewards could make up for this, or the milestone system of leveling up, but I really expected this to be possible inside the CR vs. level system.

So to plan out the first day I would like a boss at the end with no helpers. How about a dragon wyrmling of 200xp, a medium encounter. That leaves 1000.

Before that boss fight, how about getting another 200xp of monsters in there to leave 800 xp and they can rest up afterwards. 2 zombies at 150xp and an additional zombie they can find if they open a room door for the other 50xp. That leaves us with 800. We had a medium and easy encounter there, really.

I only really wanted 4 battles on the first night and we have a lot of budget left. Id Like to start with an easy encounter, so how about 2 skeletons for 150xp.

So this leaves 650 for the second battle. Sheesh, that's too much for them to handle by far. I guess some left overs will be ok. Lets make the second encounter hard because we know they need a short rest after this one. Three skeletons for 300 xp. The real boss fight, I guess! There is 350 left over, and I can't really fit it in that session.

Ok, so that was all adjusted XP. Lets see how much awarded xp we get for 1 wyrmling, 3 zombies, and 5 skeletons. Thats 600xp... half of what they would actually need to level up to 2. I would have to award a 600xp story award. Perhaps this is just a problem at level 1 since there are so few monsters with lower xp values. Heck a skeleton has the same xp value as a bat.

[Dracius]

You can award XP for things other than simply killing.

Traps and puzzles are also considered "encounters" and there is nothing stopping you from awarding xp for those. Players can also easily handle very difficult encounters if the enemies trickle in, as opposed to having to fight them all at once. They could probably take 50+ goblins one at a time, but if you sent in 50 goblins all at once it'd be insta TPK before the 1st round was even 1/4 of the way through.

[JohnD]

I know I had a hard time balancing in the beginning; the players were mostly walking through what I thought were appropriate encounters. So I just did away with all those budget calculations and presented the world where some things exist that will kick your *** and not everything is a safe spot for the precious snowflakes to land.

[Zacchaeus]

I think that if you want to level them up after one session then you'll need to just throw out XP budgets and just level them up. Getting 1200XP in one session at first level will pretty much mean you'll be there all day.

[GunbunnyFuFu]

I know I still struggle with encounter balance...I think I'm going to adopt JohnD's manner of thinking and the players can decide if they really want to tangle with that pack of bugbears at their level...

[Nalfien]

Blaming the player deaths on the players rather than my poor understanding of encounter balance is something I'd rather avoid if possible. I think my solution will be to start the players at level 3 instead of 1 and break my tradition of leveling up at the end of the first session.

[Nylanfs]

If the players didn't you to kill their characters they wouldn't make bad decisions. :)

[The Hawk and Sparrow]

I try to focus on the story and build encounters that will challenge them ... stretch them... but reward them for good RP or creativity. They know that it's a deadly world. PCs died early on because they didn't respect it. Encounters may grind them down prior to a big bad scene. Or they may deal with NPC abilities or environments that counter or hinder PC strengths. They then have to work together or think through solutions.