Is the 5e Encounter calculator correct?

[lesliev]

Hi all

I'm using the Legacy 5th edition rules and this is an encounter from Hoard of the Dragon Queen:
66047

This CR seems wrong.

The Ambush Drake is 100XP, the Bandits and Kobolds are 25XP:

1 × CR 1/2 → 100 XP
12 × CR 1/8 → 12 × 25 = 300 XP
Base XP total = 400 XP

DMG multiplier table:

1 monster → ×1
2 monsters → ×1.5
3–6 monsters → ×2
7–10 monsters → ×2.5
11–14 monsters → ×3 <--- this one
15+ → ×4

So 400 x 3 = 1200 XP

Seems encounter CR should be 4, not 2:
| CR | XP |
| ----- | --------- |
| 3 | 700 |
| 4 | 1,100 | <-- this one
| 5 | 1,800 |

And this is what the online kastark calculator gives me.

Am I setting something up incorrectly? CR 2 would be fine for my party (3 level 2's), CR 4 would be deadly.
Is there any mod or plugin for FG that can just immediately tell me whether an encounter would be easy, medium, hard or deadly for my party? That's all I really need to know.

[Zacchaeus]

The encounter calculator doesn't calculate the Challenge Rating based on the number of players; it just sort of adds it up on the basis that there will be 4 players I believe - although don't quote me on that. The CR can't be known at the time the module is created since it isn't known how many characters will be taking part in the encounter, and once the CR is calculated at creation it isn't revised in any way. So you'll need to consider each encounter based on how many characters are in your party.

[lesliev]

I see. Fair enough, but I can press the refresh button next to the CR at any time, so it could easily take into account the players in the party at that point, right?
It seems a shame not to automate such trivial calculations - as it is I have to copy out all the values from all the enemies in an encounter, put them in an external calculator, and tweak things there. Since my party has 3 players, I need to tweak every single encounter in this module.

Is it possible for a Lua extension to access the list of enemies in an encounter and their XP's, and the list of players in the party and their levels? And could it print the combat's difficulty directly in the encounter card? I want this difficulty text to update live, as the number of enemies and the number of players changes so that I can adjust any encounter live during a game without laborious interruptions.

[Zacchaeus]

I’ve no doubt you could write an extension to do this, but I don’t think one currently exists.

I wouldn’t get too caught up in figuring out challenge ratings for each encounter. Pretty much all of the encounters in Hoard of the Dragon Queen can be used as is without any adjustment for three players. They might need a couple more short rests than a party of 4 would. Combat in 5e is very much skewed in the players favour, and most of my time in prep is usually spent beefing up encounters to make them somewhat more challenging.

[lesliev]

A fight of three level-2 characters against 14 enemies needs beefing up? This is one of a multitude of combats in Greenest and level two characters only get two short rests. As written there's no time for a long rest. HOTDQ is notorious for an overly brutal start - if I don't tone down the encounters I have to help the party avoid them or change the pacing of events so they can get long rests. As written there's probably at least 10 encounters with large groups of enemies here, probably more if they are unlucky.

[Zacchaeus]

I didn’t say you needed to beef up encounters, I said that I did. I’d suggest that you start HotDQ at level three. I think this is what I did and just ignored any level up until chapter 2.

[lesliev]

Yup, that would work! But since FG can calculate at insane speeds, all I need to do is hold down ctrl and spin the scroll wheel to nearly instantly rebalance any encounter!
If FG can tell me the difficulty, I don't even need to rebalance during prep - I can rebalance encounters while running the game.

I have gotten it working - though perhaps there are better ways to do the display part. I'm a novice at this.

66063

I just kinda shoe-horned the text in there, since I couldn't figure out the name of that refresh button next to CR, in order to anchor to it.



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<root>
<windowclass name="battle" merge="join">
<sheetdata>
<stringfield name="difficultytext" readonly="true">
<bounds>145,83,150,30</bounds>
<font>sheetlabel</font>
<frame>fielddark</frame>
<tooltiptext>Live 5E encounter difficulty (DMG XP thresholds + multipliers)</tooltiptext>
</stringfield>
</sheetdata>
</windowclass>
</root>

[lesliev]

Extension here:
https://github.com/lesliev/fantasy-grounds-encounter-difficulty-5e

Demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-kz4Hj_8gQ