Just used the monster maker to test how close an encounter I already built was to balanced and realized my monsters weren't even doing half the amount of damage they needed to. a bit more time consuming than my regular encounter building, but right up my ally considering I homebrew about 80% of every encounter
This is an amazing tool! I always felt like "being an adventurer" wasn't dangerous enough ever. I don't make my world a Grimm Dark, but adventurers are sent as a form of "special force" as these are people who are well beyond majority of population. Even among guards a level 1 adventurer is VERY powerful when looked in this light. So I make my world's be like "the world isn't always dangerous. But if adventurers are called, it's usually high priority, and highly dangerous. Many die" kind of thing. So this tool will be great to make my encounters feel great. Especially boss monsters
For extra spice i suggest also lingering death fails till short rest or healer kit use + lingering injury on natural/non-auto crit + slow natural healing + variant encumbrance.
This is incredibly impressive work! I've been diving into the hard math and dice calculations lately, and this is a huge eye opener! I don't calculate CR really for my encounters, but know my party well. Just knowing some of the numbers behind the scenes is hugely helpful, and I had no idea about how 5e's "Deadly" was described! Whoops! Your content is really unlike other channels, so thank you! You really developed an axe to grind against 5e RAW, huh? I feel the same! The more I learn about 5e's design, the less I like it.
You need to keep this up. If you do, your channel will blow up!!! Not joking, this is really quality content. Please release more videos like this, as well as the new One D&D content!!!!
Pro tip, it's a lot easier to just lie about a monster's health and have the fight go until everyone's gotten to do something cool or you think it's been satisfying.
If I am with a new party and don't know what their power level will be, I like to test their ability with this method Step 1) give them a scroll of revifify or equivalent consumable magic item Step 2) try to kill them
I'm really impressed with how good your videos are for how new you are to making them! As a side note tho, I will say that you could probably do with a better mic, but really do not sweat it at all. This is such a minor complaint. It's not like I'm having trouble understanding you or anything. Ot just could be better. What's most important is that you're making great videos, not the production quality. Keep up the great work!
I just stumbled across this series you have been making, and it's absolutely incredible. This is easily the most informative content I have found in regards to DMing, and it's already inspired me in many ways to create innovative and interesting monsters for my players.
This guide is wild. While I won't be following the numbers fully in the spreadsheet, this idea is just great. It illustrates all sorts of important design concepts and your video helps explain the weight of various decisions. Love it!
Still more convenient to use "Quantum Ogres" for most random encounters. However, this tool is really good to assess actual party's battle limits while planning out story-bound decisive battles.
Awesome video, I've known about these sort of factors in encounter design but I never had a concrete tool for putting numbers to all these abstract concepts. Definitely will give it a try.
Really enjoying the series! Im trying to pump my party into the excel sheet as I write this. Im fond of how you talked about achieving different feels with different arcs of difficulty. there's some great points! I am just wondering if there are any other simpler ways to finding balanced enemies without using the excel sheet. maybe another resource? I'm trying to figure it out but I'm finding it confusing. Elements like use of AOE and a mix of defensive/offensive resources. It loses my interest the more I try to understand it
This will sound like the "have you tried turning it off and on again" tech support question, but DMG page 274 and 277. 274 as comparison table (if monsters number is higher on hp = its a hit sponge, if lower = likely has high ac as a evasion tank, consistent aoe/save or half aoes in its kit or something that scales softly into higher levels; similarly for damage per round, if its lower, it likely has a survival trick it can perform via features like dragons doing dive flyby breath bombardments and their innate spells or is assumed to be fought with something else like neogi with umber hulks or nagas with troglodytes/kobolds/not-yuantiTM-transformed-humanoids), the 277 table for how to measure damage.
I'm not feeling the spreadsheet magick right now but there are some good ideas in here even ignoring the details. Might use that multiple turn but less damage idea for bosses.
Your videos so far are really helpful. You really have a skill with knowing how much information to provide in a video. Really enjoy watching them keep up the amazing work.
I kid you not, you might be my favorite channel on YT. I am a new DM and have been wanting to make my own adventures/encounters for so long but have just been afraid to b/c of a handful of times I thought a fight might be a little hard and 3 out of 4 of the players went down, in the process of running away. I was also very intrigued by how this wonderful game works "under the hood' so to speak. Thank you for truly going through the innerworkings in such detail, I have only seen ~3 videos of yours and have already learned so much.
that opening encounter was great though, excellent attrition that makes you feel powerful. Maybe I'm biased here because I knew exactly how that was going to go down and I design hordes of chaff encounters with the expectation that is how they are going to go down.
My experience is to determine how many rounds you want combat to last and what resources you want the party to use. Low cr monsters come in large quantities and going to make the party want to cast spells like fireball or hypnotic pattern. Big monsters will need to have high health and AC so the sharpshooter gloomstalker can't dish out 60+ DPR and end combat before the boss acts. If the party does more damage than anticipated, or you overshoot the damage, make tweaks behind the curtain. It's all about fun at the end of the day.
As soon as the spreadsheet and calculations started, I checked out. This is why the CR mechanic of 5e is terrible, having to rely on players to fidget with the system. Appreciate the hard work you put in, thankfully I'm an old hand at this and know how to handle and create good encounters. BTW, for anyone interested, PF2e has a great encounter system. Don't let people dissuade you from the game, it's not as "crunchy" as they would lead you to believe. Definitely running that system for my next game!
I can say for me, that's false. The issue is the system put in place is lacking, and was verified to be such recently. I appreciate the creativity and hard work that 3PP and the community puts in, but it has become the norm. Hey if it's broken, well the players will fix it.
Ok, the "Nuh uh!" Defense. You can like something and still critique it. The CR system isn't very good. This isn't subjective, as the game devs have admitted it themselves. And just to smooth over any bruised ego or feelings, D&D is fine for many. If you like it, great! If not, there's a plethora of RPGs to choose from. Have fun!
This seems very cool, but also seems rather time consuming. Also, it feels campaign dependent. Or party dependent, I should say. Though very cool and useful if you’re table is very number heavy.
This is the greatest DM Combat assistance I’ve ever gotten. I’ve got a degree in statistics with a focus on probability and this is well into territory I consider academic, albeit on a surface level. The mathematical breakdowns of tangible mechanics is above and beyond the phenomenal baseline of the first two videos giving helpful design tips. I will use this religiously.
Great video! I see myself using this tool in the future to balance my monsters! Although, one criticism I have is light green for the video title card isn't the most readable on a wrinkled paper surface
I adore the mechanical exploration you've been bringing with this series! Though I feel I might not use this sheet regularly, I feel like just going over the considerations you've put into it is already a pretty significant list for more laissez faire homebrewing. Action economy is something I've been aware of but still figuring how to best codify for encounters I make. This will help wonders in making them feel as long as they should be, not a slog, not a breeze. Might make something a little less involved for my convenience 😅I already spend a fair bit of time prepping.
i never thought that finding an answer in "how to use different CR efficiently" gives me knowledge in statistics, automations and general understanding in calculations. thanks hero :D i have to study this badboy now... xD
While the level of work put into this is legitimately a thing of beauty, I could not imagine a less productive way of building encounters than by mathing and graphing probability curves, especially as a tool for players that are looking for help after failing to understand basic issues like "What does CR mean?" or "Why are my fights bad?". The fact is that your first chapter, the "Most Useless Chapter" is the most essential chapter for the very people you're making the video for, and you skim over some of the most important aspects. After all, who cares what kinds of insane math calculations you're going to implement for a custom creature encounter when the DM in your example is clearly frustrated that a dozen creatures were melted by 2 AOEs? Sure you could've told them to do 2 hours of math to adjust total health budget and probablility of only taking half damage....or you could've simply pointed out how positioning the fight with a slightly different start point and enemy placement would allow the fight to be less susceptible to AOEs. People are making jokes about this being a college level course, but the worry is that you're titling these like it's a 101 class before getting into subject material that would require your Bachelor's for this video specifically.
it takes me like 5 minutes to plug in an encounter have you even tried it without dismissing my concept i also take the time to talk about different enemy placements in the case of AoEs two separate times in the video you came into the video with a very uncharitable view and it's very obvious to see since you don't understand i recommend the advice you prescribe here
@@ahero8101 Oh shoot, my bad. I didn't realize the creator of the spreadsheet, that has such a strong understanding of building encounters that they've pre-programmed a system to plan out multiple factors, could use it quickly. Darn, now my criticism being specifically geared at how this will be difficult and cumbersome for total beginners with introductory problems is meritless. I could use it and probably do so with relative ease, but I'm not a beginner DM who's frustrated by what a CR is or means(i.e, my first comment). I praised the effort and design as a "thing of beauty", but highlighted where people with extremely early problems would get more value, especially because your initial example of the DM is someone who's just throwing monsters at players, and yet is expected to plan out power budgets for custom monsters based on a perfect understanding of their players power and DPA, or as you called it, "common sense". I'm sorry you're mad that I'm probably the first person who did anything but compliment your work, and I'm aware that the chapter is called "Numbers" meaning the focus was on math. I'm merely highlighting that 7:40 is a laughable statement to make in a video that's offering DM advice on encounter design considering you haven't given anymore than a dismissive statement or two on each of these essential assumptions to make all your effort actually work.
are you trying to be contrarian or have a real discussion here? i've dealt with MANY people who dislike my ideas in my ideas, that's not the problem you're baking in condescension with every single (admittedly fair) point in this response. it's hard to engage with you on a fair intellectual level because of this. I was curt in my first response, and i apologize for that. lets continue this discussion on the right foot. --------------------------- i plainly and unapologetically disagree with your analysis of my video as being difficult and cumbersome to a completely new player. I feel like I go through a fair amount of effort to explain each of these concepts in the video and give them their due time. Even if it were completely difficult and cumbersome to some players, I think there is value in learning how it works. I think learning how to use it would teach a valuable skill. I think it has tremendous value to a new player regardless of if it is cumbersome or not. The growing pains are a part of the learning experience. But again, I'm not granting you that it is cumbersome. It is plug and play. You input values across a row and it gives you monster stats. It may take a more skilled GM to get the numbers they desire but the time used is relatively the same. in the case of aoes specifically, i do make the exact recommendation that you say I don't make at two separate points in the video where it's directly relevant.
@@ahero8101 First off, if your response to criticism is to first accuse the person of being uncharitable and contrarian, I beg you for your own good, don't respond to comments. You have a small up-and-coming channel that I hope does grow, but if you've watched any other DnD channels you've seen that eventually they all do make a bad video and get way way worse than what I'm dolling out, and if this is the way you "deal with people who dislike your ideas", please just make content and ignore comments like mine. Frankly there isn't a "real discussion" to be had when your response is, "Your analysis is wrong because not only is my system not cumbersome, but even if it was, it's worth learning regardless. Also I covered everything properly and gave each topic their due time." The central complaint is, rather appropriately given that you changed the title of the video(p.s. don't change titles if your content is suppose to be a multi-part series because people will not know this is part 3 anymore), that this is just CR with extra steps. Nothing about your system actually creates anything more than generic mobs with nothing unique about them, and as such is still prone to all the same problems of CR once someone decides to use it to just make a creature that already exists. I could use your spreadsheet to make a Black Pudding, and it would be exactly as problematic a creature as it is because that creature, and every other creature like it is problematic because of what it's abilities are and nothing to do with what it's numbers are. This would be where something like "Party Composition" would demand an entire video in and of itself to explain to DMs having these introductory problems why stuff like resistances and immunities can drastically change a fight's difficulty, or how hard it is to create a properly balanced attack requiring a save that will disproportionately effect the players due to how varied saves are. If you want to pretend you gave that topic it's "due time" because it's a jot note in your assumptions list, then that can be your opinion, albeit a wrong one. Frankly I could go on, but you and I both know that I'm not convincing you of anything, nor are you convincing me of anything. You see your video as perfect and beyond reproach, and your system as the perfect tool for beginner DMs. Maybe you'll be like every other content creator that's ever existed and look back at this content years later and realized it had so much more room for improvement, or maybe you're the exception that made the best video you could've ever made on the topic your first try.
@@note4note804 I don't believe my video is perfect. I stated my points in my second response bluntly but honestly and I don't think they were insulting. Is it wrong to disagree? Nothing in my second response warranted this malice and emotional immaturity. I extended a hand and you slapped it. You have reciprocated good faith, more than you actually deserved in this conservation, with using every chance to insult me. I have dealt with other commenters who have disagreed with me before and they haven't resorted to this level of vitriol, stupidity, or disingenuous argumentation. On a substantive note, your response and especially your segment on CR vs. my system shows a fundamental lack of understanding of my video and 5e. This is my last response in this discussion.
Awesome, very insightful and useful for various systems. The only thing I would add is to separate monsters by combat roles: Tank, Skirmisher, Control, Support and Artillery. Because even if we want to balance those roles there are some more advantageous than others. A goblin with a bow on higher ground, or even just far is Battle Field Control, it is harder than a support or an skirmisher. Look the Starfinder Alien Archive, they divided the CR by monster type, and I think is easier.
Oh an actual calculator for me to use? Okay, now it's something I can actually test and see because the other videos were just something I kept in the back of my mind.
this is a really cool tool! I'd like to add though that after a couple years of homebrewing monsters you can sort of get the hang of a lot of this. I don't do like any calculations but my encounters tend to be exciting and challenging for my players, and it's just from years of experience messing up. I imagine with a tool like this learning might be a bit faster, but it's also more work. Great stats! Though there is a note: Due to my winging it, sometimes I make errors. I give a monster way too few hit points or the like, and during the encounter I have to make the judgement to add some more. This might not be many people's styles, but I don't consider it a terrible crime so much as it is improving my encounter design on the fly.
after running for 4ish years I've finally found a balance between power-fantasy and gritty soulslike, I like to run in tiers so as they start getting more powerful there are more and more powerful monsters and enemies but towards the end of each tier they start tearing through their threats (they still get pretty messed up but every once in awhile they do something crazy like 1-round killing a young red dragon at level 5)
This sounds great, but I think for know I‘ll stick to eyeballing and ignoring the entire concept of balance. Even though, there are some good points being made here even then, so thanks for that!
The hardest thing is making encounters that aren't super swingy at very low levels. Anything that isn't a curbstomp for 1st level characters is a potential true deadly encounter. The main mitigating factor is 0 HP only being dying, not death, but there's typically going to be a lack of many ways to stabilize to avoid failed death saves. Most people's solution is just to start at level 3, but that precludes so many great low level combat and roleplay opportunities, and can be overwhelming for newer players, and/or distasteful for veterans that like build up from humble beginnings. By the way, with the 100% enemy power for rests, is there in way to adjust for a party with more or fewer short rest recovering features? If the party is made up of all full casters, I'd be hard pressed to expect 300% enemy power for an adventuring day with like six encounters and two short rests to be a fair balance.
As cool as the monster maker doc is, i think a factor got skipped. Tashas options and a few wiff subclasses excluded, the 5e table (and the pre-template 3e table on which its mostly based on except at the sub CR1 line dur to starting levels changes/increased survivability but slightly lower nova options) are actually very in line with what a party that has the equipment per suggested magic item drops can handle if one follows the suggestion of around 7 average fights with a short rest every 2 (or 3 more difficult ones with a curbstomp and a rest between every except the curbstomp or 2 super deadly but prep time in addition to the a rest, etc), assuming the party is generally conscious of their abilities/features and you allow them to use the entire monsters statblock (a early ID fight as a CR2 encounter assumes there is a protection from good and evil that can be used by the party, creatures with sunlight sensitivity do for 1.5 of the 3 round dpr calc suggestion of the DMG, typically, CR 11+ tend to ignore it for offensive CR). Not to mention that the first portion of DPR kinda ignores the time vs effort portion players have to account for skewing fights further into benefiting the daily classes from short rest or perma uptime "peak" DPR options as the gaps between nova vs mid resource vs full resourceless damage options is something that very much shifts impact of each person in combat.
100% this - the example given of the 13 or so "Star Hatchlings" against a party that can cast 6th level spells (Circle of Death and Sunbeam). I looked on 5e tools, and only 5 options for anything with the name "Hatchling" popped up. Only one that could be expected to die to a single casting of either spell, but reasonably survive if passing the save, is "Egg Hunter Hatchling", which is a CR2 monster. 13 monsters of CR 2, is only a deadly encounter against a party of four at level 11 or below. At level 12 it already dips down into just being "Hard" And at level 11, two casters using their 6th level spell is very god damn big. They only get one of those each, and no spell slots of any higher value. If they go up against 5-7 more encounters of a similar calibre, the party is going to run into trouble - they can't nova like that for every fight. So calling it "deadly" is reasonable. - The Encounter Difficulty does not tell you an individual fight will be deadly if the difficulty comes back "deadly". The Encounter Difficulty tells you an adventuring day will be deadly if made up of encounters that are "deadly". People keep having one big cinematic encounter, and then giving the party an entire long rest before the next big, singular, lonesome, cinematic encounter. And then act all surprised when the encounter builder which is working off of the assumption you are having 6-8 encounters between long rests, is providing results that don't match what they are playing. CR hasn't failed these people. These people have failed CR and the design of the adventuring day.
@@PolarShift >CR hasn't failed these people. These people have failed CR and the design of the adventuring day.I wouldn't go that far. Id rather say not enough emphasis has been put by the PHB side or the intro running the game rather than toolbox side of the DMG on things like how to use the CR table with different play styles (or e.g. PHB having the DMG bit about why rolling even when there is no chance of failure or no chance of success can still be interesting for tension to see the degree of failure or if the success comes at a cost at least in part referenced; yet with equal caution that if doing that it should either serve resource use or narrative, not just randomly asking for every minor thing with some over 5% probability to go slightly rong to require a roll - these being things that in combo with stream-watch-no-game fans influence spawned the terrible wording of the D&done playtest).CR really needed/needs a simplified "minimum expected daily" table like magic items got in Xanathars for slapped on the front of encounter setups to have its reputation cleaned up on the front of the folks either too lazy for math or that need a quick out-of-tier-scaled random encounter made as the party went entirely off prep content.
the factors that are going into both these comments are complex. i would love to have an indepth conversation on this and if either of you guys want that my discord is open. i will address the cr point here because i think it is simplest to tackle. i address the imbalances that disproportionate rests provide in my video with the power budget. the power budget provides a framework for both big climactic fights and normal adventuring days. cr isn't an inherently well designed system. the definitions of cr are very unintuitive and are comparatively inflexible compared to what my system provides. the homebrew monster maker allows for both a normal cr adventuring day and an array of other types of adventuring days while still being balanced. most people would agree and think that a deadly encounter SHOULD mean that that individual encounter is deadly. again, by your definition of what deadly is in this comment and the sources i provide in the video, this is not the case. i think well designed systems are intuitive. cr is not intuitive since it fundamentally clashes with most people conception's of basic concepts and applies misleading labels. and again, if you use my system for singular big fights, it's relatively balanced.
@@ahero8101 1.) You missed the point, its not about cinematic and climactic fights vs average run of the mill random smack, its about shine moments and party resource management. If you actually tweak all monsters not by the individual focus of if its a nova, survival/gimmick or tank & spank/melee meatwall fight, but by the DPR and EHP of the party, you skew it in favour of the daily recharge crew (Its one of the main design notes of 1st and 2nd edition that tried to counter the already then establishing full caster dominance was supposed to fix, but part of the logic got lost with TSR internal shifts/gygax being booted, and in other part forgot to account for the massive QOL buffs of just making the game baseline fun everyone got with 3e). 2.) >the definitions of cr are very unintuitive and are comparatively inflexible compared to what my system provides. This doesnt stand basic scrutiny because in the end its just a both less for individual fight accurate and more on table applicable for a healthy adventure version of the Monster Calc... Since 3 round dpr/dpdt is based on D8 party member health and monster EHP tables follow the base curve of a regular sneak rogue or half-spender monk.The resist/vuln/immunity portion of it might be bad rule of thumb as it very obviously was measured of D&D next and half-done PHB class values (and assumptions like party often using pre-fight poison applications to weapons, generous use of AIs like ball bearings and caltrops, snares, hunting traps, the prone-chain thing from end of 4e-preview, etc), but thats only relevant in T1 and for enemies with 2 actual resistances or immunities that the poison bonus would push over into 3.3.) By me, a deadly encounter is one that reasonably has a chance to kill at least 20%(rounded up) of the party and reduce 50%(rounded down) to below 1/4th their max hp unless more than 1 fight worth of resources is expended. A deadly encounter (unless you make it worth the entire daily XP or milestone worth of virtual XP) is only in practice as lethal as the proportional resource and opportunity cost of the party, same as a easy encounter (80 shadows is nothing to a T4 group with by the rules gear as they physically cant even hit the players without a crit despite the on paper lethality of the Str drain, even using npc mob rules barely makes it easy instead of a complete cakewalk; or for end of T1/early T2, double the party count is barely a medium encounter, yet in both cases a sloppy party that dont do anything but run in solo and swing or cast only cantrips will likely get completely steamrolled).4.) Aint gonna dispute its great for big solo bosses (especially if they are finale fights). Even if just to save time and direct visualization of numbers giving a simple phase breakdown option for those that already know general numbers per tier of play and/or player power spike levels.If i may suggest/argue adding extra tab with side option of instead just one overall DPR having fields for: LR Nova total over 3 round/SR Nova over 5/No-Cost Raw damage and with accuracy DPR, and "number of save or die" effects, with all but the LR nova being modified by the daily budget % just for that extra detail exactly for that to make it effectively the perfect tool for "notable challenges"
@@ANDELE3025 i must have miscommunicated. i was only and solely addressing cr's merits as a system and not every single other point both of you made. this is quite possibly the worst forum for long form design discussion ever. nothing against you or polar, i believe you are both arguing in good faith and have shown me similar respect. i am very open to having this discussion elsewhere and i have other platforms like discord where i would to prefer to engage on this
I already love your content but mentioning dynasty warriors 3 has skyrocketed my opinion of you 10 fold. You hit me with more nostalgia than I thought I could handle
i can see that a crazy amount of work has gone into this tool - and arguably into each encounter made with it. However, I'm not quite sure how necessary any of it really is. If you have a group of tacticians who really want that chess-like feeling combat where each encounter is tuned to be barely beatable, then a tool like this could be useful (IF it fulfills its lofty promises - the same ones monster CR fails to meet oftentimes). For everyone else, it's far FAR simpler to just steal the stats of a similar monster of the desired CR (e.g. my ogre general could just use the stats of a hillgiant). As a DM, I also have a ton of data on how well my party does against recent encounters. If in enocunter A, I see that they can deal 220 damage against AC 18 creatures in one round, then I can easily adjust the numbers from there for encounter B to make it as challenging as I like. EDIT: For anyone not interested in creatin perfectly balanced encounters, this tool is less useful yet. Why not just have a dragon with 400 HP, several defenses and powerful features? It's not your job to finetune the challange to be optimal for your players. Your players encounter what you put into the world and then they have to decide how to interact with it.
Awesome video! A few questions: 1. Is the monster maker always geared to make five groups of enemies? What if I want to divvy things up to like 2-3 groups? 2. When you go over the spell save example, you left the numbers at 9 for bonus and 100 for DC. Was that intentional? I think more videos expanding on this would be super useful. One of the most informative videos I've ever seen!
Not going to lie, not a fan of the guts of this one, but that's okay. I know that there's an audience for this and I think the video itself IS A M A Z I N G, quality and content wise. Doing the actual heavy lifting and crafting the tools and explaining how the tools work, very impressive indeed. My reason for not being about this one is mainly just a personal preference as to why I play TTRPGs in the first place (strategy vs narrative) I still think this is really great work! Keep it up
The math of the game and narrative building aren't dichotomous elements. You can make an even more effective narrative experience by fine tuning your combats to fit a narrative beat. A dragon feels like a dragon in part due to its mechanics and the relative strength of its statblock. A goblin feels like a mook because its numbers are trash. I feel the examples with the difficulty curves best illustrated this. Those two different tiers of difficulty create different tones and narrative experiences. I make specific recommendations through how to tune a monster's values like AC or accuracy to give a desired feeling out of them, not because they feel "strategic" in any sense. I'm making this comment not to start an argument but to clarify something that may have been miscommunicated by me. You may find that the video is more in line with your objectives than you give it credit for. I truly believe a viewer like you would get the most value out of this video.
I've been watching your videos and am absolutely hooked - And I don't even play / use DnD! All of these videos have given me some considerable insights into Gaming - Especially the BBEG / Boss Defence mechanics video. Thought provoking stuff and I hope to see more helpful content in the future.
Really cool, but I will never take the time to do this stuff. It's not my job to homebrew a system so the monsters work. It's up to the game makers to do that. I already have to prep maps and figure out a story.
As soon as I saw this video got posted, I subscribed. Unbelievable quality from a channel with less than 5 videos. It almost makes me think these are stolen or AI generated or made by WotC or something
"Challenge Rating" sounds like the monstermark system mentioned in White Dwarf magazine, issue #1. I think that author Don Turnbull from the UK ended up heading TSR's UK division. HPs, attacks per round, average damage etc. could be placed into a formula easily enough, the problem was with abilities like invisibility, petrification, flying, teleportation (blink), immunities to various attacks and so on. Can't be quantified. I stopped playing AD&D as 2e started appearing, so I'm old. :0P
you forgot my favorite die to use for damage on my monsters! the d100 of course! i make sure while im at it to roll on wild magic with the damage roll too.
This is incredibly cool and I'm having a great time using it! But I'm confused about one thing - I set my boss monster to attack once per round and I'm ending up with a significantly higher damage per attack than dpr for a boss monster. How is this possible unless it doesn't attack every round?
Note that this tool will not address any disparities in the party that might come up and it'll still make a difference how many options a side has for things to do on their turn. In general, higher level monsters should have more diverse/impactful options for their turn than lower level ones. Also make sure that the same kind of monster remains in the same ballpark if they're met again. It lets players apply knowledge gained from earlier encounters. Though ultimately I believe a lot of encounter design issues are still things that would need to be fixed on the player end for being too much to deal with for a majority of monsters (they *can* be counterplayed, but usually in a contrived way that makes it feel you're actively spiteful against the player with the strong option).
Holy crap, this video is awesome. But, it just highlights how insanely crappy the monster/encounter design of D&D is at baseline. The fact that you need a whole maths degree to just make an encounter kind of balanced is sad.
I am a new DM and from the 2 fights we had I think I have a good grip on combat balancing. I had several PCs go down and one of them pseudo died and is still with us. But my party is very RP oriented, and as a result their PCs now seem to have PTSD from the close calls and it kinda clashes with the vibes I wanted, at least at the start of the Campaign. So this really depends.
My partner is level 5 to 7 and after too many close call's fighting goblins each of them have swore a oath to the Gods, to cull every single goblin band, tribe and Kingdom around the frontier. I used tactics. Classic bait an stabs, feinting a retreat only for 3 of 7 PC's getting stuck in traps an the remainer getting shot up by archers, a mix of Bully Bois, Shamans, archers, wargs or other beasts, using terrain to their advantage, traps, many traps, trap traps, fake loot witch have more traps, fake obvious traps, bee's and my favourite Skirmishing shoot them up on wargs then run away only to return 30mins later.
CR is also strange because some enemies are such low CR for the purpose of nerfing them as opposed to showing how powerful they are, because CR is ALSO tied to their proficiency bonus as a monster. Baba Lysaga's creeping hut and the beholder are good examples of this.
Me: *tells players after they already invested in their characters that they have an increased chance of death so their character’s survival feels more epic, although my kill count is still 0* I definitely accidentally lied about how likely they are to die considering they are destroying my monsters by the dozens, with my occasional “I’ll be nice cause this would be a reasonable event”.
Hey bit of a random question but I'm curious how you got your channel sprinting from the start: did you have any previous TH-cam channels/prior video making experience? Any public speaking/teaching experience? Where did you get your dnd knowledge? Many years of experience in this system, another system or something like game design? I'm seriously fascinated how you have such a great channel and following from video 1!
I don't like the idea of balancing encounters, in general. The players should get what they get. Still, knowing stuff like this helps also balancing the whole world a bit better. As it makes it clear that a simple young dragon alone is not a terrifying threat, but something that has to be smart not to be immediately hunted down and killed by a group of low exp adventurers
Don't have much to say, aside maybe that right now it sounds pretty complicated for me ahahah...maybe I'm wrong, will see. Beside that, commenting for the sake of Algo-rythm the mighty God of YouTubia. Keep the good work, sir!
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
This video kicks ass! I really enjoyed it. Keep it up!
Bagpipes. We meet again.
Collab when?
@@kelmirosue3251 That would be very entertaining! Would be interested on how that would work though.
@@robynthegemini ye
@@kelmirosue3251 I am not too big a fan of pack tactics. AHero is a higher quality.
Damn, this is no longer just a theoretical class! This is a full on course with practical exercises and math included!
When the dnd fan pulls out the calculator
Imagine if the designers put this much thought into their system, or provided similar tools...
Nah the public needs to know if orcs or flying space monkeys are stand-ins for black folks. WotC are truly one step ahead
So few videos and you're already one of my favourite content creators. Keep it up, you'll go far!
Just used the monster maker to test how close an encounter I already built was to balanced and realized my monsters weren't even doing half the amount of damage they needed to. a bit more time consuming than my regular encounter building, but right up my ally considering I homebrew about 80% of every encounter
I had never been so happy of someone telling me that my encounters sucks! Great video!
This is an amazing tool! I always felt like "being an adventurer" wasn't dangerous enough ever. I don't make my world a Grimm Dark, but adventurers are sent as a form of "special force" as these are people who are well beyond majority of population. Even among guards a level 1 adventurer is VERY powerful when looked in this light. So I make my world's be like "the world isn't always dangerous. But if adventurers are called, it's usually high priority, and highly dangerous. Many die" kind of thing. So this tool will be great to make my encounters feel great. Especially boss monsters
For extra spice i suggest also lingering death fails till short rest or healer kit use + lingering injury on natural/non-auto crit + slow natural healing + variant encumbrance.
@@ANDELE3025 Just reintroduce 3.5 HP recovery rules.
@@techstuff9198 1hp a level is pointless when hit dice pool of math rocks go click clack.
@@ANDELE3025 1HP healed per day*
@@techstuff9198 1HP/Level per day (doubled in certain conditions like in bed).
1hp a day was the 1e variant/2e some setting base healing.
This is incredibly impressive work! I've been diving into the hard math and dice calculations lately, and this is a huge eye opener! I don't calculate CR really for my encounters, but know my party well. Just knowing some of the numbers behind the scenes is hugely helpful, and I had no idea about how 5e's "Deadly" was described! Whoops! Your content is really unlike other channels, so thank you!
You really developed an axe to grind against 5e RAW, huh? I feel the same! The more I learn about 5e's design, the less I like it.
Check out the Tabletop Build articles in the description if you want to learn about the absolute limits of the game.
You need to keep this up. If you do, your channel will blow up!!! Not joking, this is really quality content. Please release more videos like this, as well as the new One D&D content!!!!
Pro tip, it's a lot easier to just lie about a monster's health and have the fight go until everyone's gotten to do something cool or you think it's been satisfying.
Your content is honestly amazing. And as your just starting out, I'd love to see how far you'll go.
Here before 1M! I’m being genuine with the quality of videos.
If I am with a new party and don't know what their power level will be, I like to test their ability with this method
Step 1) give them a scroll of revifify or equivalent consumable magic item
Step 2) try to kill them
I'm really impressed with how good your videos are for how new you are to making them!
As a side note tho, I will say that you could probably do with a better mic, but really do not sweat it at all. This is such a minor complaint. It's not like I'm having trouble understanding you or anything. Ot just could be better. What's most important is that you're making great videos, not the production quality. Keep up the great work!
I plan on getting a better mic and thanks for the kind feedback! :D
I just stumbled across this series you have been making, and it's absolutely incredible. This is easily the most informative content I have found in regards to DMing, and it's already inspired me in many ways to create innovative and interesting monsters for my players.
This guide is wild.
While I won't be following the numbers fully in the spreadsheet, this idea is just great. It illustrates all sorts of important design concepts and your video helps explain the weight of various decisions. Love it!
THE hidden gem, that's what this channel is. I love these in-depth guides you're making. Keep it up :D
This is literally my favorite triology hahahahha
You are foolish for thinking there are only 3. MWAHAHAHAHAHA
@@ahero8101 A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one!
@@tap5445 there r 5 parts, as told by the 1st vid, enjoooyyy
I don't know why but Mega Tim was hilarious
Literally found your channel yesterday as I got back into writing my campaign, and heres a new upload! Exciting!
Still more convenient to use "Quantum Ogres" for most random encounters. However, this tool is really good to assess actual party's battle limits while planning out story-bound decisive battles.
Awesome video, I've known about these sort of factors in encounter design but I never had a concrete tool for putting numbers to all these abstract concepts. Definitely will give it a try.
WoTC needs to pay attention to this video right here! This is how you should help DMS with balancing encounters!
I will probably end up using this, along with stuff from your other videos. Where do you get these ideas?
thousands of hours of sheer violence (and dice)
That's just dnd as a whole
Love the editing and nice little things I can send to my friends who wish to begin dming
Really enjoying the series! Im trying to pump my party into the excel sheet as I write this. Im fond of how you talked about achieving different feels with different arcs of difficulty. there's some great points!
I am just wondering if there are any other simpler ways to finding balanced enemies without using the excel sheet. maybe another resource? I'm trying to figure it out but I'm finding it confusing. Elements like use of AOE and a mix of defensive/offensive resources. It loses my interest the more I try to understand it
The Angry DM made a simpler/more streamlined version of this system back 2019 in an article series titled 'How to F$%& CR'.
This will sound like the "have you tried turning it off and on again" tech support question, but DMG page 274 and 277.
274 as comparison table (if monsters number is higher on hp = its a hit sponge, if lower = likely has high ac as a evasion tank, consistent aoe/save or half aoes in its kit or something that scales softly into higher levels; similarly for damage per round, if its lower, it likely has a survival trick it can perform via features like dragons doing dive flyby breath bombardments and their innate spells or is assumed to be fought with something else like neogi with umber hulks or nagas with troglodytes/kobolds/not-yuantiTM-transformed-humanoids), the 277 table for how to measure damage.
Maybe the best video I've seen on the topic. Very helpful and great resource. Instant follow.
I've been waiting for this! It's so weird finding out you're so relatively new but make bomber videos! Don't stop please 🙏
I'm not feeling the spreadsheet magick right now but there are some good ideas in here even ignoring the details.
Might use that multiple turn but less damage idea for bosses.
Your videos so far are really helpful. You really have a skill with knowing how much information to provide in a video. Really enjoy watching them keep up the amazing work.
I kid you not, you might be my favorite channel on YT. I am a new DM and have been wanting to make my own adventures/encounters for so long but have just been afraid to b/c of a handful of times I thought a fight might be a little hard and 3 out of 4 of the players went down, in the process of running away. I was also very intrigued by how this wonderful game works "under the hood' so to speak. Thank you for truly going through the innerworkings in such detail, I have only seen ~3 videos of yours and have already learned so much.
this series is amazing, great content
that opening encounter was great though, excellent attrition that makes you feel powerful. Maybe I'm biased here because I knew exactly how that was going to go down and I design hordes of chaff encounters with the expectation that is how they are going to go down.
this. is. amazing. Oh my god this helps so much since I'm a mostly homebrew DM
Amazing video with a very usefull tool, another great video by A great hero
My experience is to determine how many rounds you want combat to last and what resources you want the party to use. Low cr monsters come in large quantities and going to make the party want to cast spells like fireball or hypnotic pattern. Big monsters will need to have high health and AC so the sharpshooter gloomstalker can't dish out 60+ DPR and end combat before the boss acts. If the party does more damage than anticipated, or you overshoot the damage, make tweaks behind the curtain. It's all about fun at the end of the day.
As soon as the spreadsheet and calculations started, I checked out. This is why the CR mechanic of 5e is terrible, having to rely on players to fidget with the system. Appreciate the hard work you put in, thankfully I'm an old hand at this and know how to handle and create good encounters.
BTW, for anyone interested, PF2e has a great encounter system. Don't let people dissuade you from the game, it's not as "crunchy" as they would lead you to believe. Definitely running that system for my next game!
If you switch system you probably don't know how to do the first right
I can say for me, that's false. The issue is the system put in place is lacking, and was verified to be such recently. I appreciate the creativity and hard work that 3PP and the community puts in, but it has become the norm. Hey if it's broken, well the players will fix it.
@@chadbooth no you sound like you don't know how to run a modern dnd game
Ok, the "Nuh uh!" Defense.
You can like something and still critique it. The CR system isn't very good. This isn't subjective, as the game devs have admitted it themselves.
And just to smooth over any bruised ego or feelings, D&D is fine for many. If you like it, great! If not, there's a plethora of RPGs to choose from.
Have fun!
@@chadbooth That is not what i was saying, you said you know how to make good encounters which is clearly a lie the only ego that is bruised is yours
This seems very cool, but also seems rather time consuming. Also, it feels campaign dependent. Or party dependent, I should say. Though very cool and useful if you’re table is very number heavy.
Every day AHero uploads is christmas
This is the greatest DM Combat assistance I’ve ever gotten. I’ve got a degree in statistics with a focus on probability and this is well into territory I consider academic, albeit on a surface level. The mathematical breakdowns of tangible mechanics is above and beyond the phenomenal baseline of the first two videos giving helpful design tips. I will use this religiously.
Thank you so much for another great vid!
Dude wrote Euclid’s elements for dnd balance. Love it!
Great video! I see myself using this tool in the future to balance my monsters! Although, one criticism I have is light green for the video title card isn't the most readable on a wrinkled paper surface
My friend you really do good on your chanle name Soo few vids yet such high quality really helping me as a beginner dm
Subbed, liked, bookmarked for future use - this is genuinely awesome.
I always dreamed to have a sheet like this! Thank you guys
I adore the mechanical exploration you've been bringing with this series!
Though I feel I might not use this sheet regularly, I feel like just going over the considerations you've put into it is already a pretty significant list for more laissez faire homebrewing. Action economy is something I've been aware of but still figuring how to best codify for encounters I make. This will help wonders in making them feel as long as they should be, not a slog, not a breeze. Might make something a little less involved for my convenience 😅I already spend a fair bit of time prepping.
Legendary layout and script. I love the examples, really help to excentuate the points you’re making.
Thank you! Keep it up!
I do really respect your content since it is really straight up and well explain, i bless you because of this content
The quality is amazing
i never thought that finding an answer in "how to use different CR efficiently" gives me knowledge in statistics, automations and general understanding in calculations. thanks hero :D i have to study this badboy now... xD
While the level of work put into this is legitimately a thing of beauty, I could not imagine a less productive way of building encounters than by mathing and graphing probability curves, especially as a tool for players that are looking for help after failing to understand basic issues like "What does CR mean?" or "Why are my fights bad?". The fact is that your first chapter, the "Most Useless Chapter" is the most essential chapter for the very people you're making the video for, and you skim over some of the most important aspects.
After all, who cares what kinds of insane math calculations you're going to implement for a custom creature encounter when the DM in your example is clearly frustrated that a dozen creatures were melted by 2 AOEs? Sure you could've told them to do 2 hours of math to adjust total health budget and probablility of only taking half damage....or you could've simply pointed out how positioning the fight with a slightly different start point and enemy placement would allow the fight to be less susceptible to AOEs.
People are making jokes about this being a college level course, but the worry is that you're titling these like it's a 101 class before getting into subject material that would require your Bachelor's for this video specifically.
it takes me like 5 minutes to plug in an encounter
have you even tried it without dismissing my concept
i also take the time to talk about different enemy placements in the case of AoEs two separate times in the video
you came into the video with a very uncharitable view and it's very obvious to see since you don't understand i recommend the advice you prescribe here
@@ahero8101 Oh shoot, my bad. I didn't realize the creator of the spreadsheet, that has such a strong understanding of building encounters that they've pre-programmed a system to plan out multiple factors, could use it quickly. Darn, now my criticism being specifically geared at how this will be difficult and cumbersome for total beginners with introductory problems is meritless. I could use it and probably do so with relative ease, but I'm not a beginner DM who's frustrated by what a CR is or means(i.e, my first comment).
I praised the effort and design as a "thing of beauty", but highlighted where people with extremely early problems would get more value, especially because your initial example of the DM is someone who's just throwing monsters at players, and yet is expected to plan out power budgets for custom monsters based on a perfect understanding of their players power and DPA, or as you called it, "common sense".
I'm sorry you're mad that I'm probably the first person who did anything but compliment your work, and I'm aware that the chapter is called "Numbers" meaning the focus was on math. I'm merely highlighting that 7:40 is a laughable statement to make in a video that's offering DM advice on encounter design considering you haven't given anymore than a dismissive statement or two on each of these essential assumptions to make all your effort actually work.
are you trying to be contrarian or have a real discussion here?
i've dealt with MANY people who dislike my ideas in my ideas, that's not the problem
you're baking in condescension with every single (admittedly fair) point in this response. it's hard to engage with you on a fair intellectual level because of this. I was curt in my first response, and i apologize for that.
lets continue this discussion on the right foot.
---------------------------
i plainly and unapologetically disagree with your analysis of my video as being difficult and cumbersome to a completely new player. I feel like I go through a fair amount of effort to explain each of these concepts in the video and give them their due time. Even if it were completely difficult and cumbersome to some players, I think there is value in learning how it works. I think learning how to use it would teach a valuable skill.
I think it has tremendous value to a new player regardless of if it is cumbersome or not. The growing pains are a part of the learning experience.
But again, I'm not granting you that it is cumbersome. It is plug and play. You input values across a row and it gives you monster stats. It may take a more skilled GM to get the numbers they desire but the time used is relatively the same.
in the case of aoes specifically, i do make the exact recommendation that you say I don't make at two separate points in the video where it's directly relevant.
@@ahero8101 First off, if your response to criticism is to first accuse the person of being uncharitable and contrarian, I beg you for your own good, don't respond to comments. You have a small up-and-coming channel that I hope does grow, but if you've watched any other DnD channels you've seen that eventually they all do make a bad video and get way way worse than what I'm dolling out, and if this is the way you "deal with people who dislike your ideas", please just make content and ignore comments like mine.
Frankly there isn't a "real discussion" to be had when your response is, "Your analysis is wrong because not only is my system not cumbersome, but even if it was, it's worth learning regardless. Also I covered everything properly and gave each topic their due time."
The central complaint is, rather appropriately given that you changed the title of the video(p.s. don't change titles if your content is suppose to be a multi-part series because people will not know this is part 3 anymore), that this is just CR with extra steps. Nothing about your system actually creates anything more than generic mobs with nothing unique about them, and as such is still prone to all the same problems of CR once someone decides to use it to just make a creature that already exists. I could use your spreadsheet to make a Black Pudding, and it would be exactly as problematic a creature as it is because that creature, and every other creature like it is problematic because of what it's abilities are and nothing to do with what it's numbers are.
This would be where something like "Party Composition" would demand an entire video in and of itself to explain to DMs having these introductory problems why stuff like resistances and immunities can drastically change a fight's difficulty, or how hard it is to create a properly balanced attack requiring a save that will disproportionately effect the players due to how varied saves are. If you want to pretend you gave that topic it's "due time" because it's a jot note in your assumptions list, then that can be your opinion, albeit a wrong one.
Frankly I could go on, but you and I both know that I'm not convincing you of anything, nor are you convincing me of anything. You see your video as perfect and beyond reproach, and your system as the perfect tool for beginner DMs. Maybe you'll be like every other content creator that's ever existed and look back at this content years later and realized it had so much more room for improvement, or maybe you're the exception that made the best video you could've ever made on the topic your first try.
@@note4note804
I don't believe my video is perfect.
I stated my points in my second response bluntly but honestly and I don't think they were insulting. Is it wrong to disagree? Nothing in my second response warranted this malice and emotional immaturity. I extended a hand and you slapped it.
You have reciprocated good faith, more than you actually deserved in this conservation, with using every chance to insult me.
I have dealt with other commenters who have disagreed with me before and they haven't resorted to this level of vitriol, stupidity, or disingenuous argumentation.
On a substantive note, your response and especially your segment on CR vs. my system shows a fundamental lack of understanding of my video and 5e.
This is my last response in this discussion.
Awesome, very insightful and useful for various systems. The only thing I would add is to separate monsters by combat roles: Tank, Skirmisher, Control, Support and Artillery. Because even if we want to balance those roles there are some more advantageous than others. A goblin with a bow on higher ground, or even just far is Battle Field Control, it is harder than a support or an skirmisher. Look the Starfinder Alien Archive, they divided the CR by monster type, and I think is easier.
Damn. I can't believe you just called out all of those other GM channels lmfao.
This is unheard of stuff, such detail it’s incredible and every aspect just makes sense!
Oh an actual calculator for me to use?
Okay, now it's something I can actually test and see because the other videos were just something I kept in the back of my mind.
i love this series. please keep making them.
this is a really cool tool! I'd like to add though that after a couple years of homebrewing monsters you can sort of get the hang of a lot of this.
I don't do like any calculations but my encounters tend to be exciting and challenging for my players, and it's just from years of experience messing up. I imagine with a tool like this learning might be a bit faster, but it's also more work. Great stats!
Though there is a note: Due to my winging it, sometimes I make errors. I give a monster way too few hit points or the like, and during the encounter I have to make the judgement to add some more. This might not be many people's styles, but I don't consider it a terrible crime so much as it is improving my encounter design on the fly.
Your videos are awesome! Love all of them :) keep up the great work! Greetings from Germany!
Thanks and keep making good stuff!
after running for 4ish years I've finally found a balance between power-fantasy and gritty soulslike, I like to run in tiers so as they start getting more powerful there are more and more powerful monsters and enemies but towards the end of each tier they start tearing through their threats (they still get pretty messed up but every once in awhile they do something crazy like 1-round killing a young red dragon at level 5)
This sounds great, but I think for know I‘ll stick to eyeballing and ignoring the entire concept of balance.
Even though, there are some good points being made here even then, so thanks for that!
if you ever need precision with a boss, it can be really helpful.
The hardest thing is making encounters that aren't super swingy at very low levels. Anything that isn't a curbstomp for 1st level characters is a potential true deadly encounter. The main mitigating factor is 0 HP only being dying, not death, but there's typically going to be a lack of many ways to stabilize to avoid failed death saves. Most people's solution is just to start at level 3, but that precludes so many great low level combat and roleplay opportunities, and can be overwhelming for newer players, and/or distasteful for veterans that like build up from humble beginnings.
By the way, with the 100% enemy power for rests, is there in way to adjust for a party with more or fewer short rest recovering features? If the party is made up of all full casters, I'd be hard pressed to expect 300% enemy power for an adventuring day with like six encounters and two short rests to be a fair balance.
As cool as the monster maker doc is, i think a factor got skipped.
Tashas options and a few wiff subclasses excluded, the 5e table (and the pre-template 3e table on which its mostly based on except at the sub CR1 line dur to starting levels changes/increased survivability but slightly lower nova options) are actually very in line with what a party that has the equipment per suggested magic item drops can handle if one follows the suggestion of around 7 average fights with a short rest every 2 (or 3 more difficult ones with a curbstomp and a rest between every except the curbstomp or 2 super deadly but prep time in addition to the a rest, etc), assuming the party is generally conscious of their abilities/features and you allow them to use the entire monsters statblock (a early ID fight as a CR2 encounter assumes there is a protection from good and evil that can be used by the party, creatures with sunlight sensitivity do for 1.5 of the 3 round dpr calc suggestion of the DMG, typically, CR 11+ tend to ignore it for offensive CR).
Not to mention that the first portion of DPR kinda ignores the time vs effort portion players have to account for skewing fights further into benefiting the daily classes from short rest or perma uptime "peak" DPR options as the gaps between nova vs mid resource vs full resourceless damage options is something that very much shifts impact of each person in combat.
100% this - the example given of the 13 or so "Star Hatchlings" against a party that can cast 6th level spells (Circle of Death and Sunbeam).
I looked on 5e tools, and only 5 options for anything with the name "Hatchling" popped up. Only one that could be expected to die to a single casting of either spell, but reasonably survive if passing the save, is "Egg Hunter Hatchling", which is a CR2 monster.
13 monsters of CR 2, is only a deadly encounter against a party of four at level 11 or below. At level 12 it already dips down into just being "Hard"
And at level 11, two casters using their 6th level spell is very god damn big. They only get one of those each, and no spell slots of any higher value.
If they go up against 5-7 more encounters of a similar calibre, the party is going to run into trouble - they can't nova like that for every fight. So calling it "deadly" is reasonable.
-
The Encounter Difficulty does not tell you an individual fight will be deadly if the difficulty comes back "deadly".
The Encounter Difficulty tells you an adventuring day will be deadly if made up of encounters that are "deadly".
People keep having one big cinematic encounter, and then giving the party an entire long rest before the next big, singular, lonesome, cinematic encounter. And then act all surprised when the encounter builder which is working off of the assumption you are having 6-8 encounters between long rests, is providing results that don't match what they are playing.
CR hasn't failed these people. These people have failed CR and the design of the adventuring day.
@@PolarShift >CR hasn't failed these people. These people have failed CR and the design of the adventuring day.I wouldn't go that far. Id rather say not enough emphasis has been put by the PHB side or the intro running the game rather than toolbox side of the DMG on things like how to use the CR table with different play styles (or e.g. PHB having the DMG bit about why rolling even when there is no chance of failure or no chance of success can still be interesting for tension to see the degree of failure or if the success comes at a cost at least in part referenced; yet with equal caution that if doing that it should either serve resource use or narrative, not just randomly asking for every minor thing with some over 5% probability to go slightly rong to require a roll - these being things that in combo with stream-watch-no-game fans influence spawned the terrible wording of the D&done playtest).CR really needed/needs a simplified "minimum expected daily" table like magic items got in Xanathars for slapped on the front of encounter setups to have its reputation cleaned up on the front of the folks either too lazy for math or that need a quick out-of-tier-scaled random encounter made as the party went entirely off prep content.
the factors that are going into both these comments are complex. i would love to have an indepth conversation on this and if either of you guys want that my discord is open.
i will address the cr point here because i think it is simplest to tackle.
i address the imbalances that disproportionate rests provide in my video with the power budget. the power budget provides a framework for both big climactic fights and normal adventuring days.
cr isn't an inherently well designed system. the definitions of cr are very unintuitive and are comparatively inflexible compared to what my system provides. the homebrew monster maker allows for both a normal cr adventuring day and an array of other types of adventuring days while still being balanced. most people would agree and think that a deadly encounter SHOULD mean that that individual encounter is deadly. again, by your definition of what deadly is in this comment and the sources i provide in the video, this is not the case. i think well designed systems are intuitive. cr is not intuitive since it fundamentally clashes with most people conception's of basic concepts and applies misleading labels.
and again, if you use my system for singular big fights, it's relatively balanced.
@@ahero8101 1.) You missed the point, its not about cinematic and climactic fights vs average run of the mill random smack, its about shine moments and party resource management. If you actually tweak all monsters not by the individual focus of if its a nova, survival/gimmick or tank & spank/melee meatwall fight, but by the DPR and EHP of the party, you skew it in favour of the daily recharge crew (Its one of the main design notes of 1st and 2nd edition that tried to counter the already then establishing full caster dominance was supposed to fix, but part of the logic got lost with TSR internal shifts/gygax being booted, and in other part forgot to account for the massive QOL buffs of just making the game baseline fun everyone got with 3e).
2.) >the definitions of cr are very unintuitive and are comparatively inflexible compared to what my system provides.
This doesnt stand basic scrutiny because in the end its just a both less for individual fight accurate and more on table applicable for a healthy adventure version of the Monster Calc... Since 3 round dpr/dpdt is based on D8 party member health and monster EHP tables follow the base curve of a regular sneak rogue or half-spender monk.The resist/vuln/immunity portion of it might be bad rule of thumb as it very obviously was measured of D&D next and half-done PHB class values (and assumptions like party often using pre-fight poison applications to weapons, generous use of AIs like ball bearings and caltrops, snares, hunting traps, the prone-chain thing from end of 4e-preview, etc), but thats only relevant in T1 and for enemies with 2 actual resistances or immunities that the poison bonus would push over into 3.3.) By me, a deadly encounter is one that reasonably has a chance to kill at least 20%(rounded up) of the party and reduce 50%(rounded down) to below 1/4th their max hp unless more than 1 fight worth of resources is expended. A deadly encounter (unless you make it worth the entire daily XP or milestone worth of virtual XP) is only in practice as lethal as the proportional resource and opportunity cost of the party, same as a easy encounter (80 shadows is nothing to a T4 group with by the rules gear as they physically cant even hit the players without a crit despite the on paper lethality of the Str drain, even using npc mob rules barely makes it easy instead of a complete cakewalk; or for end of T1/early T2, double the party count is barely a medium encounter, yet in both cases a sloppy party that dont do anything but run in solo and swing or cast only cantrips will likely get completely steamrolled).4.) Aint gonna dispute its great for big solo bosses (especially if they are finale fights). Even if just to save time and direct visualization of numbers giving a simple phase breakdown option for those that already know general numbers per tier of play and/or player power spike levels.If i may suggest/argue adding extra tab with side option of instead just one overall DPR having fields for: LR Nova total over 3 round/SR Nova over 5/No-Cost Raw damage and with accuracy DPR, and "number of save or die" effects, with all but the LR nova being modified by the daily budget % just for that extra detail exactly for that to make it effectively the perfect tool for "notable challenges"
@@ANDELE3025
i must have miscommunicated. i was only and solely addressing cr's merits as a system and not every single other point both of you made. this is quite possibly the worst forum for long form design discussion ever. nothing against you or polar, i believe you are both arguing in good faith and have shown me similar respect.
i am very open to having this discussion elsewhere and i have other platforms like discord where i would to prefer to engage on this
great video! loving the content, keep it up!
This is a great tool, and it you know what youre doing it can be quickly adapted to use for similar game systems.
I already love your content but mentioning dynasty warriors 3 has skyrocketed my opinion of you 10 fold. You hit me with more nostalgia than I thought I could handle
This is a god damn masterclass, so impressive
i can see that a crazy amount of work has gone into this tool - and arguably into each encounter made with it.
However, I'm not quite sure how necessary any of it really is.
If you have a group of tacticians who really want that chess-like feeling combat where each encounter is tuned to be barely beatable, then a tool like this could be useful (IF it fulfills its lofty promises - the same ones monster CR fails to meet oftentimes). For everyone else, it's far FAR simpler to just steal the stats of a similar monster of the desired CR (e.g. my ogre general could just use the stats of a hillgiant).
As a DM, I also have a ton of data on how well my party does against recent encounters. If in enocunter A, I see that they can deal 220 damage against AC 18 creatures in one round, then I can easily adjust the numbers from there for encounter B to make it as challenging as I like.
EDIT: For anyone not interested in creatin perfectly balanced encounters, this tool is less useful yet. Why not just have a dragon with 400 HP, several defenses and powerful features? It's not your job to finetune the challange to be optimal for your players. Your players encounter what you put into the world and then they have to decide how to interact with it.
Easily earned my subscription, this video is really interesting
Dude this is a great video. I am working on a quick n easy homebrewing tool and there are some things here Im gonna include. Please come back!
I very much enjoy this series
Brilliant and concise, you are truly helpful my friend.
Awesome video! A few questions:
1. Is the monster maker always geared to make five groups of enemies? What if I want to divvy things up to like 2-3 groups?
2. When you go over the spell save example, you left the numbers at 9 for bonus and 100 for DC. Was that intentional?
I think more videos expanding on this would be super useful. One of the most informative videos I've ever seen!
Not going to lie, not a fan of the guts of this one, but that's okay.
I know that there's an audience for this and I think the video itself IS A M A Z I N G, quality and content wise.
Doing the actual heavy lifting and crafting the tools and explaining how the tools work, very impressive indeed.
My reason for not being about this one is mainly just a personal preference as to why I play TTRPGs in the first place (strategy vs narrative) I still think this is really great work!
Keep it up
The math of the game and narrative building aren't dichotomous elements. You can make an even more effective narrative experience by fine tuning your combats to fit a narrative beat.
A dragon feels like a dragon in part due to its mechanics and the relative strength of its statblock. A goblin feels like a mook because its numbers are trash.
I feel the examples with the difficulty curves best illustrated this. Those two different tiers of difficulty create different tones and narrative experiences.
I make specific recommendations through how to tune a monster's values like AC or accuracy to give a desired feeling out of them, not because they feel "strategic" in any sense.
I'm making this comment not to start an argument but to clarify something that may have been miscommunicated by me. You may find that the video is more in line with your objectives than you give it credit for. I truly believe a viewer like you would get the most value out of this video.
I've been watching your videos and am absolutely hooked - And I don't even play / use DnD! All of these videos have given me some considerable insights into Gaming - Especially the BBEG / Boss Defence mechanics video. Thought provoking stuff and I hope to see more helpful content in the future.
Really cool, but I will never take the time to do this stuff. It's not my job to homebrew a system so the monsters work. It's up to the game makers to do that. I already have to prep maps and figure out a story.
As soon as I saw this video got posted, I subscribed. Unbelievable quality from a channel with less than 5 videos. It almost makes me think these are stolen or AI generated or made by WotC or something
"Challenge Rating" sounds like the monstermark system mentioned in White Dwarf magazine, issue #1. I think that author Don Turnbull from the UK ended up heading TSR's UK division. HPs, attacks per round, average damage etc. could be placed into a formula easily enough, the problem was with abilities like invisibility, petrification, flying, teleportation (blink), immunities to various attacks and so on. Can't be quantified. I stopped playing AD&D as 2e started appearing, so I'm old. :0P
The is definitely a hero we needed ;)
Love this! Though the spreadsheet would be very hard to use in a westmarches server…
you forgot my favorite die to use for damage on my monsters! the d100 of course! i make sure while im at it to roll on wild magic with the damage roll too.
This is incredibly cool and I'm having a great time using it! But I'm confused about one thing - I set my boss monster to attack once per round and I'm ending up with a significantly higher damage per attack than dpr for a boss monster. How is this possible unless it doesn't attack every round?
If you keep making videos like this, I might actually start a religion about you or smth! Anyway, awesome video, and thanks for the Monster Maker!
Note that this tool will not address any disparities in the party that might come up and it'll still make a difference how many options a side has for things to do on their turn. In general, higher level monsters should have more diverse/impactful options for their turn than lower level ones.
Also make sure that the same kind of monster remains in the same ballpark if they're met again. It lets players apply knowledge gained from earlier encounters.
Though ultimately I believe a lot of encounter design issues are still things that would need to be fixed on the player end for being too much to deal with for a majority of monsters (they *can* be counterplayed, but usually in a contrived way that makes it feel you're actively spiteful against the player with the strong option).
Holy crap, this video is awesome. But, it just highlights how insanely crappy the monster/encounter design of D&D is at baseline. The fact that you need a whole maths degree to just make an encounter kind of balanced is sad.
I convince my players its Dark Souls, but really im equally invested in their characters
I’m dead after watching this. Excellent video 👍
I am a new DM and from the 2 fights we had I think I have a good grip on combat balancing. I had several PCs go down and one of them pseudo died and is still with us. But my party is very RP oriented, and as a result their PCs now seem to have PTSD from the close calls and it kinda clashes with the vibes I wanted, at least at the start of the Campaign.
So this really depends.
I love your videos! Very useful and educational!
damn i don't understand any of this but it's fun to watch! even tho i probably won't use the creator, i'll still use the lessons learned
I'd like to have an opposite version of this tool, or the one you can go either way.
My partner is level 5 to 7 and after too many close call's fighting goblins each of them have swore a oath to the Gods, to cull every single goblin band, tribe and Kingdom around the frontier.
I used tactics. Classic bait an stabs, feinting a retreat only for 3 of 7 PC's getting stuck in traps an the remainer getting shot up by archers, a mix of Bully Bois, Shamans, archers, wargs or other beasts, using terrain to their advantage, traps, many traps, trap traps, fake loot witch have more traps, fake obvious traps, bee's and my favourite Skirmishing shoot them up on wargs then run away only to return 30mins later.
Banger after banger, Great vids!!!
CR is also strange because some enemies are such low CR for the purpose of nerfing them as opposed to showing how powerful they are, because CR is ALSO tied to their proficiency bonus as a monster.
Baba Lysaga's creeping hut and the beholder are good examples of this.
Me: *tells players after they already invested in their characters that they have an increased chance of death so their character’s survival feels more epic, although my kill count is still 0*
I definitely accidentally lied about how likely they are to die considering they are destroying my monsters by the dozens, with my occasional “I’ll be nice cause this would be a reasonable event”.
Babe wake up is an AHero video!
Hey bit of a random question but I'm curious how you got your channel sprinting from the start: did you have any previous TH-cam channels/prior video making experience? Any public speaking/teaching experience? Where did you get your dnd knowledge? Many years of experience in this system, another system or something like game design? I'm seriously fascinated how you have such a great channel and following from video 1!
nah to most of those
i did play a lot of dnd in the trenches
just lots and lots and lots of 5e
you are the man I inspire to be :D
I don't like the idea of balancing encounters, in general. The players should get what they get. Still, knowing stuff like this helps also balancing the whole world a bit better. As it makes it clear that a simple young dragon alone is not a terrifying threat, but something that has to be smart not to be immediately hunted down and killed by a group of low exp adventurers
Don't have much to say, aside maybe that right now it sounds pretty complicated for me ahahah...maybe I'm wrong, will see. Beside that, commenting for the sake of Algo-rythm the mighty God of YouTubia. Keep the good work, sir!