Building Encounters

[DimitriX]

I started this discussion in another thread and thought it should probably become its own thread before it gets lost in the shuffle.

I've been having problems because I'm not sure how to build encounters in Conan. I was never really good at it 3.5 DnD, but at least there was Challenge Ratings that could be used to determine how many creatures and at what CR I could reasonably put against a party of PCs at a certain level. But, I haven't seen anything like that in Conan.

So, have I missed something? Is there a good way to determine the difficulty of an encounter? I don't have a lot of time, so the idea of playtesting encounters isn't really possible. I have to say that this is the thing (one of the few) that I like best about 4e is that it is easy for a DM to build adventures.

 

[Clovenhoof]

The general idea seems to be to let the story dictate what kind of opposition the party is supposed to run into, and then let the players figure out how to get the job done. Of course it doesn't help your game if your third-levels are thrown against a mob of a dozen tenth-level soldiers or whatever, so some further hints may be in order.

Well, first let's briefly summarize how encounters are balanced in D&D:
CRs and ELs are balanced against parties of four, and an "appropriate encounter" is supposed to eat up 25% of the party resources (hit points, spells, powers etc). If you want to make the players sweat, you can scale the Encounter Level quite a bit higher, so they effectively need 40, 60 or 80% of their resources to win.

Also, it's much easier to balance encounters in Conan than in D&D because there's usually not going to be any magical effects or abilities, so the raw numbers plus feats are pretty much straightforward.

For Conan, I mainly look at the key stats, i.e. Hit Dice, Attack and Defense ratings. I know the PCs values are such-and-such, so depending on the desired difficulty I adjust the opposition's values accordingly.

My players' characters have Heroic stats, which means they can deal with higher-level opposition. The first time I did this was when the party was 2nd level and I had them hounded by an equal number of level 3-5 soldiers. It worked out perfectly: in the end everyone in the party was hurt and down to a few hit points, but they prevailed.

You'll have to develop a feeling for it, but it's really not rocket science. Some more quick quidelines:

* For a moderate challenge, start out with an equal number of mooks of equal level, but with lower stats and fewer hit points than your PCs.
* if you want a mob to outnumber the party, which is fair game, make each mook considerably weaker than the PCs. The mooks will probably get to surround and flank the characters, which is especially deadly if they have sneak attack. (Of course it's also the players' job not to get flanked) But even without sneak attack, a Flanking situation effectively means an advantage worth 2-3 levels.
* for a single, powerful enemy, maybe a monster, you can really turn it up a few levels. The players will have to work well together in order to win, which is a very satisfying experience for everyone.

Damage control:
The only real bad thing that can happen is that an encounter turns out to be way too strong for the party. If you see this happening, don't pull it through to a TPK. It's not your players' fault if you didn't find the right power level. Maybe you can still adjust some stats on the fly (hit points are easiest). If you do it right, the players won't even notice.

 

[gg-a]

I'll start my group's first even Conan campaign next week, and that's exactly the thing that concerns me the most.

I guess i'll get the heck of it after a few sessions. I just hope i don't murder them in the first session. I'll do the following aproach: i'll outnumber the players by something around 50% of weaker enemies, they will have very low damage weapons, low atack, and average defense and HP. By doing so, i can play with the actual HP they have in order to make the encounter easier/harder, depending on how it starts.

I might also put them up against one more powerfull creature, not sure how i'll sort that out yet.

 

[SnowDog]

This one's maybe a bit more esoteric answer.

As already stated you know (roughly) how good your PCs are and as you have run D&D before you have a pretty solid grasp on their abilities. Nothing new here.

Even though this is a Conan game I don't see why all encounters should end with PCs killing all their opponents. Try and be descriptive about the NPCs even if they are just nameless mooks. If the enemy is low level then they are probably nervous, makes mistakes and even if they are well equipped (such as city guard) their lack of experience will show. On the other hand more experienced characters are more confident, have scars, might have some special equipment etc.

Something similar should apply to animals and monsters. The main thing to this is that the players get something to gauge how much of a threat their enemies are.

What I am trying to say is that clever players choose their fights and if they find themselves in a dire situation they should know when to flee. I know that this can be emotionally hard sometimes but in the end this helps your encounter design process because you know that if the enemy is tough the PCs should be vary.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Even though this is a Conan game I don't see why all encounters should end with PCs killing all their opponents.

That's a good point; actually "shock and awe" should be a valid option to win an encounter. That is, if you demoralize your opponent you won't have to fight everyone to the death. But don't even _try_ to write up Morale rules. Morale in battle does not follow logical rules. So as a GM just try to be sensible about it.

If you ever played Rome: Total War, you'll remember how every unit has a morale status, which can be for example "eager", "steady", "shaken" etc, and finally "broken", which is where you want to get your enemy. Most battles don't end with one side completely wiping out the other in toe to toe combat, but with one army routing, fleeing oblivious to the world.

For a historical example of an outnumbered force breaking and routing a much bigger army, read up on the Battle of Lechfeld of 955.

So all I'm trying to say is, if your heroes in Conan fight a bunch of mooks and these see they are getting beaten to pulp, let them turn and run. ^^

On the other hand, while the opposite situation is also valid, i.e. the PCs being outmatched so they should flee, keep in mind that your players can't read your mind. Players always try to understand what the GM has in mind, that may be metagaming but it's a fact. So if your players think you want them to flee, they'll flee; if they think you want them to stand, they'll stand.
When in doubt, don't be afraid to tell them straight-on and OOC what you expect them to do, especially in the early phases of a game, until you all know how each other ticks.

 

[SnowDog]

That's a good point; actually "shock and awe" should be a valid option to win an encounter. That is, if you demoralize your opponent you won't have to fight everyone to the death. But don't even _try_ to write up Morale rules. Morale in battle does not follow logical rules. So as a GM just try to be sensible about it.

Personally I am just that crazy as to try to write some fast and loose morale rules for NPCs. Those would work for the whole bunch of enemies, obviously but so far I don't have to worry about it...

So all I'm trying to say is, if your heroes in Conan fight a bunch of mooks and these see they are getting beaten to pulp, let them turn and run. ^^

And let your PCs get the AoO But seriously that's part of what I was trying to say, too. Besides it's not like stealing XP from your players because Conan doesn't give XP for kills, IIRC. It's all up to GM to decide how much XP he gives.

On the other hand, while the opposite situation is also valid, i.e. the PCs being outmatched so they should flee, keep in mind that your players can't read your mind. Players always try to understand what the GM has in mind, that may be metagaming but it's a fact. So if your players think you want them to flee, they'll flee; if they think you want them to stand, they'll stand.
When in doubt, don't be afraid to tell them straight-on and OOC what you expect them to do, especially in the early phases of a game, until you all know how each other ticks.

Good point. Actually my players fall to the group that usually stands to the last man and hope to win the combat no matter the odds. Obviously it is kind of hard to persuade them to play the other way.

I can give you an example. We were playing a Finnish fantasy game with very much similar feel to the setting as in Conan.

The party was confident and competent when they encountered a group of barbarians (pretty convenient for this post). Only one of the barbarians spoke Jaconian (the language that is sort of common language in other parts of the setting). The barbarians were out there to get some easy loot and since they have a pretty fierce reputation not to mention that they outnumbered the party they tried to get some of the party's possessions. Since the party was pretty well armed and armored the barbarians tried to intimidate the party to give up some of the horses etc. Obviously PCs declined and the fight broke out.

Suddenly I found out that I had made the encounter a bit too heavy with at least one PC down and in need of medical attention, fast. So I decided that the spokes person would be the leader (although he had the same basic stats as the rest of them) and because barbarians had also suffered some casualties if the leader fell then others would flee. Fortunately this indeed happened.

But what was really interesting was the fact that player of the PC who had felled the barbarian leader raised the question "Why we didn't simply hand out one of the horses and get it done with? Or tried to flee?". For me, these were very good questions and I hope they still remember them when a similar situation occurs.

BTW, sure they got to keep the horse but they had to buy a potion to prevent one of the PCs loosing his leg that costs at least 10 times how much the horse costs

Being subtle but still clear is not easy but something that at least I try to learn to be.

 

[Trantor]

I'll start my group's first even Conan campaign next week, and that's exactly the thing that concerns me the most.
-<snip>

We started yesterday with the char-creation. (A Nordländer Barbarian, a Hyrkanian Borderer and a Pictish Temptress ) Now I use the time to the next session to get to know their characters weaknesses and strengths and in the next session we begin "Trial of Blood", which has a first encounter which enables a fair fight with enough support of third party fighters if the chars are too weak for the encounter.

I guess after the first fight we know the chars good enough to adapt following encounters in the right way.

 

[gg-a]

I'll probalby have the first session late next week, and we'll probably get to the actual playing on the week following.

I won't be using a pre-made adventure, so i'll just have to learn thinks on the try-and-learn base.

Characters will probably be one barbarian, one soldier and one zamoran noble. Campaign will begin in Zamora, with the 3 PCs being arrested for unfair reasons. From there i'll see what happens, but they will either end up escaping from jail or being sold as slaves.

In both cases i'll manage to get them into some fight early on the session to spice things up.

 

[DimitriX]

Thanks for all the input. I'll have to give these ideas a try.