Source
r/dndnext•
ccnptr

New GM here in need for help balancing a fight!!

Question

Hey guys! I'm a DM mastering his first (5e) campaign, and the first session is coming. There is a fight in a prison that I had to came up cause the party is 5 level 2 PGs. Classes are divination wizard, circle of the moon druid, tempest cleric, fighter and monk. The wizard is a seasoned player but the other are all novices (the druid has played bg3, the fighter and the cleric have played very little, the monk is completely new). Having a circle of the moon druid (which in my experience is one of the most broken builds at level 2) kinda throws me off and to add to the injury the wizard is very optimized, I'm talking 6 cantrips at LV 2, variant human with telekinesis (I vetoed lucky). I want the fight to be fairly easy as there are a lot of new players but not boring. I was thinking of 5 guards that if left unchecked call other guards and an orc. I came up with that just following the XP method on the GM guide but idk if it's too difficult for (mostly) new players or too easy because of that fkin druid and the wizard. I know the solution is mostly about how I actually manage the fight when it's happening, don't just put statblock against statblock, but I want this fight to go well and I really don't know if it's balanced. Also, it's a fight to the death, there isn't really any other option than killing or incapacitating the enemies

Posted Nov 16, 2023, 7:27 AM UTC

211
Jafroboy•

Dont worry about the fight too much, just start off small, maybe even less than 5 guards, and you can always add more if its really easy.

The problem I'm detecting here is your feelings towards the wizard, and to a lesser extent the druid. Although 6 cantrips and telekinetic at level 2 isnt especially op, how did he get 6 cantrips?

There seems to be an undercurrent of worry here, is he a reasonable guy? I advise you sit donw with him and have a little talk about how you're new, and so are a bunch of the other players, so you'd appreciate it if he didnt power game, and try to "break" your game, or hog all the spotlight from the new players. If he's reasonable he'll agree, if he's not, you shouldn't play with him.

Moon druid is strong at level 2 sure, but it gets more reasonable, and better your players are too strong at low levels than too weak. Makes a nice buffer for you.

All in all, dont sweat it too much, you'll do great!

2
Itsuka416•

Having dealt with a powergamer in a party of relatively new/relaxed players, this is fantastic advice. Min-maxing is completely valid - I've been known to play sweaty builds on occasion - it just requires management to prevent it from having a negative impact on the less mechanics-focused players. A powergamer can absolutely be net positive if they're encouraged to exercise restraint.

2
ccnptrOP•

He is definetly a reasonable guy. I'm actually talking with him a lot as we are great friends and he was the master of my first campaign as a player lol so there isn't any problem with that. He's actually the one who came to me worried that he was too optimized, that's why the build isn't especially op. The problem is exclusively with me as I don't know if I will be able to manage the inevitable imbalance of experience and power of these characters. Hell the player with the least experience has the weakest character :/

Anyway, thanks for the advice

1
Itsuka416•

Forcing the party to tackle more than one objective could help. Perhaps multiple entry/approach points for guards, some of which can be closed/secured by the party. Broken lines of sight so that the wizard can't access the entire battlefield from just one spot, and has to either choose one side or has to shuttle back and forth. Just a few 5am ideas, hopefully they get your own creative juices flowing.

1
ccnptrOP•

Thanks a lot! It really helps!

1
JulyKimono•

The wizard having Tel. as a feat as a human is already far from optimized. And there's like 5 must-take 1st level wizard spells, so there isn't much optimization options at level 2. He also didn't take the strongest subclass. As a new DM I think you shouldn't judge someone like that, saying they will cause problems before you do. You sound like you have a lot of resentment against the player right now.

When it comes to encounters, early on, till level 7-9, you can use axp encounter building rules in the DMG. It will work fine. Just don't do Easy encounters, and in a level or too also take away Medium encounters. There are also websites available for easier encounter axp calculations.

1
ccnptrOP•

I know the wizard isn't perfectly optimized, he is a great friend of mine, the master of my first campaign as a player and I know he is reasonable player and he's voluntarily not going down that path. Maybe I expressed myself wrong, but my fear isn't that he will cause problems, my fear is that I won't be able to manage the actual imbalance in experience and skill in building and playing a pc that this party will inevitabely have. And not because my friend is an asshole, far from that. I'm talking with him a lot and he's the first that is up to any kind of compromise in building the character

1
JulyKimono•

As a veteran player, he seems to understand he needs to tone it down for the rest of the party. That does not seem like an issue considering he's open for communication and purposely didn't optimize his character. The character is still good, just far from how good it could have been if he had min/maxed it.

But there isn't much you can do about an imbalance of experience. Just run the game as normal, keep to the sense of logic and overall consistency in the world. You can let more things slip for newer players, like if they aren't good at roleplay and talking to NPCs, you can rely on the ability check number a lot more than their speech, while relying more on the roleplay by the veteran player. And in general relying more on the checks for them than ideas, if you'll feel they will be lackluster and will need time to learn.

For balance, the druid will be the main problem early on, as you correctly pointed out. A very simple fix to that is to have most encounters that matter indoors. Like in the prison. Don't make ridiculously large hallways. Most of them are 5-10 feet. And the problematic Wildshape forms are Large, meaning in most hallways indoors it won't work, or the druid will have to squeeze. You have two other melee classes (I assume fighter is melee), and they need space too. Make that an issue early on. At least on encounters that do matter. And the druid can shine in some encounters outside, like forest bandits, goblin camp (before you enter their small cave with 5 feet wide tunnels), and wolves. Allow him to tank for the party in many of those, that's what he's there for. But normal sized hallways will easily shut him down.

1
PrometheusHasFallen•

The more experience you gain as a DM, the less you'll worry about making sure a fight is balanced.

1
lasalle202•

CR system caveats

Any one of a number of online calculators can help with the official Challenge Rating math crunching. Kobold Fight Club’s license has been picked up by Kobold Plus who has added some new options. https://koboldplus.club/#/encounter-builder )

but remember that despite “using math", the CR system is way more of an art than a science.

  • read the descriptions of what each level of difficulty means, dont just go by the name. (ie “ Deadly. A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat.”)
  • while the CR math attempts to account for the number of beings on each side, the further away from 3-5 on each side you get, the less accurate the maths are, at “exponential” rate. Read up on “the action economy” – particularly now that expansions like Tasha’s are making it so that every PC almost universally gets an Action AND a Bonus Action each and every turn, and can often also count on getting a Reaction nearly every round. Most monsters dont have meaningful Bonus Actions or any Reactions other than possible Opportunity attacks.
    • Dont do party vs solo monster – while Legendary Actions can help, “the boss” should always have friends with them. Or you will need to severely hack the standard 5e monster design constraints and statblocks. (tell your party you are doing this so that the increase in challenge comes from the increase in challenge and not from you as DM secretly changing the rules without telling the other players the rules have been changed, because that is just a dick move, not a challenge.)
  • The system is based on the presumption that PCs will be facing 6 to 8 encounters between long rests, with 1 or 2 short rests in between. Unless you are doing a dungeon crawl, that is not how most sessions for most tables actually play out – at most tables, the “long rest” classes are able to “go NOVA” every combat, not having to worry about conserving resources, so if you are only going to have a couple of encounters between long rests, you will want them to be in the Hard or Deadly range, if you want combat to be “a challenge” –(but sometimes you might just want a change of pace at the table and get some chucking of dice or letting your players feel like curbstomping badasses and so the combat doesnt NEED to be "challenging" to be relevant).
  • Some of the monsters’ official CR ratings are WAY off (Shadows, I am looking at you), so even if the math part were totally accurate, garbage in garbage out.
    • as a sub point – creatures that can change the action economy are always a gamble – if the monster can remove a PC from the action economy (paralyze, banishment, “run away” fear effects) or bring in more creatures (summon 3 crocodiles, dominate/confuse a player into attacking their party) - the combats where these types of effects go off effectively will be VERY much harder than in combats where they don’t
  • not all parties are the same – a party of a Forge Cleric, Paladin and Barbarian will be very different than a party of a Sorcerer, Rogue and Wizard.
  • Magic items the party has will almost certainly boost the party’s capability to handle tougher encounters.(a monster's CR is based in large part on its AC and "to hit" - if your players have +1 weapons, they are effectively lowering the monster's AC and if your players have +1 armor, they are effectively lowering the monsters' "to hit". If your players are all kitted in both +1 weapons and +1 armor, you probably should consider monsters one lower than their listed CR. Not to mention all the impact that utility magic items can bring!)

Approaching the problem by tossing out the bad default CR system and replacing it with Trekiros - Game Changer’s complex mathing that is probably more representative from both the player and monster side https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8FNVkFuhXI

1
Machiavelli24•

The easiest encounters to make work feature one peer monster per pc. So start there.

Using too many weak monsters can make aoes too good. Using less than 3 monsters means they need to be legendary.

Any encounter capable of defeating the party has a good chance of killing at least one pc if the monsters are able to focus fire.

Despite the name, Hard encounters are not hard. They aren’t able to defeat the party. It sounds like you want a non threatening fight, so hard or medium is reasonable.

If the party uses better tactics than the monsters, expect the party to win consistently.

If you have xanathars, it provides an alternative way to build encounters that is much easier to use than the dmg. I also recommend true peer as a refinement of xanathars.

1