Nice video! I love putting my players in situations where they know they're screwed if they do something stupid. That fear becomes real from the paper to the player. Very fun!
Lots of misinformation in this video. You are not "suppose to have 6 to 8 medium encounters". You both misquoted and misunderstood that section of the dmg. This is a pet peeve of mine people get this wrong all the time. 5e does not have a recommended, suggested or expected number of encounter of a specific difficulty per day. This is a common misconception. All the text says (paraphrasing) is under normal circumstances party's CAN handle 6 to 8 medium OR hard encounter, more if they are easier less if they are harder (this last part is important everyone leave it out). This is not a recommendation or requirement. All it is is a reference point for dm's for how much a typical party can handle before resources get low. Its jest a tool for planning adventure so you can estimate when the party will likely need to long rest. The actual text from the dmg: "Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer." The specific number of encounter don't matter. What that matters is the total ADJUSTED xp worth of encounters in a day. The adjusted xp of encounter and actual xp the party receives may be different. The difficulty can change the number of encounters. you could have 3 deadly encounter or 12 easy as long as the total adjusted xp get close to the adventuring day budget. That way you as a dm can know when pary resources will get low. Here is Craford talking about this: ua-cam.com/video/XWoAK9ZaP4E/v-deo.html Further more you don't only have 2 short rests. it jest says you can expect 2 short rest. it doesn't put a limit on the number you can take. you can have as many as you can reasonably fit in day. its jest a reference point for dm's for how many they can expect to have. Also the stuff you said about Xanithars is wrong. I have no idea were you got the idea it only tells you how to build only medium encounters. Using the method of equal number of monster of equivalent challenge rating to level gives different results. For example a party of 4 level 5 pc vs 4 cr 2 monsters (cr 2 being equivalent to 1 level 5 player according to Xanithars) is a "hard" encounter using 2014 encounter building guidelines. Xanathars also explains what the guidelines are for and how to adjust encounter difficulty "The above guidelines are designed to create a fight that will challenge a party while still being winnable. If you want to create an easier encounter that will challenge characters but not threaten to defeat them, you can treat the party as if it were roughly one-third smaller than it is. For example, to make an easy encounter for a party of five characters, put them up against monsters that would be a tough fight for three characters. Likewise, you can treat the party as up to half again larger to build a battle that is potentially deadly, though still not likely to be an automatic defeat. A party of four characters facing an encounter designed for six characters would fall into this category." Lastly is you make a video about encounter "balance" pleas clarify what you specifically mean by balance. every video, blog thread and commenter on reddit ect. has a different idea on what that means. by balance do you mean equal 50/50 between party and monsters or jest something that wont tpk the party or challenging but not deadly. For me I define balance as meeting the intended level challenge of the encounter.
Thank you for taking the time to write this well thought out response. While I appreciate the information provided, your text comes off as overly aggressive at times. It is true that my video has several incorrect statements, for which I apologise. However, some of these are also simply nitpicks and taking the literal meaning of my words rather than the intent. "Supposed to have around 6 to 8 medium encounters" and "Can handle 6 to 8 medium or hard encounters" communicate the same message of a rough target that the 2014 contained and the 2024 DMG does not. It communicated an assumption about the adventuring day. I did not misremember it or misquote it, I summarised it- and in so doing accidentally changed the meaning slightly. I was reading it as I typed that section of the script, which reflected my understanding of the text. The Xanathar's quote was, however, completely incorrect. I don't know where I got the "only makes medium encounters" idea from. And I should have defined my terms. You are right. When I say balance, I typically mean "won't kill the party unless the DM wants it to." I don't care *too* much about the fight fitting a predictable template, as it is going against my expectations is when it is most fun. Although if the DMG gives us definitions for encounter difficulty, I would like them to be accurate. While my next video is already uploaded, and I don't have time to remake it, I will take your criticism going forward. I should avoid summarising passages and actually quote them, as a summary can be misleading, and I should define terms with subjective meanings rather than assuming the audience is telepathic and will just intuite my personal definition through magic. (That joke is at my expense, not yours, for clarity. I know tone can be heard to read via text. I am making fun of my own stupidity).
Your rule with an additional player per item is absolutely terrible. There are rare things stronger than artifact... I hope no one takes this advice! For God's sake, just grab a calculator and calculate the damage and hit chance of your players. The GM does this kind of thing all the time! It's not that scary to do this with three or four player characters and It's not rocket science to calculate that Bobby the Barbarian - now does 7 (2d6) more fire damage.
🤷♂️ It's worked for me for 3 years, and takes less time than calculating player damage against monster health. I also don't like how predictable fights become when you tweak them like that, which is why I *stopped* calculating my party's damage and enemy's HP. As I say in the video, my players started to notice the fact that everything was just so perfect for them and it actively made the game less enjoyable. If it works for your table, great! But it didn't for me, so I tinkered with an alternative. If this didn't work for me, I would have tried something else.
@@CrimsonFoxxeGamestoo perfect? Man, I wish I had that problem. In my more recent experience, combats are 99% of the time DMs doing way too much damage on their end to the point where they gotta nerf the numbers and/or drastically change monster behavior part way through the fight. 😅
Nice video! I love putting my players in situations where they know they're screwed if they do something stupid. That fear becomes real from the paper to the player. Very fun!
I generally tweak the hp - so if I get a sense a combat needs more challenge, I'll max the hp of some combatants beforehand.
Lots of misinformation in this video. You are not "suppose to have 6 to 8 medium encounters". You both misquoted and misunderstood that section of the dmg. This is a pet peeve of mine people get this wrong all the time. 5e does not have a recommended, suggested or expected number of encounter of a specific difficulty per day. This is a common misconception. All the text says (paraphrasing) is under normal circumstances party's CAN handle 6 to 8 medium OR hard encounter, more if they are easier less if they are harder (this last part is important everyone leave it out). This is not a recommendation or requirement. All it is is a reference point for dm's for how much a typical party can handle before resources get low. Its jest a tool for planning adventure so you can estimate when the party will likely need to long rest.
The actual text from the dmg:
"Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer."
The specific number of encounter don't matter. What that matters is the total ADJUSTED xp worth of encounters in a day. The adjusted xp of encounter and actual xp the party receives may be different. The difficulty can change the number of encounters. you could have 3 deadly encounter or 12 easy as long as the total adjusted xp get close to the adventuring day budget. That way you as a dm can know when pary resources will get low.
Here is Craford talking about this: ua-cam.com/video/XWoAK9ZaP4E/v-deo.html
Further more you don't only have 2 short rests. it jest says you can expect 2 short rest. it doesn't put a limit on the number you can take. you can have as many as you can reasonably fit in day. its jest a reference point for dm's for how many they can expect to have.
Also the stuff you said about Xanithars is wrong. I have no idea were you got the idea it only tells you how to build only medium encounters. Using the method of equal number of monster of equivalent challenge rating to level gives different results. For example a party of 4 level 5 pc vs 4 cr 2 monsters (cr 2 being equivalent to 1 level 5 player according to Xanithars) is a "hard" encounter using 2014 encounter building guidelines. Xanathars also explains what the guidelines are for and how to adjust encounter difficulty
"The above guidelines are designed to create a fight that will challenge a party while still being winnable. If you want to create an easier encounter that will challenge characters but not threaten to defeat them, you can treat the party as if it were roughly one-third smaller than it is. For example, to make an easy encounter for a party of five characters, put them up against monsters that would be a tough fight for three characters. Likewise, you can treat the party as up to half again larger to build a battle that is potentially deadly, though still not likely to be an automatic defeat. A party of four characters facing an encounter designed for six characters would fall into this category."
Lastly is you make a video about encounter "balance" pleas clarify what you specifically mean by balance. every video, blog thread and commenter on reddit ect. has a different idea on what that means. by balance do you mean equal 50/50 between party and monsters or jest something that wont tpk the party or challenging but not deadly. For me I define balance as meeting the intended level challenge of the encounter.
Thank you for taking the time to write this well thought out response. While I appreciate the information provided, your text comes off as overly aggressive at times.
It is true that my video has several incorrect statements, for which I apologise.
However, some of these are also simply nitpicks and taking the literal meaning of my words rather than the intent. "Supposed to have around 6 to 8 medium encounters" and "Can handle 6 to 8 medium or hard encounters" communicate the same message of a rough target that the 2014 contained and the 2024 DMG does not. It communicated an assumption about the adventuring day. I did not misremember it or misquote it, I summarised it- and in so doing accidentally changed the meaning slightly. I was reading it as I typed that section of the script, which reflected my understanding of the text.
The Xanathar's quote was, however, completely incorrect. I don't know where I got the "only makes medium encounters" idea from.
And I should have defined my terms. You are right. When I say balance, I typically mean "won't kill the party unless the DM wants it to." I don't care *too* much about the fight fitting a predictable template, as it is going against my expectations is when it is most fun. Although if the DMG gives us definitions for encounter difficulty, I would like them to be accurate.
While my next video is already uploaded, and I don't have time to remake it, I will take your criticism going forward. I should avoid summarising passages and actually quote them, as a summary can be misleading, and I should define terms with subjective meanings rather than assuming the audience is telepathic and will just intuite my personal definition through magic. (That joke is at my expense, not yours, for clarity. I know tone can be heard to read via text. I am making fun of my own stupidity).
Your rule with an additional player per item is absolutely terrible. There are rare things stronger than artifact...
I hope no one takes this advice! For God's sake, just grab a calculator and calculate the damage and hit chance of your players. The GM does this kind of thing all the time! It's not that scary to do this with three or four player characters and It's not rocket science to calculate that Bobby the Barbarian - now does 7 (2d6) more fire damage.
🤷♂️
It's worked for me for 3 years, and takes less time than calculating player damage against monster health.
I also don't like how predictable fights become when you tweak them like that, which is why I *stopped* calculating my party's damage and enemy's HP. As I say in the video, my players started to notice the fact that everything was just so perfect for them and it actively made the game less enjoyable.
If it works for your table, great! But it didn't for me, so I tinkered with an alternative. If this didn't work for me, I would have tried something else.
@@CrimsonFoxxeGamestoo perfect? Man, I wish I had that problem. In my more recent experience, combats are 99% of the time DMs doing way too much damage on their end to the point where they gotta nerf the numbers and/or drastically change monster behavior part way through the fight. 😅