Mike Shea

to be able to improvise an encounter so the and then the other advantage is that the dnd 2024 guidelines are intended to build you a budget for an encounter that's supposed to behave a certain way which i think is sort of antithetical to the open-ended nature of role-playing games and i think that the other one is really just there as a warning light it's not there to tune your encounters it isn't you can use it like a budget but you're not really intended to

to be able to improvise an encounter so the and then the other advantage is that the dnd 2024 guidelines are intended to build you a budget for an encounter that's supposed to behave a certain way which i think is sort of antithetical to the open-ended nature of role-playing games and i think that the other one is really just there as a warning light it's not there to tune your encounters it isn't you can use it like a budget but you're not really intended to

to be able to improvise an encounter so the and then the other advantage is that the dnd 2024 guidelines are intended to build you a budget for an encounter that's supposed to behave a certain way which i think is sort of antithetical to the open-ended nature of role-playing games and i think that the other one is really just there as a warning light it's not there to tune your encounters it isn't you can use it like a budget but you're not really intended to

You're really using it to say like, is my battle going to be hard or is it not going to be hard? So some people say, wow, this is a bunch of crazy math BS. Do I even need to worry about any of this? The answer could be no. The answer could be that you just build encounters by what makes sense and off you go. Sometimes they're really hard. Sometimes they're really easy. You don't really care.

You're really using it to say like, is my battle going to be hard or is it not going to be hard? So some people say, wow, this is a bunch of crazy math BS. Do I even need to worry about any of this? The answer could be no. The answer could be that you just build encounters by what makes sense and off you go. Sometimes they're really hard. Sometimes they're really easy. You don't really care.

You're really using it to say like, is my battle going to be hard or is it not going to be hard? So some people say, wow, this is a bunch of crazy math BS. Do I even need to worry about any of this? The answer could be no. The answer could be that you just build encounters by what makes sense and off you go. Sometimes they're really hard. Sometimes they're really easy. You don't really care.

Some groups don't even think about it. I've talked to GMs who are like, I never even think about the benchmark. And that's probably a fine way to go. The only thing the lazy encounter benchmark brings to you, if you are one of these kind of seat of the pants, build encounters as they go, build in the world, is it gives you a little bit of a gauge if you overtune things a little bit.

Some groups don't even think about it. I've talked to GMs who are like, I never even think about the benchmark. And that's probably a fine way to go. The only thing the lazy encounter benchmark brings to you, if you are one of these kind of seat of the pants, build encounters as they go, build in the world, is it gives you a little bit of a gauge if you overtune things a little bit.

Some groups don't even think about it. I've talked to GMs who are like, I never even think about the benchmark. And that's probably a fine way to go. The only thing the lazy encounter benchmark brings to you, if you are one of these kind of seat of the pants, build encounters as they go, build in the world, is it gives you a little bit of a gauge if you overtune things a little bit.

If it's like, oh, if you just want to know whether or not a battle is going to be dangerous or not, the benchmark is there to tell you that. The encounter building system for D&D 2024 isn't really there to tell you, hey, a battle may be difficult. It's really there to help you build a difficult battle. And that, I think, is a different approach that it takes.

If it's like, oh, if you just want to know whether or not a battle is going to be dangerous or not, the benchmark is there to tell you that. The encounter building system for D&D 2024 isn't really there to tell you, hey, a battle may be difficult. It's really there to help you build a difficult battle. And that, I think, is a different approach that it takes.

If it's like, oh, if you just want to know whether or not a battle is going to be dangerous or not, the benchmark is there to tell you that. The encounter building system for D&D 2024 isn't really there to tell you, hey, a battle may be difficult. It's really there to help you build a difficult battle. And that, I think, is a different approach that it takes.

So that's really the whole deep dive of challenge rating. In the end, I would say keep in mind that challenge rating is an abstract measure that compares one monster to another and can help you define custom monsters by looking at what other monsters exist at a given challenge rating.

So that's really the whole deep dive of challenge rating. In the end, I would say keep in mind that challenge rating is an abstract measure that compares one monster to another and can help you define custom monsters by looking at what other monsters exist at a given challenge rating.

So that's really the whole deep dive of challenge rating. In the end, I would say keep in mind that challenge rating is an abstract measure that compares one monster to another and can help you define custom monsters by looking at what other monsters exist at a given challenge rating.

I think the best value of challenge rating is using them to create a lazy encounter benchmark to give you a rough gauge of whether or not an encounter is going to be deadly by measuring all the sum total of character levels to the sum total of monster challenge ratings, recognizing you divide it by four.

I think the best value of challenge rating is using them to create a lazy encounter benchmark to give you a rough gauge of whether or not an encounter is going to be deadly by measuring all the sum total of character levels to the sum total of monster challenge ratings, recognizing you divide it by four.

I think the best value of challenge rating is using them to create a lazy encounter benchmark to give you a rough gauge of whether or not an encounter is going to be deadly by measuring all the sum total of character levels to the sum total of monster challenge ratings, recognizing you divide it by four.

If the character you divide the sum total character levels by four, if their first or fourth level or by two, if their fifth level and above. And that generally speaking, no monster, a single monster may be difficult to deadly for a group if its challenge rating is higher than the character levels from first to four or higher than one and a half times character levels from fifth level and above.

If the character you divide the sum total character levels by four, if their first or fourth level or by two, if their fifth level and above. And that generally speaking, no monster, a single monster may be difficult to deadly for a group if its challenge rating is higher than the character levels from first to four or higher than one and a half times character levels from fifth level and above.