Creating A Quality Encounter

    So, you've got a great concept for your game. You've gotten started in your campaign and everything is going well, but one thing is driving you crazy: how to create an encounter for your players. A lot of people struggle with this. Either the encounter is too easy and players blow through it or you've over done it and everyone is dying. Balance is really difficult to find. So, I'm going to give you some suggestions to help you keep conflicts both exciting and balanced. 

    Before you get down to stats and numbers, make sure that your encounter has meaning and it pushes the story forward. There is a common urge to make sure there are enemies to fight every time you play, and this leads to a cold mathematical match. Battle is much more satisfying when it serves a purpose and affects the story. If you approach creating an encounter with the idea that it's meaningful, you'll be less likely to throw cannon folder. 

    When you plan your encounter, the most important thing to remember is your enemies are sentient creatures with their own lives and motivations. This also means they are not the push over henchmen in the 60's Batman series that could be dispatched with chop to the neck. No, they are the opposing soldiers in a battle from Game of Thrones. They are smart, experienced fighters that desperately want to stay alive. Make sure you use strategy against your players! If your players are attacking the enemy camp, they should rarely waltz in kill the enemy sitting down. There should be patrols, look-outs, traps, armed guards inside the camp. If they are attack a lair, there should be heightened defenses with ingenuity! I can make another post going into more detail about this in the future. Make your enemies good at their job!

    

    Now, when considering the difficulty and power of your enemies you might be focusing purely on the armor rating and damage rating. What you want to pay attention to first is the chance to hit factor. In most TTRPGs, your players have an overwhelming chance to hit the enemy. This means two things, that weaker enemies will be eliminated quickly and a single tough guy will be bombarded by more damage than they can put out. You may have one player that is a damage powerhouse, such as a Paladin and that needs to be considered. Here are a couple ways to create a balanced encounter with the chance to hit factor:

1. Give your enemies an equal chance to hit your players (this usually means raising their attack stat a bit). You should slightly outnumber your players with most of your enemies dealing low damage, but a couple enemies should hit hard. If you have a player with a super high difficulty to hit, then create a class of enemy that will land a hit occasionally and pair them up in battle.   

2. Give your enemies an equal chance to hit your players. Make an equal number of enemies or less (definitely less if most party members are squishy). Pump up the damage output to make sure the few hits they get in before being overwhelmed count. 

3. Insert one or two very strong enemies with a strong chance to hit and medium power. Insert minions (2 to 1 ratio) with a low chance to hit and low power. Give the strong enemies abilities that can weaken players or make the fight more difficult rather than dealing more damage. 

I suggest never using the approach of flooding your players with tons of puny enemies. This will take forever and usually ends up being a piece of cake for them anyway. I only set up weak enemies for role playing purposes for players to show off a bit. Otherwise, these are the three best arrangements I suggest. Remember, these enemies should never just be standing around waiting to be killed. They should be moving, taking cover, flanking, and retreating when they start to lose. They should use creative means to get the upper hand in battle because they want to live just as much as the hero. 

I should add that my philosophy toward battle or other encounters is that they should always be dangerous. You don't have a real adventure if there is no real danger. These arrangements should leave your players injured and that's also why I think conflict needs to be meaningful and purposeful. You don't need to have your characters have an encounter like this 2-3 times a session. Maybe you don't even have a battle every session. Try to imagine being a real adventurer, would you be looking for a deadly fight every day?   

These are some general suggestions on building an exciting and balanced encounter. As usual, you can contact me if you have any further questions. If you'd like to see me write a post on a specific topic. I am a GM supplement writer for hire. I will talk to you about what you're trying to create and put your ideas into a design to improve your campaign. 

You can find me on Twitter @flayer85

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