#dnd encounter

e.g. "Guardians of the tower, arise! Defend your master and his sanct--oh god it got through. It? Them? It's large, but I think there might be one or more handlers. It seems to have defenses against fire in particular. I think…oh shit. Shit!--who cross [so-and-so] will be utterly destroyed!"

Today something happened that I'm still reeling over.

Encounter with an enchanted (posessed) armour.

Two of the PCs immediately try to fight it with no results.

One of them goes: "I want to try to wear it"

I replied with "You'll have to catch it first."

So we roll for it. The armour rolls a 1. This kid successfully grapples the armour and wears it.

"Ok, now make a Wisdom saving throw against the armour who's trying to possess you" I made the armour roll as well, since it was a will vs will battle. The armour rolls another Nat 1.

This level 1 character walks away with a full enchanted armour and its angry ghost clinging to it, yapping in his ear.

Third one already, this time with mimics. The goal is to make a full d10 table of those for every environment.

I don't have as clear cut of an answer I'd like to give you. The truth is, with the way CR is determined, and how wildly encounters can vary based on party composition, strategy, their rolls, and your rolls...sometimes an encounter could be extremely easy, and that same encounter with another group of the same size could be deadly. And how charitable your DM is with giving you magic items (especially if they are powerful) also plays a role. I struggle a lot with planning encounters in terms of 'balance'. So my answer? Don't create encounters for balance. Create encounters that make sense and use monsters you want to use. That doesn't mean throw your party of Lv 3's against a Tarrasque or a Beholder and hope for the best though! As a Dungeon Master running an encounter, your goal isn't to try and defeat the part. It's to make it challenging, and make them feel like they earned a triumphant victory. Monsters\Enemies may "know what they're doing," but so do YOU as the Dungeon Master. So, if a battle seems to be going too easy...some reinforcements show up! If a battle is going VERY poorly, make some decisions that still make sense, but give your party a bit of room to breath. A few examples, if they're losing but one or two enemies are close to death, they might run away even though victory is in the grasp because when push comes to shove they're cowards. What if the bandits are about to win, but one of them decides they can't live this life anymore? They can't live with themselves if they watch another group of would-be-heroes die for a few gold, so they suddenly switch sides. Maybe when the Owlbear takes out one hero, instead of 'finishing them off' it goes for the more immediate threat of the full HP fighter. The truth is there's a lot to running encounters that is fluid and dynamic and to be really good at it, you need to be able to adjust on the fly and make decisions about what is going to make the encounter most fun. It shouldn't just be "Okay, Combat has started, so now I'll try my best to TPK you all." TL:DR. Plan out encounters that make sense for wherever the party is going, and with whatever monsters you think will be fun. But, remember you have more control over the eb and flow of the battle than you realize! Don't be afraid to mix it up, or make choices that might seem 'sub optimal'. You're the DM, just make sure everyone is having fun.

Isometric ready-to-use dungeon set now on roll20 and drivethruRPG

Includes a multi-room multi-level dungeon with a combat arena, icey ruin and water temple variation, as well as tokens for each location so you can play immediately and a blank if you'd rather decorate yourself!