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Creating balanced combat encounters can be surprisingly difficult,
especially for newer Dungeon/Game Masters (DMs / GMs). If using the 2014
version’s Dungeon Master’s Guide (DMG) you need to consult several
interrelated tables for each encounter. Even though the 2024 version of
fifth edition D&D streamlined this process slightly it can still be
cumbersome to balance an encounter. To help other newbies,
dndR includes a handful of functions aimed at simplifying
the encounter balancing process.
If you’d rather avoid consulting the rulebooks at all, the
encounter_creator function may be a valuable tool for you
to consider. This function requires the average level of all player
characters in the party (if all players are the same level this is just
that level), the number of players in the party, which version of fifth
edition D&D you’re using, and how difficult you’d like to make the
encounter (allowable answers differ between the 2014 and 2024 versions).
Once you’ve provided this information, it will automatically select one
tougher creature and as many other creatures as possible without
making the encounter more difficult than you specified.
There is also an optional argument to specify the maximum number of creatures if desired. The 2024 version is particularly susceptible to including a number of monsters that–while mathematically appropriate–can be logistically challenging to actually keep track of during a session but this argument may also be helpful for those playing under the 2014 rules.
The function returns a dataframe with one row for each unique experience point (XP) value of the selected creatures. A separate column indicates the number of creatures worth that amount of XP that should be selected in the encounter. The function also returns the “pool” of XP available for the encounter and the realized XP “cost” of the chosen creatures. More detail is provided on this later in this vignette but for now keep in mind that there is an optimization step being done under the hood so this function may not always return identical results. I suggest running the function more than once until you are satisfied with the results! Or increasing the “try” argument to give the function more chances to find the optimal encounter composition.
# Pick a hard set of creatures for a four-person party of 3rd level characters
## Try 10 times to find the 'best' encounter
encounter_creator(party_level = 3, party_size = 4, ver = "2014", difficulty = "hard", try = 10)
#> # A tibble: 4 × 4
#> creature_xp creature_count encounter_xp_pool encounter_xp_cost
#> <dbl> <int> <dbl> <dbl>
#> 1 200 1 900 890
#> 2 100 2 900 890
#> 3 25 1 900 890
#> 4 10 2 900 890
# Design a moderately difficult encounter for a 3-person, 8th level party with no more than 6 creatures
encounter_creator(party_level = 8, party_size = 4, ver = "2024", difficulty = "moderate", max_creatures = 6)
#> # A tibble: 5 × 4
#> creature_xp creature_count encounter_xp_pool encounter_xp_cost
#> <dbl> <int> <dbl> <dbl>
#> 1 5900 1 6800 6795
#> 2 700 1 6800 6795
#> 3 100 1 6800 6795
#> 4 50 1 6800 6795
#> 5 25 1 6800 6795After this function has identified the number and XP value of the
creatures in this encounter, you may consider using other
dndR functions to identify specific creatures (e.g.,
creature_list, etc.) or use your favorite source book /
homebrew to decide on particular creatures.
This may be more detail than you require but a small description of how experience points are used to balance encounters (in and outside of this R package) will be useful context for some of the other encounter balancing tools described below. In the In essence, the difficulty of a combat encounter in Dungeons and Dragons is affected by four things:
The first three go into the “pool” of available experience points to spend on a given encounter regardless of whether you’re using the 2014 or 2024 version of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. If you’re using the 2014 version, the number of enemies is used to calculate a realized XP cost by applying a multiplier to the XP pool. In the 2024 version, the XP pool is the XP cost but there is a qualitative note in the Player’s Handbook that GMs will want to be careful about the number of enemies.
Because it’s simpler, let’s start by identifying the XP pool for a
given party under the 2024 rules. Let’s imagine that we have a 3rd level
party composed of four players and we want to know how much XP is needed
to make a moderately difficult encounter. We can use the
xp_pool function to do this! Note that the names of the
difficulty levels also differ between the 5e D&D versions.
# Calculate pool of available XP
xp_pool(party_level = 3, party_size = 4, ver = "2024", difficulty = "moderate")
#> [1] 900If you’re playing under the 2024 version, simply take this number, open up your favorite website or source book and identify creatures whose XP can be added up to be equal to or beneath that value!
The 2014 DMG handles the total XP pool and the XP cost in two
separate tables. In order to balance an encounter you need to carefully
consult both of them. Often this involves iterative testing of which
number and combination of creatures is below the available pool after
applying the relevant multiplier. dndR provides two
functions to handle this instead: xp_pool and
xp_cost.
Let’s begin by calculating the XP pool from the same party as above but under the 2014 rules version.
# Calculate pool of available XP
xp_pool(party_level = 3, party_size = 4, ver = "2014", difficulty = "medium")
#> [1] 600Once you have that in mind, you can make a note of that number and
then use xp_cost repeatedly until you find the highest
realized XP cost that will still fall beneath that threshold. Note that
using xp_cost while specifying the 2024 rules (i.e.,
ver = "2024") will return a warning because the XP pool
returned by xp_pool is the XP cost in that version
of fifth edition D&D. Interestingly, the level of the party has no
effect on the realized XP cost; only the number of players and number of
enemies matters!
# Identify 'realized' XP of two monsters worth a total of 800 XP versus our party
xp_cost(monster_xp = 500, monster_count = 2, party_size = 4, ver = "2014")
#> [1] 750Even though the total XP value of the creatures is beneath the
threshold identified by xp_pool, the realized XP cost is
higher after the appropriate multipliers are applied. Using
xp_pool alone would risk creating a much harder encounter
than you intended. In fact, in this case, that realized XP value is
actually appropriate for a “deadly” encounter! Because player characters
tend to be stronger under the 2024 rules (all else being equal) this XP
cost versus pool comparison is no longer necessary.
While encounter_creator is meant to avoid needing to use
these helper functions, you can of course use these if you’d rather take
a middle path between relying entirely on this package versus relying
entirely on the core rulebooks.
These binaries (installable software) and packages are in development.
They may not be fully stable and should be used with caution. We make no claims about them.
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