> Jeremy Tolbert
>
> What range of CRs would you put on it?
> Somewhere in Core
> Book II, it says that an adventure, as a rule of thumb, should be
> composed of:
> 10% Easy (EL lower)
> 20% Easy if handled properly
> 50% Challenging (EL equal to party level)
> 15% Very difficult (1 to 4 EL higher than party level)
> 5% Overpowering EL 5+ higher than party level
>
> Do you think such a principle should be applied to random
> encounter tables? Or in a module in general?
I think that is intended for a module in general, but it could be used to
build a random encounter table if you clipped the upper end. I prefer to
plan high-level encounters to ensure I don't create something that the PCs
have no chance to finish.
An easy way to do this is to use two dice and add the result for your table
lookup (2d4, 2d6, etc). Then put your average encounters in the middle, and
your hard or easy ones on the ends. The bell-curve distribution of the dice
automatically makes it hard to get something out of the ordinary. A 6-7-8
result on 2d6 is 17 in 36 chances, or almost 50%. A 2-3 result is 3 in 36
or almost 10%. A 12 is 1 in 36 is about 2.5%.
To me, if the PCs catch the high-powered encounters it should probably
reduce the number of encounters they have planned.
-Brad
