a-dms-side-quest:

I CANNOT believe I don’t have anything under my DM Tips and Tricks section for encounter building! So I’m going to try and give some advice (but I’ve included some links at the bottom to some good posts about encounter building, which I’ll have to reblog soon!) 

Encounters can be tricky. You want to have the “perfect” hook to entice your players and you want the encounter to go smoothly – perhaps not as planned but at least smoothly. 

However, I think it is highly important to know that how these encounters make your players feel is the key. In the long run your players may not remember the name of the barmaid who gave them that valuable piece of information, or the history of the haunted tavern they’re forced to stay in – they’re gonna remember how you made them feel. 

So you want to make your encounters harder? I’m assuming you understand that encounters come in environmental, social, and combat forms! 

Environment encounters could be something like a natural disaster such as: the entire village is underwater and someone must rescue the innocent people! Those are already pretty difficult challenges and they’re pretty time consuming. 

Social encounters can be peaceful, difficult, or all around terrifying. It all depends on the NPCs your players are encountering – hehe. To make social encounters worth it for your players think deeply about the NPC they are dealing with. Perhaps the suspicious blacksmith was wronged in the past and that explains why he refuses to give out that vital piece of information. Or maybe that priest comes off as pretentious because of his past life as an orphaned street beggar. Giving your NPCs backstories and flavor can really spice up any encounter. 

• When it comes to my NPC I like to think of WWH – Why, What, and How. Why have the players encountered (or sought out) this NPC, What do the players need to know from the NPC and what do they want to get from them, and how will they get it. 
• For example: The players have ended up in on the merchants ship because they heard through tavern gossip that she was the best person to go to for exotic animals. The players need to buy a purple quail’s egg for a tyrant king’s birthday party and they’ve been sent to find one as quickly as possible. How will they get this from the merchant who, after a quick glance around the ship, has a whole hoard of quail’s eggs – they can choose to buy it for a hefty sum, haggle and bargain with the merchant, or try to steal it (they almost always try to steal it). This merchant, however, is very friendly and trusting of most people so she would have no problem lowering the price for the party, as long as they do her any favor she may need in the future. 

Combat encounters are very hard for me to come up with. I’ve typically had the habit of saying something like “You’re walking towards the castle and out of the bushes explodes a hungry hungry hippo. Roll for initiative” buuuuuttttt you can make combat encounters harder simply by giving the player’s opponents more hit points or more powerful attacks – instead of 2d6 fire damage maybe it deals 4d6 fire damage. I have a link below by dndplus that goes into more detail about combat encounters because unfortunately I am not so sure what else to say about combat encounters – I have so much to learn! 

I hope I’ve helped even if it was just a little

xx

Chelsea 

THIS post elaborates on some environmental encounters such as the natural disasters I mentioned! 

THIS is a post of some random wilderness encounters! Very good stuff! 

THIS post is SO detailed about combat encounters – much better than what I had to say! 

THIS post breaks down encounters in environment, social, and combat encounters just like I did and is worth the read! It doesn’t explain how to make encounters harder but it’s a good base for building encounters!