Greetings gamers from all systems, places and timelines.
Plenty of players and DMs alike don’t enjoy random encounters, and I get it. Because at one point they were playing in a game and the person running it tossed out an encounter that was memorable for all the wrong reasons. Like, if the characters were traveling between towns, they got rolled up on by half a dozen fire giants with severe anger management issues. Or the players stumbled into an unavoidable battle, which was supersized with low-threat monsters and ended up not only dragging on but had about as much tension as forty pounds of wet spaghetti.
But what does a good encounter look like? While not every battle should push the characters to their limits, whether in or outside on the main story arc, they also shouldn’t come off as material from a filler episode. If done well, these seemingly random battles should not only set the tone for your campaign but also promote its lore.
So, let’s take a look at developing encounters, so yours can be memorable for all the right reasons.
1. How Experienced Are the Characters and Where Are They?
When making a basic encounter, the two most important factors are terrain and the level of the characters. While having your party of low-level characters accidentally stumble into a beholder hive might be hilarious, you also might want to leave your car running. So, if your party is relatively low level, avoid the temptation of throwing those neat, and extremely deadly, higher-challenging-rating monsters at them, at least for now.
Then you could start grouping monsters of an appropriate CR by the terrain the characters are running in. If you are undecided on which terrain to use, a forest provides the widest variety of options. There, you could find everything from kobolds to undead or even a green dragon, just to name a few.
2. Be Prepared Without Going Crazy
Once you’ve built a master creature list, it will allow you to make any number of encounters based on combinations of those monsters set in the terrain they are typically located in. This method can be applied to both your fixed story-based encounters and random ones as well. In this way, if the ranger talks the party into investigating the marsh to the west totally out of left field, you’re covered.
Just remember: If you’re going to put a Remorhaz, a night hag, and purple worm In one encounter, you better be ready with one hell of an explanation on why they all teamed up.
3. Don’t Hesitate to Use Obscure Monsters or House-Rule Ordinary Ones
Back in the day, I rather enjoyed pulling some less widely used monsters from the original Fiend Folio for my encounters. Also, don’t be afraid to tweak the stats of existing monsters to give your knowledgeable players a surprise. Because, nothing quite kills the mood like when someone says something to the effect of, “Yeah, that monster in your face is nearly 10 feet tall and weighs around half a ton, but that’s just an ogre with a challenge rating of 2.”
Naturally, how you give creatures custom tweaks depends largely on the level of the party. In terms of story, maybe this ogre has extensive combat experience, or a wizard has used magic to ramp up his abilities. In either case, you could allow this elite ogre to fight using the statistics of a CR 5 hill giant or maybe even higher. This way, you’ve taught your players to both not judge a book by its cover and that ogres have layers.
4. Your Encounters Can Set the Mood for Your Game
As the DM, you have an opportunity to establish early on how exploration works in your game. Is death waiting around every corner, or can your players expect a fair and balanced encounter anywhere they go, from the woods outside town to the nine hells?
Somewhere in the middle is an established method where the areas the characters could explore play a factor in the encounter difficulty. If the party wanders into a place they shouldn’t be just yet, give them a tough encounter to say, “Come back here later unless your characters want to spend the night in the ER.”
5. Avoid Unavoidable Encounters
The last thing you want is for your players to think that their actions don’t matter. Such as, what if, regardless of which direction everyone travels or at what time, they will still hit all of the same encounters. Because, if that’s happening, the characters could just walk randomly outside of town and grind out some levels like we all used to do in the earlier versions of Final Fantasy.
Ideally, encounters should provide the players with a feeling of the unexpected instead of simply moving through pages of a story. While an encounter need not be truly random, it also shouldn’t feel predetermined. Likewise, if the DM is looking to run a specially crafted encounter, the last thing they will want is for it to come off as forced. If an encounter that was planned doesn’t seem to fit into what’s taking place in the game, for any number of reasons, then it’s better off not to do it at all. This will allow you to tuck that cool encounter away for a rainy day where it will be better received by your audience.
Final Thoughts
Craft your encounters by using creatures grouped by location from your master list. Then, no matter which direction or actions the players take, you will be prepared. Scale the encounter using the challenge rating system and then decide if you want to provide them with an easy, normal, or difficult battle. You might even want to have an encounter or two prepared if the players decide to stay in town longer than you expected. Such an encounter need not be combat-based, but it can provide an opportunity for some decent roleplay or for a chance to uncover a clue you weren’t sure how to deliver.
Keep your story reasoning straight throughout your encounters. It may not mean that the dark lord has returned if your group was attacked by orcs, but there should be a reason it happened in the first place. Be prepared for your game, but don’t be discouraged if your players might not get to everything. If things go faster than expected, you won’t look like a deer in the headlights, either.