Encounters are the individual scenes in the larger story of your adventure. Reduced to fundamentals, an encounter is an objective with an obstacle. It accomplishes one or more of the following:
The following objectives can be foundations for encounters. Although these objectives focus on a single encounter during an adventure, using the same objective in multiple encounters allows you to combine these encounters into a larger obstacle or problem the adventurers must overcome.
The characters must convince two opposing groups (or their leaders) to end the conflict that embroils them. As a complication, the characters might have enemies on one or both of the opposing sides, or some other group or individual might be instigating the conflict to further its own ends. An encounter aimed at making peace might involve only social interaction, perhaps with the threat of combat if negotiations go poorly. It could also begin as a combat encounter, with the characters trying to stop the fighting and get the parties talking to each other.
The characters must act as bodyguards or protect some object in their custody. As a complication, an NPC under the party’s protection might be cursed, panicked, unable to fight, or apt to risk the lives of the adventurers through dubious decisions. The object the adventurers have sworn to protect might be sentient, cursed, or difficult to transport. Such an encounter might be a combat encounter or an exploration encounter, with either Hostile monsters or a dangerous environment threatening the NPC or object the characters are trying to protect. If the characters are protecting an NPC, this objective can add an element of social interaction to a combat or exploration encounter.
The adventurers must gain possession of a specific object in the area of the encounter, often with a time limit. This might be a combat encounter, with monsters protecting the object, or an exploration encounter, with traps or hazards preventing access to the object. As a complication, enemies might desire the object as much as the adventurers do, adding a combat element to an exploration encounter or complicating a combat.
The adventurers must pass through a dangerous area. As with retrieving an object, reaching the exit is a higher priority than killing opponents in the area. A time limit adds a complication, as does a decision point that might lead characters astray. This might be an exploration encounter, with traps and hazards as complications, or a combat encounter against Hostile monsters.
The adventurers need to move through the encounter area without their enemies noticing. This is typically an exploration encounter, but if the characters are detected, a combat encounter or social interaction might result.
The plots of evil cult leaders, malevolent spellcasters, and Fiends often involve rituals that must be foiled. In a combat encounter, characters might have to fight their way through evil minions before attempting to disrupt the ritual’s magic. This could also drive an exploration encounter, where the challenge is getting to the place where the ritual is occurring, or a social interaction encounter, where the objective is convincing the ritual leaders to stop their rite. As a complication, the ritual might be close to completion when the characters arrive, imposing a time limit. The ritual’s completion might have immediate consequences, too.
A villain the characters seek to defeat is surrounded by minions powerful enough to kill the adventurers. The characters can flee and hope to confront the villain another day, or they can try to fight their way through the minions. As a complication, the minions might be innocent creatures under the villain’s control. Killing the villain means breaking that control, but the adventurers must endure the minions’ attacks until the villain falls.
Goblin raiders prepare an ambush in a gorge.
Make sure your players have clear objectives they can pursue at every stage of the adventure. Three simple techniques can ensure that the players understand the task at hand and how to pursue it:
Adviser NPCs. A helpful NPC in a social interaction can offer advice and suggestions to the characters. Such an NPC might be the patron who initially sent the characters on the adventure, someone they met along the way, or a character’s contact. When you’re planning an adventure, include NPCs who can fill this role.
Evil Intrusion. If things start grinding to a halt, have the characters encounter a minion or monster connected to the adventure’s main threat. At the end of the encounter, perhaps the characters find information that gets them back on track. Plan one or two encounters like this ahead of time.
The DM’s Role. If the characters can’t figure out how to solve an encounter or aren’t sure what to do next, you can remind the players of things their characters have already learned or call for Intelligence (Investigation) or similar checks to see if their characters can remember and connect things that the players might be missing.
As described in the “Know Your Players” section in chapter 2, players have different tastes in the activities they enjoy in the game. An adventure needs to account for the different players and characters in your group to draw them into the story.
An adventure that includes a balance of exploration, social interaction, and combat is likely to appeal to a wide breadth of players. But an adventure you create for your home campaign doesn’t have to appeal to every possible player interest—only to the players at your table.
You can design encounters that appeal to multiple player motivations. Imagine a fight pitting the characters against a gang of gnolls, delighting the players who enjoy fighting. Then a young dragon wanders into the middle of the fight. Suddenly the fight can swing one of two ways: the dragon could help the gnolls against the party or help the party against the gnolls. It’s up to the players who thrive on acting to persuade the dragon to help the party.
Make sure there are multiple ways the characters can progress through the adventure at any point, so if they miss one way, they have an alternative. Plan opportunities for the adventure to move forward even when the characters fail. Use challenges with a single path to success only as chances for the characters to obtain extra rewards.
The “Running Social Interaction” section in chapter 2 offers advice for handling social interaction encounters and can help you craft these encounters. The “Nonplayer Characters” section in chapter 3 is also essential for creating these encounters.
An encounter centered on exploration might involve the characters trying to disarm a trap, find a secret door, or discover something about the adventure location. An exploration encounter could also involve the characters spending a day crossing a rolling plain or traversing vast caverns.
The “Running Exploration” section in chapter 2 can help you craft these encounters as well as run them. Various sections in chapter 3 can also help you detail obstacles and dangers in an exploration encounter: see “Chases,” “Curses and Magical Contagions,” “Doors,” “Environmental Effects,” “Hazards,” “Poison,” and “Traps” in particular.
The following features can make a combat encounter more interesting or challenging:
Changes in Elevation. Terrain features that provide a change of elevation (such as stacks of empty crates, ledges, and balconies) reward clever positioning and encourage characters to jump, climb, fly, or teleport.
Defensive Positions. Enemies in hard-to-reach locations or defensive positions force characters who normally attack at range to move around.
Hazards. The “Hazards” section in chapter 3 describes dangerous features, such as patches of green slime, that characters or their enemies can use to their advantage.
Mixed Monster Groups. When different types of monsters work together, they can combine their abilities—just like characters with different classes and origins. A diverse force is more powerful.
Reasons to Move. Use features that encourage characters and their enemies to move around, such as chandeliers, kegs of gunpowder or oil, and rolling stone traps.
Use the following guidelines to create a combat encounter of a desired level of difficulty.
Step 1: Choose a Difficulty. Three categories describe the range of encounter difficulty:
Low Difficulty. An encounter of low difficulty is likely to have one or two scary moments for the players, but their characters should emerge victorious with no casualties. One or more of them might need to use healing resources, however. As a rough guideline, a single monster generally presents a low-difficulty challenge for a party of four characters whose level equals the monster’s Challenge Rating.
Moderate Difficulty. Absent healing and other resources, an encounter of moderate difficulty could go badly for the adventurers. Weaker characters might get taken out of the fight, and there’s a slim chance that one or more characters might die.
High Difficulty. A high-difficulty encounter could be lethal for one or more characters. To survive it, the characters will need smart tactics, quick thinking, and maybe even a little luck.
Step 2: Determine Your XP Budget. Using the XP Budget per Character table, cross-reference the party’s level with the desired encounter difficulty. Multiply the number in the table by the number of characters in the party to get your XP budget for the encounter.
| Party's Level | Low Difficulty | Moderate Difficulty | High Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 50 | 75 | 100 |
| 2 | 100 | 150 | 200 |
| 3 | 150 | 225 | 400 |
| 4 | 250 | 375 | 500 |
| 5 | 500 | 750 | 1,100 |
| 6 | 600 | 1,000 | 1,400 |
| 7 | 750 | 1,300 | 1,700 |
| 8 | 1,000 | 1,700 | 2,100 |
| 9 | 1,300 | 2,000 | 2,600 |
| 10 | 1,600 | 2,300 | 3,100 |
| 11 | 1,900 | 2,900 | 4,100 |
| 12 | 2,200 | 3,700 | 4,700 |
| 13 | 2,600 | 4,200 | 5,400 |
| 14 | 2,900 | 4,900 | 6,200 |
| 15 | 3,300 | 5,400 | 7,800 |
| 16 | 3,800 | 6,100 | 9,800 |
| 17 | 4,500 | 7,200 | 11,700 |
| 18 | 5,000 | 8,700 | 14,200 |
| 19 | 5,500 | 10,700 | 17,200 |
| 20 | 6,400 | 13,200 | 22,000 |
Step 3: Spend Your Budget. Every creature has an XP value in its stat block. When you add a creature to your combat encounter, deduct its XP from your XP budget to determine how many XP you have left to spend. Spend as much of your XP budget as you can without going over. It’s OK if you have a few unspent XP left over. Examples are given below:
Example 1. A low-difficulty encounter for four level 1 characters has an XP budget of 50 × 4, for a total of 200 XP. With that, you could build any of the following encounters:
Example 2. A moderate-difficulty encounter for five level 3 characters has an XP budget of 225 × 5, for a total of 1,125 XP. With that, you could build either of these encounters:
Example 3. A high-difficulty encounter for six level 15 characters has an XP budget of 7,800 × 6, for a total of 46,800 XP. With that, you could build this encounter:
When creating and running combat encounters, keep the following in mind.
Many Creatures. The more creatures in an encounter, the higher the risk that a lucky streak on their part could deal more damage to the characters than you expect. If your encounter includes more than two creatures per character, include fragile creatures that can be defeated quickly. This guideline is especially important for characters of level 1 or 2.
Adjustments. A player’s absence might warrant removing creatures from an encounter to keep it at the intended difficulty. Also, die rolls and other factors can result in an encounter being easier or harder than intended. You can adjust an encounter on the fly, such as by having creatures flee (making the encounter easier) or adding reinforcements (making the encounter harder).
CR 0 Creatures. Creatures that have a CR of 0, particularly ones that are worth 0 XP, should be used sparingly. If you want to include many CR 0 critters in an encounter, use swarms from the Monster Manual instead.
Number of Stat Blocks. The best combat encounters often pair one kind of creature with another, such as fire giants paired with hell hounds. Be mindful of the number of stat blocks you need to run the encounter. Referencing more than two or three stat blocks for a single encounter can be daunting, particularly if the creatures are complex.
Powerful Creatures. If your combat encounter includes a creature whose CR is higher than the party’s level, be aware that such a creature might deal enough damage with a single action to take out one or more characters. For example, an Ogre (CR 2) can kill a level 1 Wizard with a single blow.
Unusual Features. If a monster has a feature that lower-level characters can’t easily overcome, consider not adding that monster to an encounter for characters whose level is lower than the monster’s Challenge Rating.
The attitudes, motivations, and behavior of the monsters in an encounter help determine how a social interaction plays out (and whether it might erupt into combat) and influence the course of combat.
A published adventure typically notes or implies whether a creature’s initial attitude toward the adventurers is Friendly, Indifferent, or Hostile. In an encounter you’ve created, you can decide that starting attitude, or you can randomly determine it using the Initial Attitude table.
| 1d12* | Initial Attitude |
|---|---|
| 4 or lower | Hostile |
| 5–8 | Indifferent |
| 9 or higher | Friendly |
*Roll different dice to alter the range and likelihood of possible attitudes. For example, you could roll 1d6 for a predatory monster, 1d6 + 3 for ordinary travelers, or 1d6 + 6 for kindhearted individuals.
If an encounter involves a significant individual, use the guidance in the “Nonplayer Characters” section of chapter 3 to flesh out the details of that individual’s personality and aims. For a group of nameless monsters, you can decide on a personality based on the monsters’ entries in the Monster Manual, or you can use the Monster Personality table to inform how you portray the monsters and their actions. It’s simplest to assign the same personality traits to an entire group of monsters in an encounter. For example, one bandit gang might be an unruly mob of braggarts, while the members of another gang are always on edge and ready to flee at the first sign of danger.
| 1d8 | Personality |
|---|---|
| 1 | Cowardly; surrenders easily |
| 2 | Greedy; wants treasure |
| 3 | Boastful; makes a show of bravery but runs from danger |
| 4 | Disorderly; poorly trained and easily rattled |
| 5 | Fanatical; ready to die fighting |
| 6 | Brave; stands firm against danger |
| 7 | Jocular; taunts enemies |
| 8 | Orderly; difficult to rattle |
Encounters with groups of monsters can be more interesting if rivalries, hatreds, or attachments exist among the monsters in the group. The death of a much-revered leader might throw its followers into a frenzy. On the other hand, a monster might flee if its hunting companion is killed, or a mistreated toady might be eager to surrender and betray its boss in return for its life. You can use the Monster Relationships table to inspire such relationships within a monster group.
| 1d6 | Relationship |
|---|---|
| 1 | Two monsters have a bitter rivalry; each wants the other to suffer. |
| 2 | One monster, bullied by the others, hangs back and flees at the first opportunity. |
| 3 | One monster is revered or even worshiped by the others, who will die for it. |
| 4 | One monster is admired by the group; its allies try to impress or help it. |
| 5 | One monster cares only for itself and not the rest of the group. |
| 6 | One monster bullies the others; it forces them into danger, but they want it defeated. |
Kobolds build a barricade to keep adventurers at bay.
A great way to make an adventure location feel alive—particularly an organized base or stronghold—is to allow its denizens to react to the presence of the adventurers. Once they are aware of trespassers, sapient creatures might either fortify their own locations or leave those locations to assist colleagues and expel the invaders.
Take a copy of the adventure map, and pencil in the locations of all its inhabitants to give yourself a sense of where they’re located relative to each other. When the adventurers engage in combat or any other noisy activity, assume that nearby creatures hear the noise and are alerted to the adventurers’ presence. (Creatures that can’t hear might be alerted by vibrations or other sensory cues.) Once alerted, a creature has several options:
Ambush. The creature leaves its current location and takes up a position near the adventurers’ location, hoping to catch the adventurers unaware. Ambushers try to hide and, once hidden, take advantage of any opportune moment to attack.
Fortify. The creature attempts to fortify its location by using furniture or heavy objects to block doors or entryways. Increase the DC to force open a blocked door by 3, and hastily blocked passageways are Difficult Terrain. A creature with a ranged attack that selects this option seeks cover in its location.
Hide/Flee. If possible, the creature hides in its current location, hoping to avoid any adventurers that enter. If there is nowhere to hide, the creature flees to a location farther from the adventurers or flees to any nearby location occupied by its allies. If a fleeing creature reaches allies, those allies are immediately alerted to the presence of the adventurers; determine how those allies react.
Investigate. The creature rushes to the sound of the disturbance to investigate, possibly joining any battle that is underway. A creature that passes near an ally while moving to investigate a disturbance might ask that ally to accompany it.
If you can’t decide what an alerted creature should do, have it make a DC 10 Wisdom saving throw. On a successful save, the creature either investigates or lays an ambush; on a failed save, it hides or fortifies its location. When dealing with a group of creatures, the leader makes this saving throw on behalf of the entire group.
As creatures employ reactive tactics, make notes about their new locations on your adventure map.
Sapient creatures that have reason to believe their lair is likely to be invaded might set up a defense. Reasons to set up a defense include the following:
Prepared defenders commonly use one or more of the following tactics:
Ambushes and Barricades. Some defenders might move from their original locations to locations where they can hide near critical passageways. Defenders might also use furniture and debris to block off passages, hoping to channel invaders toward prepared strongpoints.
Sentries and Alarms. Some creatures might move from their keyed locations to locations that allow them to monitor entrances to the lair. If possible, these creatures might equip themselves with an alarm such as a horn or improvised gong (an empty kettle, perhaps). At the first sight of intruders, they raise the alarm, alerting nearby allies so those comrades can employ the reactive tactics described above.
Traps. The defenders might place additional traps, such as falling nets, throughout the lair (see “Traps” in chapter 3).
If the denizens of an adventure location employ any of these tactics, update your map as appropriate.
A good story hooks you in with an interesting introduction, builds tension steadily throughout the story, then reaches a climactic conclusion. It’s not always easy to mimic that structure in an adventure where the players control their characters’ actions, but you can use the encounters you plan to build tension toward a climax.
Each encounter in an adventure is an opportunity to make the characters’ situation more complex and urgent, with more significant consequences. Successive encounters raise the tension in an adventure naturally, as characters spend their limited resources. Variety also contributes to a sense of escalating tension. Build variety into your encounters in three ways:
Vary Encounter Type. Use a mix of social interaction, exploration, and combat encounters. Different types of encounters provide different amounts of tension (generally, combat encounters offer the most), but they also feel very different and can have drastically different stakes.
Vary Encounter Difficulty. Include encounters that offer low, moderate, and high difficulty. A mix of low- and moderate-difficulty encounters early in the adventure can lead to a climactic high-difficulty fight, perhaps against the adventure’s primary villain or another threat.
Vary Threats. Build encounters using different threats. If the characters are delving into a kuo-toa temple and therefore expect many encounters to include various kuo-toa, look for opportunities to include different monsters that might serve as guards, pets, or allies to the kuo-toa. Include a variety of hazards, environmental dangers, and traps in exploration encounters, and use NPCs with different personalities and different goals in social interaction encounters.
While successive encounters increase tension, taking a Short Rest relaxes the tension somewhat, as characters have a chance to replenish some of their resources. In many adventures, though, the characters and their players have a sense that they need to act quickly to deal with the situation presented by the adventure. This creates tension between the need to rest and the sense that things are getting worse while the characters are resting.
You can influence the pace and tension of your adventure by determining where and when the characters can rest. If the characters are exploring a vast dungeon, consider scattering a few small rooms with only one door, where the characters can bar the door and reasonably expect to spend an hour or even a night resting in safety. On the flip side, cautious characters might try to take a Short Rest between every encounter, never really straining their resources. It’s OK to interrupt those rests once in a while to maintain a sense of tension or to heighten the urgency, making it clear that even an hour spent resting could jeopardize their chances of success.
Easing Up. It is possible to dial up the urgency to the point that the players feel they don’t have time to investigate the interesting details they encounter in the world. When this happens, consider using a helpful NPC to take some of the pressure off. A wise elder might advise them that the situation is not as urgent as they fear, a whimsical Fey being might use magical mischief to force them to slow down, or a kindly Celestial could tell them they’re taking the concerns of the mortal world just a bit too seriously.
Mysterious lights glimmer in a remote mountain lake, drawing adventurers to explore.
Random encounters are randomly determined encounters that don’t occur in a fixed location. The options are often presented in a table. When a random encounter occurs, you roll a die and consult the table to determine what the party encounters. Sample random encounter tables appear in the adventure examples later in this chapter. Similar tables appear in many published adventures and rulebooks, and you can easily create your own by following these examples.
Handled well, random encounters can serve a variety of useful purposes.
Create Urgency. Wandering monsters encourage characters to keep moving and to find a safe place to rest. Sometimes you can create a sense of danger and urgency by rolling dice behind your DM screen, even without an actual encounter!
Drain Character Resources. By draining the party’s Hit Points and spell slots, leaving the adventurers feeling underpowered and vulnerable, random encounters can build tension in an adventure.
Establish Atmosphere. Thematic links among monsters appearing in random encounters create a tone and an atmosphere that define the environment the characters are exploring. For example, an encounter table filled with bats, wraiths, giant spiders, and zombies creates a sense of horror and suggests the possibility of even more terrifying foes.
Provide Assistance. Some random encounters can benefit the characters instead of hindering or harming them. Helpful creatures might give the characters useful information or assistance.
Reinforce Campaign Themes. Random encounters can remind the players of the major themes and conflicts in your campaign. For example, if a war between two nations is a major conflict in your campaign, you might design random encounter tables to reinforce the ever-present threat of that conflict, including encounters with bedraggled troops returning from battle, refugees fleeing invaders, lone messengers riding for the front lines, enemy war parties, and so on.
A Life of Its Own. Sometimes a random encounter that starts off incidental can become important to the story. A random encounter with a wandering ogre might end with the ogre offering to help the characters get where they need to go, or the ogre might have something in a nearby den that is significant to the adventure story—a prisoner, a stolen item, or important information. Or the players might find the ogre’s personality delightful, prompting you to make the ogre a more important part of the story.