Encounter Lab

OVERVIEW

There are lots of ways to manage encounter difficulty, and the ways monsters are created - as well as the way player power is estimated - will give you the tools you need to create challenging encounters for your players without boring or overwhelming them. Use the guide below to first estimate your players’ power level, and then identify the kinds of monsters you can throw at them to produce everything from easy filler encounters to hard-as-nails boss fights.

How to estimate character (and group) power levels

Whether you’ve used the Roll or Buy method for Character Creation, this part’s fairly easy: you’ll generate the following stats before a session and use them to build your encounters:

PARTY STAT TLA FORMULA PURPOSE
TOTAL POWER TP Sum all Characters’ EXP Define min/max power for entire encounter group
AVERAGE POWER AP TP / Party Size Define min/max power for individuals in an encounter group.

Using the guide pages that follow, you’ll use the APL to determine min and max strengths for each individual monster in an encounter, and the TPL to determine the appropriate total strength for all the monsters in the encounter.

What Campaign Types can we pick from?

The following table describes the names and starting character rolls for each Campaign Type:

CAMPAIGN ROLL/SAVE BUY MAX MASTERY FACTION DICE
DOOMED 3d2 18 Novice 1d6
NORMAL 3d4 32 Apprentice 2d6
AWAKENED 3d6 44 Journeyman 2d6
FATED 3d8 56 Journeyman 3d6
CHOSEN 3d10 68 Artisan 3d6
MYTHIC 3d12 80 Artisan 4d6
  • ROLL: Dice to roll for each Character Aspect if you use the ROLL method of character creation.
    • Also used as the unmodified SAVE for Characters for this Campaign Type
  • BUY: Points to allocate across all Character Aspects if you use the BUY method of character creation.
  • MAX MASTERY: New characters cannot purchase ABILITIES beyond this level of mastery.
  • FACTION DICE: How many dice a new Character can allocate across their Aligned FACTIONS.