# Encounter Balancing

Creating balanced combat encounters can be surprisingly difficult, especially for newer Dungeon/Game Masters (DMs / GMs). If using the 2014 version’s Dungeon Master’s Guide (DMG) you need to consult several interrelated tables for each encounter. Even though the 2024 version of fifth edition D&D streamlined this process slightly it can still be cumbersome to balance an encounter. To help other newbies, `dndR` includes a handful of functions aimed at simplifying the encounter balancing process.

## Encounter Creation

If you’d rather avoid consulting the rulebooks at all, the `encounter_creator` function may be a valuable tool for you to consider. This function requires the average level of all player characters in the party (if all players are the same level this is just that level), the number of players in the party, which version of fifth edition D&D you’re using, and how difficult you’d like to make the encounter (allowable answers differ between the 2014 and 2024 versions). Once you’ve provided this information, it will automatically select one tougher creature and as many other creatures as possible without making the encounter more difficult than you specified.

There is also an optional argument to specify the maximum number of creatures if desired. The 2024 version is particularly susceptible to including a number of monsters that–while mathematically appropriate–can be logistically challenging to actually keep track of during a session but this argument may also be helpful for those playing under the 2014 rules.

The function returns a dataframe with one row for each unique experience point (XP) value of the selected creatures. A separate column indicates the number of creatures worth that amount of XP that should be selected in the encounter. The function also returns the “pool” of XP available for the encounter and the realized XP “cost” of the chosen creatures. More detail is provided on this later in this vignette but for now keep in mind that there is an optimization step being done under the hood so this function may not always return identical results. I suggest running the function more than once until you are satisfied with the results! Or increasing the “try” argument to give the function more chances to find the optimal encounter composition.

    # Pick a hard set of creatures for a four-person party of 3rd level characters
    ## Try 10 times to find the 'best' encounter
    dndR::encounter_creator(party_level = 3, party_size = 4, ver = "2014", difficulty = "hard", try = 10)
    #> # A tibble: 4 × 4
    #>   creature_xp creature_count encounter_xp_pool encounter_xp_cost
    #>         <dbl>          <int>             <dbl>             <dbl>
    #> 1         200              1               900               890
    #> 2         100              2               900               890
    #> 3          25              1               900               890
    #> 4          10              2               900               890

    # Design a moderately difficult encounter for a 3-person, 8th level party with no more than 6 creatures
    dndR::encounter_creator(party_level = 8, party_size = 4, ver = "2024",
                            difficulty = "moderate", max_creatures = 6)
    #> # A tibble: 5 × 4
    #>   creature_xp creature_count encounter_xp_pool encounter_xp_cost
    #>         <dbl>          <int>             <dbl>             <dbl>
    #> 1        5900              1              6800              6795
    #> 2         700              1              6800              6795
    #> 3         100              1              6800              6795
    #> 4          50              1              6800              6795
    #> 5          25              1              6800              6795

After this function has identified the number and XP value of the creatures in this encounter, you may consider using other `dndR` functions to identify specific creatures (e.g., `creature_list`, etc.) or use your favorite source book / homebrew to decide on particular creatures.

## XP Balancing

This may be more detail than you require but a small description of how experience points are used to balance encounters (in and outside of this R package) will be useful context for some of the other encounter balancing tools described below. In the In essence, the difficulty of a combat encounter in Dungeons and Dragons is affected by four things:

1. Player character level
2. Number of party members
3. How difficult the GM wants to make the encounter
4. For the 2014 version only, how many enemy creatures are included

The first three go into the “pool” of available experience points to spend on a given encounter regardless of whether you’re using the 2014 or 2024 version of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. If you’re using the 2014 version, the number of enemies is used to calculate a realized XP cost by applying a multiplier to the XP pool. In the 2024 version, the XP pool is the XP cost but there is a qualitative note in the Player’s Handbook that GMs will want to be careful about the number of enemies.

### XP Balancing – 2024 5e

Because it’s simpler, let’s start by identifying the XP pool for a given party under the 2024 rules. Let’s imagine that we have a 3rd level party composed of four players and we want to know how much XP is needed to make a moderately difficult encounter. We can use the `xp_pool` function to do this! Note that the names of the difficulty levels also differ between the 5e D&D versions.

    # Calculate pool of available XP
    dndR::xp_pool(party_level = 3, party_size = 4, ver = "2024", difficulty = "moderate")
    #> [1] 900

If you’re playing under the 2024 version, simply take this number, open up your favorite website or source book and identify creatures whose XP can be added up to be equal to or beneath that value!

### XP Balancing – 2014 5e

The 2014 DMG handles the total XP pool and the XP cost in two separate tables. In order to balance an encounter you need to carefully consult both of them. Often this involves iterative testing of which number and combination of creatures is below the available pool after applying the relevant multiplier. `dndR` provides two functions to handle this instead: `xp_pool` and `xp_cost`.

Let’s begin by calculating the XP pool from the same party as above but under the 2014 rules version.

    # Calculate pool of available XP
    dndR::xp_pool(party_level = 3, party_size = 4, ver = "2014", difficulty = "medium")
    #> [1] 600

Once you have that in mind, you can make a note of that number and then use `xp_cost` repeatedly until you find the highest realized XP cost that will still fall beneath that threshold. Note that using `xp_cost` while specifying the 2024 rules (i.e., `ver = "2024"`) will return a warning because the XP pool returned by `xp_pool` is the XP cost in that version of fifth edition D&D. Interestingly, the level of the party has no effect on the realized XP cost; only the number of players and number of enemies matters!

    # Identify 'realized' XP of two monsters worth a total of 800 XP versus our party
    dndR::xp_cost(monster_xp = 500, monster_count = 2, party_size = 4, ver = "2014")
    #> [1] 750

Even though the total XP value of the creatures is beneath the threshold identified by `xp_pool`, the realized XP cost is higher after the appropriate multipliers are applied. Using `xp_pool` alone would risk creating a much harder encounter than you intended. In fact, in this case, that realized XP value is actually appropriate for a “deadly” encounter! Because player characters tend to be stronger under the 2024 rules (all else being equal) this XP cost versus pool comparison is no longer necessary.

While `encounter_creator` is meant to avoid needing to use these helper functions, you can of course use these if you’d rather take a middle path between relying entirely on this package versus relying entirely on the core rulebooks.