Hilarious clickbait titles aside, we’re going to talk about one of the easiest ways to determine whether or not the encounter you built will be a cake-walk, a Total Party Kill (TPK), or goldilocks (“juuust right”). Put down your notepad and toss your calculator into the garbage, because this trick revolves around incredibly simple comparisons.

Though I wrote a deeper dive into encounter-balancing a long time ago (which may be worth revisiting in the near future), feel free to use this as a bite-sized alternative.

Ready for the One Weird Trick?

Here it is:

# of Opponent Actions > # of Player Character Actions = Encounter is more difficult than anticipated

# of Opponent Actions < # of Player Character Actions = Encounter is easier than anticipated

# of Opponent Actions = # of Player Character Actions = Perfection

It Can’t Be This Simple!

In D&D 5th Edition, it really is. I used anticipated in the comparisons above because it’s still up to you to account for the opponents’ AC, hit points, and damage output during battles, or their available actions during any other type of encounter. At its core, 5th edition is built in favor of the Player Characters (PC): the range of abilities, potential number of hit points, and damage output usually outperform opponents of a similar Challenge Rating (CR) value. So, unless you tweak any of these variables for the opponents via homebrewing, a player will typically end up victorious (unlucky dice rolls aside) against a single opponent of a CR equal to or lower than the PC’s level.

This is where the total number of actions is critical to the difficulty of your encounter. The more times an opponent or group of opponents can act, the more formidable they become. It’s what makes creatures with Legendary Actions so tough (and memorable).

Note: When designing your own creatures with legendary actions, I recommend the following equation:

# of Legendary Actions = N-1, where N is the # of PCs

This equation creates an opponent who, paired with well-padded Hit Points and Lair Actions, can stand toe-to-toe against even the most coordinated party. If you add minions into the mix, reduce the number of Legendary Actions to re-balance the action economy.

This is why, when planning your D&D 5e encounters, do NOT trust CR alone. Challenge Rating is a measure of an opponent’s difficulty, but that measurement is…loose, at best. A Giant Eagle and a Giant Spider are both CR 1, but the damage potential between them is very different due to the Eagle’s Multiattack feature. The Giant Spider only has one chance to affect one target; whereas the Giant Eagle has two chances to affect up to two different targets. Remember, a creature can attack, move, and attack again if it has the movement speed and action economy to do so.

In Summary

If you want to quickly gauge how well the PC party will fare in an encounter, compare how many actions the opponents have against the number of actions the PCs have. This will always include abilities like Bonus Actions, Extra Attack, Multiattack, and Legendary Actions. In some cases, you may even need to include Lair Actions if they’re nasty enough.

If the opponents have more actions in a round than the PCs, it’s going to be a more difficult encounter. If the PCs have more actions than the opponents, the encounter is going to be easier than expected. When both the opponents and the PCs have the same number of actions in a turn, the encounter can be typically considered balanced. Keep in mind, however, this doesn’t mean four 1st Level players can go up against a Spirit Naga and walk away victorious; you still need to account for other factors.

If you use this trick to adjust the difficulty of your encounters, let me know how it went!

Happy Adventuring,

Matthew Wulf

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