Dungeon Master: Reducing Difficulty Through Situation

Creating entertaining encounters is a difficult but rewarding activity. One thing I haven't talked about in depth yet, though I've touched on it, is how to reduce the difficulty of a combat encounter through situational advantages. For this reason I'll go over some of the ones I've seen and personally used. I'll focus primarily on decreasing difficulty because such techniques can be used against the players in order to increase difficulty. Hopefully someone will find something of use. If there's something I missed, feel free to comment below.

Why?

Sometimes it's nice to put players against unlikely odds and have them come out on top. However, unlikely odds are just that: unlikely. Your players will probably be on the lookout for things they can use to tip the odds closer to their advantage. If it doesn't happen, they might (and in my experience usually will) run. However, by carefully taking advantage of the right moment and right location an encounter can become balanced even if the experience budget doesn't agree. It's also a good idea to think about different tactics that can be used in an encounter. Since many of the methods I'll mention can also be used to make things harder for the players, it's a good thing to keep in mind.

Reducing or Improving Stats

One of the easiest ways to reduce the difficulty of an encounter is to play around with the player and monster statistics. The most common methods I've seen in the past is to have injured combatants (monsters get hurt too), and to give easy access to 3/4ths (a +5 to AC in 5^th edition makes a big difference, especially at low levels) and total cover. Cover generally helps with promoting tactics though you'll need to have counter tactics of your own planned. Otherwise it won't make much of a difference except needing to roll a higher number. Keeping the enemy at range is generally helpful when they need to close the distance.

Restricting Numbers of Creatures

If you throw a large number of creatures at a group of players, not all of them may be in range to threaten the players. When done this way the encounter may end up running like 2 smaller encounters with no rest in between. Often I've seen players use this strategy in order to give themselves an advantage even if the encounter could be won by going head on. Divide and conquer remains a valid tactic in tabletop role-playing games.

Using Terrain

Terrain is a very easy method to reduce the flow and number of enemies the players need to face at once. Set the action inside a 10 foot wide tunnel fighting enemies that are purely melee and the result is that the players can force it into a 2 vs 2. Depending on what kind of optional rules are used (chance of hitting person(s) in the way), it can also help restrict ranged attacks as well. However, using tunnels in this way is generally not enough for an interesting encounter. It runs the risk of forcing the players into a static situation. The general idea can be used in other ways though, such as doing something similar using a bridge over a long fall or using traps in order to narrow down the area (it also gives the party a couple easy kills).

Spreading Out Arrivals

It takes time for someone to get into range, particularly if they mainly fight melee. That means that putting them 40 feet away when they only have 30 feet of movement buys the party a turn before they get there. Using this gives a situation almost the same as spreading out arrivals but the party can see how long it'll roughly take for the enemies to get to them.

Not everyone in the entire dungeon will be in one room. Maybe the players set up a distraction to attract a significant portion of the defenders. If things go badly, someone might go running for help. Someone might yell and reinforcements will come soon after. A level one party might not stand a chance against 8 enemies. However, they might have a fighting chance against 2 waves of 4. Knowing when another wave will arrive might be tricky. You can't see the distance like you can if they are in the same location but far away. However, you can still give clues, such as sounds coming from the hallway a round before they show up, that will give players a sense of when reinforcements will arrive. Doing so lets them plan accordingly. In some situations this might not be reasonable or desirable.

Other Situations

Before the players start fighting, there are many different things they can try. Written into the rules for Dungeons & Dragons 5^th edition are surprise rounds, which give the players one free round to unleash death against their enemies. Using these advantageously allows players to knock out some creatures before a normal round takes place. As a result, they can safely combat more opponents at once (a surprise round against kobolds or goblins at low levels is devastating).

Of course, having allies also helps to reduce the difficulty of success for the party. However, there are many different methods to handle allies. I've seen people put NPCs in the middle of an encounter and control them the same way they do for the monsters. However, I've also seen the Dungeon Master do something similar to a lair action but to help the players. They would act at an initiative count (you can either roll one or just use 20 just like lair actions) and on that count have an effect. If the party had archers to support them, you might make 3 attacks against 3 different targets to represent the barrage of arrows (when I saw this being done, it had to be different targets in order to be similar to a cloud of arrows falling onto the enemy but you can alter this to cover an area).

Bringing out the big guns also works. If players have access to spell scrolls, items of incredible power or powerful siege weapons (especially true if the party lacks characters with good range skills), the odds can start to look very different. These toys, however, need to be taken into account when designing encounters. They allow you to create encounters that look very different but may make a normal encounter a breeze.