Full disclosure, I ran [City of Mist](https://www.cityofmist.co/) for her, and now we’re both mice. ### 2:10 Email from Jessica Gao > Dear Dwarves, > As a new GM one of my biggest problems that I am running into is setting difficulty levels for encounters. Very often I make them too easy and the tasks are trivial and boring or I set it too hard and I kill my whole party (=( ultra sad face). I am running into this problem even when running pre-made scenarios as often time the pre-gen NPCs don't have all the stats filled in and I have to make some up. And I do hope to one day write my own adventures (which I am really looking forward to!) but am finding this aspect particularly tricky. > I'm really hoping there is a magical Uri formula...(=) ultra hopeful face) > Your humble pupil, Jessica First of all, don't feel bad. Balancing combat is more of an art than science. However since this is a known issue there are some tools for it. Use the tools provided in the system. Learn from published adventures or premade scenario. ### 7:56 Adjusting difficulty on the go Here are a few tricks in which you can control the difficulty of a given encounter. Not all tricks fit all GMs or all gaming styles (simulation vs narrative gaming change a lot in this matter for example). + Dynamically adjust difficulty behind the scenes - Combat is too hard? Blunt tools may include Lowering the enemies hit points, more subtle approaches may be: make the enemies pick less useful tactics like charging.The archers decimate the party? Decide that they run out of arrows. More on that: [Pacing](https://dwarves.podiant.co/e/35d6a449eb83ba/), [Better Battles](https://dwarves.podiant.co/e/35a558edec85c6/) + Adjust difficulty in plain view - Have a guard room next to the combat area. If the combat is less exciting than you want it to be, have more baddies emerge from the room. The combat is too hard? Have a cowardly captain exit the room to order a retreat of some baddies with him as he escape. I prefer to have the setting prepared in advance to help me make these changes. Imagine an adventure in a haunted mine where the spirits of dead dwarves and dead goblins roam; if I want an encounter to be more difficult, the noise of battle attractane ghosts of goblins that harass the party, and if the combat is too hard, a few ghost dwarves appear and attack the monsters. + Shift the responsibility to the players - Give then a bunch of single-use powerful magical items that could change the tide of battle. If an encounter is too hard the players should resort to using their trump card. + Analyse - Most parties have obvious weak points. Find them and use them only on difficult encounter. Some of the classic weak spots may include: fighting against opponents with ranged weapons, fighting in the dark, fighting against flying/invisible enemies, fighting against swarms or undead. See which is especially lethal for your party and use sparingly. + As a rule of thumb it usually easier to plan a weak encounter with a backup plan to upgrade it (add HP, add more villains bursting in, have them cast buffing spells or use potions) than it is to downgrade a difficult encounter. The key (as always) is to plan for the possibility. ### 19:25 Tailoring encounters to the party Tailoring for your characters vs tailoring for your players. Every person should be faced with their own type of challenge. Signal to the players, what each should be able to do. Find a middle ground with the players, rules-mastery-wise. Use the most rules-savvy of them as an advisor, “this is what the rules say you can do”. If you have X characters in your party you need X+2 encounters: X encounters where each character can use their main *Th’ang*, one where all characters need to cooperate and one that no one can solve using just their abilities (need to think outside the box). ### 38:35 Taking the load off [Critical Role's new campaign](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byva0hOj8