Balance is a common topic when discussing combat encounter design. However, I believe the desire for well balanced fights is an outdated reaction; it’s a solution to a problem that is becoming harder and harder to find. Unbalanced encounters are not only more fun, they’re a far more powerful and reliable tool than any maths-based guideline.
Are Unbalanced Encounters Good Or Bad?
There are many different views on what makes well balanced encounters. One thing is clear, though: No one really wants balance.
At least, not in its true sense. Truly balanced encounters would mean there is a 50% chance the party loses. Every. Single. Time. Statistically, long adventures like this would have a huge number of total party kills (TPKs). For some groups, this will be fine. However, I think it’s reasonable to say many tables would grow dissatisfied. For one thing, if everything is perfectly balanced, variety becomes harder to include. Players would never experience the thrill of feeling really overpowered or the challenge of being outmatched.
The desire for balance is the idea it—at least partly—helps gamemasters (GMs) create good encounters. It makes players feel powerful and avoid TPKs. However, to understand what makes a good encounter, GMs have to know what their players actually want from a fight.
What Do Players Want?
Many different things. In my experience, I’ve encountered:
– Players who want a tactical challenge. Combat is a puzzle that needs solving. Fights should be hard, choices meaningful, and resource management is probably important, too. These players often dislike fights that feel too easy, or that get solved narratively—i.e. with storyteller flair, not tactics.
– Players with power fantasies. Taking characters from level 1 to level 10+ gives a feeling of growing power. However, this growth needs confirmation. Characters show this growth most obviously by easily defeating enemies that were difficult in the past. If fights always match the characters’ level, these players never experience that thrill.
– Players who want to experiment. These players choose unexpected or weird actions just to see how the world reacts. This can happen mechanically—often through crafting or creative use of the combat environment; it can also be narrative—trying to form unusual alliances, unexpected attacks, etc. Forcing these players to always play optimally, punishing this experimentation, will end in a lot of frustration.
– Players that want spectacle. Player characters (PCs) should do cool things. Ideally, enemies should do cool things, too; this helps the PCs look even more badass when they win. The cinematics of using verticality will appeal to these players a lot. Restrictive rules can limit their fun, as will lots of bland enemies and locations.
– Players who only care for story. Balancing maths is very low priority; in fact, if the crunch becomes too obvious during play, it can be a game-breaker. Why the fight is happening and its narrative consequences are far more important. The enemies’ presence and the location need to make sense in the world’s logic. Combats feeling nonsensical or random filler, perhaps because of a poorly used random table, will create unhappiness.
Balancing For All This Is Impossible
To summarise, there are players that want combat to be a challenging puzzle; those who want [some] of the later adventure to be easy; players who want the freedom to experiment; those that just want their characters to do cool stuff; and players who don’t like to think about balance in a mechanical sense at all.
And these are only the player types I have met. There are probably many more. Additionally, just to make things even more complicated, mixing is also a definite possibility. Personally speaking, I’m a mix of puzzle-lover, spectacle-fan, and story-first. My preference changes according to my mood, who I’m with, what’s happening at the table, and the system I’m playing.
How do GMs design encounters to suit that mix? Where do they begin, let alone start to consider balancing? Where did this desire for balance even come from?
In The Beginning, There Were Only Unbalanced Encounters
Balance in tabletop roleplaying games wasn’t much of a concern pre-2000. From 1974-1999, Dungeons & Dragons had so many different subsystems, balance was basically impossible. For instance, To Hit rolls were a d20, Initiative a d6, Reactions 2d6, and Thief skills a d100. Balancing advice for GMs was actually focused on limiting the players, not monsters. Denying character options to stop overpowered combinations and make the game world work was a common guideline.
And it wasn’t just the biggest name in the industry. Call of Cthulhu’s cosmic horror meant combat was—and still is—so brutal it was best avoided if possible. And, famously, in Traveller first edition, PCs could die during character creation.
Balance was never a primary objective. Monsters and locations just had to make sense in the game world. TPKs were almost a feature. The expectation was players should avoid fights where possible using cleverness and negotiation; if a fight became inevitable, they should make smart use of the environment to give themselves advantages. OSR games like Shadowdark and Pirate Borg are repopularising this style of play, but with the elegance of modern design.
Maths Wins, Unbalanced Encounters Lose
On the other hand, D&D third edition had very different ideas. It took power away from the environment and put it on the player character sheet. Having bought the game off TSR, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) wanted to make a clean start. They got rid of all the subsystems, unifying everything under the d20. Well balanced encounters suddenly seemed possible.
Balance became a stated focus for the new edition. Consistent maths became king. From now on, D&D GMs could calculate the amount of gold and XP to give characters every adventuring day. Well balanced encounters meant combat now tended towards medium difficulty, instead of hard or deadly like in previous editions. Players should face challenging fights, but always have a good chance of victory; if they made smart, tactical decisions, the party should win.
Fourth Edition: The End of Unbalanced Encounters?
However, as a first attempt at a new way of thinking, third edition and 3.5 were messy. Fourth edition took that mess and refined it, taking it to another level. It was the first edition to print 6-8 combat encounters a day; this is something fifth edition would awkwardly copy later.
Classes now had computer game role equivalents: tanks, healers, damage-dealers, and controllers. Each class had abilities they could use any number of times, once per encounter, and once per adventuring day. This created power spikes and gave players tactical decisions over resource management. The number of encounters a day stopped being a guideline, and was now an expectation; it was the challenge for this resource management game.
Fourth edition hoped to attract players from the phenomenon that was World of Warcraft. Consequently, players could now consistently expect to face fair fights—i.e. medium difficulty, feel powerful, look heroic, and emerge victorious. Its maths was excellent, PC roles were clearly defined, and the balancing was brilliant.
Unfortunately, many regard 4e as the worst edition of the game. They thought the rules were too restrictive, the language too gamer-like, or class abilities too similar. In response, WotC would go on to make the most successful game in tabletop roleplaying history.
5e: The Remix Edition
The lead designer for 5e, Mike Mearls, has said the first step in the design process was to review all previous editions; he was trying to find the best things from each one. The DNA is easy to see in 2014’s 5e; player power and guidelines for good balance came from third and fourth edition; the flexibility to allow creative freedom and original problem-solving came from the earlier editions.
So 5e inherited 4e’s wonderful balance?
In a word, no. Fifth edition tried to give guidelines for the number of encounters in an adventuring day to avoid unbalanced encounters; it also gave calculations for encounter difficulty with its monster Challenge Ratings (CRs). However, WotC’s own research showed they massively miscalculated player habits. Instead of 6-8 encounters, players were fighting 1-3 fights per long rest. They were using all of their high-powered abilities without delay, and then refusing to progress until they had them back.
The CRs were also very badly flawed, and in some cases made no sense at all; Shadows are one example where the CR was particularly inaccurate. A big reason for this problem was the removal of the 4e controlled roles and abilities for the classes. With that foundation gone, the designers had no way to accurately calculate CR any more. Empowering the players broke the ability to make reliable maths.
The 2024 edition has tried to fix these issues, but it’s an impossible task. PC power is so high, and adventuring parties have too much variety for maths to work.
Why The Fear Of Unbalanced Encounters?
The answer is a lack of trust. Older games gave GMs total power. Many systems told the GM they were the players’ opponent. Nothing happened without the GM’s approval. Moving power from the environment to the player’s character sheet rebalanced this situation. Players no longer needed to have the GM’s agreement to do things they wanted; now they had long lists of feats, skills, and level progression as mechanical guarantees.
Encounter guidelines serve the same purpose. They pressure GMs into avoiding lethal encounters, trying to ensure players have a good time at the table. Unfortunately, it’s a good idea badly executed.
In some cases, encounter design like this is still important. People are still playing fourth edition, or 4e-inspired systems. For them, balance is a key part of adventure design because it matches expectations and really works.
However, for many other groups, I would argue some traditions are not worth keeping. The hobby has evolved. GMs are no longer the players’ opponents.
A Better Approach
“Default to yes” and “Be the PCs’ biggest fan” are better guidelines than any maths formula.
A basic understanding of what makes a dangerous encounter for the party is important. However, this isn’t to avoid the situation, it’s to allow the players to prepare for it. Making the stakes and rewards very clear is essential. PCs should never enter a dangerous fight unknowingly.
The flow of information never stops.
During combat, GMs should be hinting at the impact of the PCs’ attacks. If the PCs are not doing much damage, the players need to know. Telegraphing very dangerous NPC attacks helps, too. Also, include things in the environment the players can use to their advantage—TNT barrels work well! Players can turn dangerous fights into easy ones by using the environment; it feels great when they do.
Balanced Or Unbalanced, Always Have Escape Routes
When combat does go badly—through poor decisions or bad dice rolls—PCs should always have an emergency exit available. Enemies will let PCs escape for all kinds of reasons: arrogance, attention to their own injuries, continuing their masterplan, etc.
Use waves.
I’ll go into more detail on using waves in my next article, but for now, they let GMs change encounter difficulty mid-combat. Instead of having all the enemies present, put them into waves; introduce or delay them to control the tension as needed.
Fighting isn’t the [only] point.
Give the enemies goals that aren’t just kill the PCs. Use objectives like protect, escort, survey, capture, delay, summon, worship, intimidate, extract, and escape. These make enemy power levels less important, and fights more dynamic. This also means enemies may retreat if they think a fight is going badly for them. Even low powered fights become a fun challenge for players that love problem-solving combat.
Mix up the difficulty.
Give the PCs encounters that are intentionally far above and below their power level. Similar to fighting isn’t the [only] point for enemies, this will encourage the PCs to try different approaches. Opponents far below the PCs’ power levels will give them a chance to experience the power fantasy thrill. This also adds variety. If everything is at the PCs’ level, the experience will lack diversity.
The Most Important Tip Of All
Know your players.
Knowing if your players are problem-solvers, spectacle-fans, story-first, etc. will help you plan encounters better than any generic guideline. Just how hard do they like combat to be? Do they want a constant flow of level-appropriate fights? Or would they prefer the variety from unbalanced encounters?
Combining their preferences will create situations the whole group can enjoy. When combining isn’t possible, the GM and players will just have to accept every encounter won’t make everyone happy. This is fine. There’s no way to make everyone happy all the time anyway. Instead, include a mix of encounter types allowing everyone to have a turn really enjoying the session.
The idea of well balanced encounters comes from good intentions; however, I think it’s become outdated. Combining the tips above is a much more effective and fun way to run a game. They build trust at the table and give everyone the freedom to be creative. Tools that allow the GM to adapt mid-encounter are way more powerful than any maths-based plan. Fun, not balance, is the goal of the game.
Trust Your Group, Use Unbalanced Encounters
I believe most groups are better off forgetting about balance. I think it’s trying to solve a problem that is much harder to find these days. Once GMs understand their role as the PCs’ biggest fan, and defaulting to yes, this problem disappears. Open communication, understanding preferences, and including variety are far more powerful and fun tools to build encounters with.
