BalancingDungeons & Dragonsis a complicated process, and according to the game’s designers, the 2024Dungeon Master’s Guidefixes one area where they simply got it wrong in 2014. With flexible party sizes and combat that can range in intensity,there’s no single set of rules for what might make a good encounterinD&D.One common piece of advice is to be careful with large enemy rosters, as players end up with less opportunity to dominate the turn order and strategize effectively.
In aninterview withScreen Rant, however,D&DSenior Game Designer James Wyatt explainedthe multiplier used to calculate the impact of higher monster counts in the 2014Dungeon Master’s Guidedidn’t work properly. According to Wyatt, the 2024Dungeon Master’s Guidecuts the concept because “the math wasoff,” with the multiplier ultimately introducing a less accurate skew to challenge calculations. The change is accompanied by an increase in overall monster XP budget for higher levels of play.
James Wyatt: The revised table of encounter difficulty is meant to be simpler to use. It’s a very simple XP budget that you calculate and spend without multipliers for the numbers of creatures involved, because it turned out that that doesn’t have as big an impact as we thought it did 10 years ago, and the numbers get significantly higher at higher levels. That’s not because characters are more powerful now. It’s because the math was off 10 years ago, and we fixed it.
D&D’s 2014 Dungeon Master’s Guide Overrated Monsters
Parties Deserve A Real Challenge
As Wyatt mentions, simplifying the ease of encounter creation is a big motivator behind the change, and the new approach may still not be perfectly balanced.The gap between the previous calculations and the 2024 approach is huge, however, as the previous system could ultimately raise the multiplier to 4x in the instance of encounters with 15 creatures or more.
D&D’s 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide Fixes My Least Favorite Thing About The Player’s Handbook
The 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide makes some similar advancements to the 2014 Player’s Handbook while also avoiding one compromise that frustrated me.
Plenty of campaigns and adventures have released in the decade since the lastDungeon Master’s Guide, so the new changes probably align more closely with the internal calculations thatD&Dpublisher Wizards of the Coast is currently using for encounter-building.D&D5e was still finding its footing in 2014, and even the game’s designers may not have understood the systems as deeply as they do now. The change is also accompanied by theremoval of the Adventuring Day concept, which pushed more frequent encounters than most parties ultimately face.
D&D’s 2024 Balance Changes Make More Sense Overall
The idea that the math wasn’t working out isn’t a sentiment that’s exclusive to the design team, astheD&Dcommunity has frequently been critical of the 2014 approachover the years. Providing anappropriate challenge for high-level partieshas often required DMs to ignore the official math, something that the 2024 changes should hopefully address.
Some D&D Builds Got Huge Nerfs In The New Player’s Handbook, But There’s A Silver Lining
Changes to the surprised condition bring down the power of certain character builds in the 2024 Player’s Handbook.
I’d still caution DMs to be careful when overwhelming low-level partieswith surplus monsters, as encounters can quickly turn sour if the turn order works against the party, but I do think the basic direction of the changes makes a lot of sense. The 2024Dungeon Master’s Guideis geared to be a better way to teach DMs the art of runningDungeons & Dragonsthan anything provided before, and the radical shift in balance could ultimately serve that goal.
