Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Game Master How do you balance encounters?

Hi guys,

Just want to get a thread rolling about balancing encounters. What are you tips/rules to balance encouters?

I will probably lunch a campaign soon but I dont know how to balance it, I know I can do it on the fly but it will make a better experience if it was already balanced for immersion sake...

We asked for an easy way to do that showing difficulties on this thread http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=626259#Post626259
Glad to see more people think about this issue...

So if I understood well, there are no planned features to easily adjust difficulty? So you will have to plan the encounter in the campaign editor, and if it's too difficult, then we will have to lower difficulty manually by lowering stats and nerfing the opponents on the fly?

Well that's kind of disappointing...

Did you GM some games? If so how did you balance encounters? Did it break immersion when you had too strong/weak opponents that you buffed/nerfed?

I balance encounters with humanoids by creating "fair" characters, giving them the exact same number of points in each catagory as players of the same level would have and asign skills and equipment accordingly.
Then I reason a 4 player party should be able to handle 4 NPCs of the same level or maybe 3 of the same level plus one at +1 level for a somewhat harder fight. If they can't handle such an encounter they would be wise to flee combat.

For monsters it is a bit harder to balance as I don't restrict myself with points or skills for custom creatures, but again I asume the party will be smart enough to flee an encounter they can't handle (yet).

For standard monsters I use the "rule" for NPCs using their level as a guideline, leveling them up or down before the session starts.

Emersion will only be broken if you have to pause the game to make adjustments, but that is just my oppinion.

How did it work for you so far ?

Playing at classic difficulty, just fine. No more than 1 or 2 player deaths per encounter. Just the way I like it.

Let's say it's an important encounter in the campaign, so fleeing isn't an option, and you don't allow resurrection in your campaign, or they do't have scrolls/a cleric. Then what do you do?I'm with the OP, the GM needs a tool to preview the difficulty of the encounter, based on their powers/levels, and the level,powers and gear of the players.

Got to agree with Noctro on this one, I planned to do a "permadeath" campaign (i.e. no res' scrolls available, and with death resist constitution rolls if they drop...) so players will think twice before attacking anyone, I will try to reward creativity when it comes down to problem solving, but still I feel like it will be a pain in the ass to balance it...

In that case, if it goes bad for the players (and I feel I am to blame for bad balance instead of them screwing up) I take over from the AI and either do something stupid, or offer them to surrender and take it from there.

I Don't see how to make an encounter calculator with all the options you have. Sure adding skills, armor, and stats increase difficulty but how each skill and item works together would be a gauge task to determine.

I use level #1 then add and take items or skills. Even in tabletop most gms think Dr encounter building is garbage. It also depends on your players skills, abilities, and play style so an accurate calculator is impossible. This is the main part of being a DM to me second only to telling the story.

So basically use level like cr only ad a guide to not ise to powerful of am enemy. The rest is up.to you to judge. Error on making the encounter on the easy side and have traps or reinforcements ready to apring into action if needed.

A deadly encounter to one group of playeta is easily.for another group the same level and items with good prep time and tactics.