Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Game Master Challenge rating or how to scale encounters

Hiya fellow GM's
I'm about to begin a campaign with friend...but before I do a tpk or no Challenge...
Is there a way to calculate CR?
Best
LM

I haven't ran my campaign yet but what ibe sone is basically set if a few test encounters at the beginning of my main wuest lines and divided each scene into encounters so i can easily add or subtract levels from groups of enemies depending on how my group has been doing up to that point.

Having run the first episode of my campaign I found it to really vary depending on what they were fighting. They had five encounters with the first four just meant for them to settle in to their character and give some XP. The final fight was intended as a end of episode boss fight.

First encounter was 8x L1 rats: Did not cause the party any trouble but took them a while to kill them with their L1 weapons and skills.

Second encounter was 4x L1 bandits and 1x L2 bandit: Party was now L2 but did not have much gear. Took a while to kill them but was not too great a challenge.

Third encounter was 4x L2 wolves: Wasn't hard for them but took a while to kill them. I let the AI fight them; if I'd focused damage on one party member it may have been harder.

Forth encounter was 6x L2 condors: The birds all got stuck in a bottleneck meaning neither they nor the party could do much damage to each other. I eventually decided they had flown off to stop it going on too long.

Fifth encounter was 3x L3 and a L4 spider with some extra skills: Party really had to work to kill them and keep heals up. I was controlling the spiders and killed one of the party. This probably would have been a bit easier for them if I'd not forgotten I meant to level them after the previous fight.

Out of all the encounters my players by far most enjoyed the final fight. They were not hugely keen on the other creature fights as due to lack of creature skills they were a dull tank & spank.

I so change up my plain encounters like making the boars enraged etc. I think it makes things more interesting and keeps them from going oh boars, we know exactly what they do.

I've thought about loading one of the mods that changes how vitality scales to see if it makes judging diffixulty easier.

Level has a HUGE impact on how tough a NPC can be to take down. I played a short scenario with my wife, where she started as a level 1 assasin. I tested it before we ran it, and I had to heavily reduce both amount of npcs and level of the npcs. Also, as in many other rpgs the number of players is of course a thing to think about too.

But I agree, a kind of scale where one can get an indication of how hard an encounter is would be nice.

on a sidenote; when adding npcs to an encounter, the encounter has a level, has anyone found out the funktionality of that one?

You can increase or decrease the level of every creature in the encounter at once. Theres a little trick. If you have a level 3 and 5 when you hit level up the 3 becomes 4 but the 5 stays till you get to the same level then they both go up. Or you want to sleep them first level them up to the same level then delevel.

Erhm gesundheit? . I'm not sure I understand this line, but I get the rest. Thanks for the hint! Really appreciate it .

Typing in forums on the phone. To delevel creatures ive bad to first level them up to the same level then bring it back down.