Creating encounters?

[bobfletch]

As I finished my first read-through of the DC book, I realized that it seems to be missing the information needed on how to properly create a combat challenge for my group, information about minions, etc. I can make some educated guesses that the former is tied to PL (five PL8 PCs is 40 levels, so the bad guy PL should add up to somewhere around the same), but I am left feeling like I don't have all of the pieces. The GM's guide seems to be my option, too bad it's softcover only. Did I miss anything in the DC book that had this information?

[FuzzyBoots]

It's not official, but there's a pretty good rule of thumb system here. I generally look at that and then fiddle with it based on player capabilities. ^_^ And then cheat horribly with added/removed villains if the heroes aren't failing or succeeding as I desire.

[saint_matthew]

Hi Bob & welcome to the boards. Everything Fuzzyboots said is spot on (& usually is), however the only piece of advice i can give you is this: Despite its D20 origins MnM v3 is not D&D. Its focus is on the amazing, with things like hero points & the power stunting it allows. These mechanics (along with the complications system on the villains side) lead to a game where there is no such thing as a formula scale for encounters.

MnM is a group community story telling game rather then a GM versus Player slug fest that D&D is. As the GM of a MnM game you can win every single time, by building perfect villains capable of obliterating PC's, but thats not your job. Your job is to challenge the characters & supply them with a compelling plot line.

[Rabbitman]

I'm just here to support both FuzzyBoots and saint_matthew.

True, true and true again.

[fsedb]

I think that is a pretty big misconception with most Game Masters especially those who primarily run 4e d&d. Pretty much every game should be cooperative story telling. As the GM it is your job to make sure that everyone in the game is getting what they want out of the campaign. If you have to bend or break the rules to further the story line then so be it.

I play with a group of hyper-power gamers who find delight in building the most broken characters they can. When it comes down to tactical combat the 3-5 of them working together can work out better plans that use each characters ability’s optimally far better than I can even with a fair amount of prep work. To get around my disadvantage I simply cheat and fudge and make things up in the combat to push the party and make the fight come out close. If that means I have let the boss pass some checks to keep him up for another round or pull my punch so a minion doesn’t K.O. one of the heros to early then I do it.

So basically I come up with an idea of how far I want to push the party in each combat and try my best to make it work out that way. This is pretty easy with most groups but you do have to look out for the players who are a stickler for the rules. I have had a few players get upset about my style of fudging over a few close calls but in the end they all agreed that the session was made more exciting because of it.