Home Mobile Game Tutorial Mobile Game Guide Dungeons & Dragons: XP Budget, Explained

Dungeons & Dragons: XP Budget, Explained

Nov 10, 2024 am 10:27 AM

When creating combat encounters for your Dungeons & Dragons sessions, properly balancing them can often be a mind-bending endeavor. You’ll often follow a creature’s challenge rating to decide how hard it is, but that number is made for parties with four members, something you might have less or more of.

Dungeons & Dragons: XP Budget, Explained

This is why the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide added a new way to balance combat difficulty, and that is through the XP budget system. This system might sound more complicated, but it is far easier to use than challenge rating, and simple to customize for parties of any size.

What Is The XP Budget?

Dungeons & Dragons: XP Budget, Explained

The 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide has a new way of balancing encounters called XP budget. It is a table divided by levels, showing how much experience a player should earn from an easy, normal, or hard encounter against the creatures in your campaign.

Since the table shows how much a single player earns, you can easily know how much experience to give to your entire party by multiplying that by the number of total players. The numbers shown in the table are the maximum possible experience, so earning more than that would make the encounter a higher tier of difficulty.

Level

Low Difficulty

Moderate Difficulty

High Difficulty

1

50

75

100

2

100

150

200

3

150

225

400

4

250

375

500

5

500

750

1,100

6

600

1,000

1,400

7

750

1,300

1,700

8

1,000

1,700

2,100

9

1,300

2,000

2,600

10

1,600

2,300

3,100

11

1,900

2,900

4,100

12

2,200

3,700

4,700

13

2,600

4,200

5,400

14

2,900

4,900

6,200

15

3,300

5,400

7,800

16

3,800

6,100

9,800

17

4,500

7,200

11,700

18

5,000

8,700

14,200

19

5,500

10,700

17,200

20

6,400

13,200

22,000

How To Make An Encounter With The XP Budget

Dungeons & Dragons: XP Budget, Explained

You’ll first need to decide if you want a low, moderate, or high-difficulty encounter, then check the table for how many experience points that would entail. Multiply that with the number of players in your party, and now you have your initial XP budget.

You now need to look for creatures and check the experience points they give upon being defeated. You ‘buy’ each creature you want to put into your encounter, and as long as you don’t go overboard, the resulting encounter will be of the difficulty you chose.

Low Difficulty Encounter

Dungeons & Dragons: XP Budget, Explained

You should be careful with low CR creatures, particularly ones that don’t give experience since they still add challenge to an encounter. While they fit as creatures for low-level adventurers to encounter, you can overwhelm them easily without really noticing.

The easiest encounters tend to be the ones where players can focus on one thing at a time, even if that thing is a large monster. Simply matching the CR of one monster to the party’s level will net you an easy encounter, with special mechanics and environmental hazards aside.

Moderate Difficulty Encounter

Dungeons & Dragons: XP Budget, Explained

Moderate difficulty doesn’t mean ‘standard’, since this encounter wouldn’t be a walk in the park. If the players aren’t properly prepared, things can easily turn dire, with one or more of them getting knocked out of the fight; terrain and other features of the encounter can vastly alter how it plays out.

These moderate encounters are great ways to close out sessions since they are hard enough to keep things interesting without the players needing to go all out every time. If you feel the encounter is too hard or too easy, you can always adjust it on the fly, either by having creatures flee or new ones entering the fray (using the same stat blocks, of course).

High Difficulty Encounter

Dungeons & Dragons: XP Budget, Explained

This is your hard limit for what your players can reasonably face before it becomes too much. Spending more experience points than what your budget for a high-difficulty encounter gives you can likely end in a battle that will wipe out your players, depending on how much extra you spent.

If you need to raise the difficulty beyond this budget, you are better off altering other areas of the encounter rather than adding bigger and badder creatures. Giving creatures additional traits or resistances can get the job done, as well as fighting them in a dynamic scenario instead of a static one.

Dungeons & Dragons: XP Budget, Explained

The above is the detailed content of Dungeons & Dragons: XP Budget, Explained. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

Statement of this Website
The content of this article is voluntarily contributed by netizens, and the copyright belongs to the original author. This site does not assume corresponding legal responsibility. If you find any content suspected of plagiarism or infringement, please contact admin@php.cn

Hot AI Tools

Undresser.AI Undress

Undresser.AI Undress

AI-powered app for creating realistic nude photos

AI Clothes Remover

AI Clothes Remover

Online AI tool for removing clothes from photos.

Undress AI Tool

Undress AI Tool

Undress images for free

Clothoff.io

Clothoff.io

AI clothes remover

Video Face Swap

Video Face Swap

Swap faces in any video effortlessly with our completely free AI face swap tool!

Hot Tools

Notepad++7.3.1

Notepad++7.3.1

Easy-to-use and free code editor

SublimeText3 Chinese version

SublimeText3 Chinese version

Chinese version, very easy to use

Zend Studio 13.0.1

Zend Studio 13.0.1

Powerful PHP integrated development environment

Dreamweaver CS6

Dreamweaver CS6

Visual web development tools

SublimeText3 Mac version

SublimeText3 Mac version

God-level code editing software (SublimeText3)

Hot Topics

Java Tutorial
1664
14
PHP Tutorial
1266
29
C# Tutorial
1239
24
Roblox: Grow A Garden - Complete Mutation Guide Roblox: Grow A Garden - Complete Mutation Guide Apr 18, 2025 am 01:10 AM

Maximize your profits in Roblox's Grow A Garden by understanding the lucrative world of crop mutations! These rare variations significantly boost your harvest's value. While you can't directly control mutations, knowing how they work provides a signi

Roblox: Bubble Gum Simulator Infinity - How To Get And Use Royal Keys Roblox: Bubble Gum Simulator Infinity - How To Get And Use Royal Keys Apr 16, 2025 am 11:05 AM

Royal Keys are some of the most valuable items you can find in Roblox's Bubble Gum Simulator Infinity. These rare tools allow you to open Royal Chests — limited-time loot containers packed with high-tier items, boosts, and even ultra-rare rewards. If

Blue Prince: How To Get To The Basement Blue Prince: How To Get To The Basement Apr 11, 2025 am 04:04 AM

Unlocking the Basement in Blue Prince: A Comprehensive Guide Finding the basement in Blue Prince is crucial for progressing to Room 46, but its location and access method aren't immediately obvious. This guide will walk you through accessing the base

Mandragora: Whispers Of The Witch Tree - How To Unlock The Grappling Hook Mandragora: Whispers Of The Witch Tree - How To Unlock The Grappling Hook Apr 18, 2025 am 12:53 AM

Mandragora's dungeons offer Metroidvania-style challenges, requiring players to revisit earlier areas with newly acquired tools. The grappling hook is a prime example, enabling rapid traversal of long distances. While this crucial tool is obtained r

Nordhold: Fusion System, Explained Nordhold: Fusion System, Explained Apr 16, 2025 am 04:07 AM

Nordhold Tower Fusion Guide: Synergistic Tower Combinations for Enhanced Defense Mastering tower combinations in Nordhold is key to effective base defense. Certain towers synergize exceptionally well, creating powerful defensive strategies. This gui

Rusty Rabbit: Where To Find Every Keycube Rusty Rabbit: Where To Find Every Keycube Apr 17, 2025 pm 10:02 PM

Many 2D platformers, including Rusty Rabbit, feature inaccessible areas requiring specific abilities or items. Rusty Rabbit is no exception, with multiple such areas in each region. Besides visually obvious blocked pathways, you'll encounter robots

Sephiria: 8 Beginner Tips Sephiria: 8 Beginner Tips Apr 10, 2025 pm 10:08 PM

Sephiria: Adventures in the Pixel World Sephiria attracts players with its cute pixel style and smooth operation, but the difficulty of its dungeon adventures gradually increases as they go deeper. From unpredictable bosses to a wide variety of enemies, the game is full of challenges. However, the game's extensive equipment and weapon systems allow players to choose unique combat styles to cope with these challenges. In addition, mastering some tips and strategies will help to better explore this mysterious world. Master sprint and blocking skills Sephiria's core combat mechanics are similar to many roguelike hacking and slashing games. This means that sprint (or dodge) and blocking will be the most effective combat skills in the game. Always pay attention to enemies when sprinting

Blue Prince: Upgrade Disk Guide Blue Prince: Upgrade Disk Guide Apr 12, 2025 am 11:34 AM

Upgrade Disks are some of the most powerful and valuable items you’ll find in Blue Prince. While they’re not needed to reach Room 46, they make your runs smoother, your puzzles easier, and your odds of survival higher. If you’re lucky enough to find

See all articles