Encounter Building by XP Budget for Saga Edition! (And 3.5)

[the_gneech]

One of the few places where 4E is actually superior to Saga Edition is in the encounter-building system. As in, it actually as one. However, since the "XP Budget" system of 4E is not directly translatable to Saga Edition, I've written up a conversion!

This system makes determining appropriate encounters in Saga Edition a breeze, instead of the enormous headache it was before; as an added bonus, it also works for Dungeons and Dragons 3.x. Can't figure out the difference between CR and EL? Trying to figure out if that encounter built for four 3rd level characters will be too tough or too easy for your actual party of six 2nd level characters? Does the idea of trying to figure out the appropriate XP award for 4 ogres, 2 bugbears, and 10 orcs give you the shakes? Then fear not! Using the "Encounter Building by XP Budget," you can answer all of those questions quickly while you actually build the encounter, making it easy to customize on the fly.

(For the record, an encounter built for four 3rd level characters [1,840 XP] will be slightly tough for your party of six 2nd level characters [1,380 XP], but not tough enough to make it an EL+1 encounter [2,070 XP]. Also, the XP award for 4 ogres, 2 bugbears, and 10 orcs should be 3,915 for each member of a 4 character party, or 2,610 for each member of a 6 character party. Math-illiterate that I am, I just calculated all that in about 45 seconds with no spreadsheet of any kind.)

It's pretty spiffy! Check it out and let me know what you think. :)

-The Gneech

Comments

[grayalynn.livejournal.com]

I've just taken a quick look at it and what I have seen pleases me. I agree that this is one of the good things that 4e has going for it, and now I may have something that can be ported over to 3.5 or Saga! Depending on how the rest of the week goes I may try and use it for the game this weekend.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

I'm particularly interested to see how well it works for starship encounters in SWSE, if you use it for that at all. Thanks!

-The Gneech

[grayalynn.livejournal.com]

Nope, planning on using it in the 3.5 game I run. Although I really want to run something long term using Saga rules, even if its not Star Wars.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Ah, cool. :) Well it should work just fine for that too!

-TG

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Heyas -- if you haven't done this yet, make sure you download the version I just put up this evening before you use it. The 3.5 numbers were screwed up in a big way.

-The Gneech