How the Heck do You Balance Combat for your RPG campaign?
This is the fourth campaign I've ever run, and I think I finally figured out the secret to balanced combat -- you balance it during gameplay . The Dragon AGE rpg core rulebook has advice for making adversaries tougher (adding extra health and giving them more focuses and ability points). In practice I've found these guidelines pretty useless (sorry Green Ronin) unless you are wanting to use adversary stats for quick-building NPCs. Then actually, they are great. When it comes to combat, there's only a few factors that matter: Enemy hp, defense & armor - how long can it last against the party? Enemy attack & damage - how much can it hurt the party? These are really the only factors a GM needs to keep in mind for designing an enemy for combat. If you want an enemy to last longer against the PCs, then you can up it's health (how many rounds it will last), defense (how hard it is to hit), and armor rating (how much damage it soaks - at least in the AGE system). If ...