Encounter Builder

The Encounter Builder is where you construct combat encounters before play and run them live at the table. It is built around your world's stat block library, so creatures you have already defined load with all their mechanical data intact.

Creating an encounter entity

Encounters are entities, just like NPCs and locations. Create one from your world's entity list:

Go to your world's Entities list and click New Entity.
Set the type to Encounter. Give it a name — "Ambush at the Mill Crossing," for example.
Click Open Encounter Builder from the entity page. This opens the builder interface.

You can also create encounters directly from Session Mode using the + button in the Encounters panel — useful when players wander somewhere unexpected.

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The Encounter Builder showing the adversary deck with stat block cards, difficulty estimate, and objectives panel.

Record: open an encounter with 3+ adversaries added — scroll through the adversary deck to show stat block cards, then pan to show the objectives and hooks panels

The adversary deck

The adversary deck is the list of creatures in your encounter. Add creatures from your world's stat block library:

Click Add Adversary in the deck panel.
Search your world's stat blocks. Results show the creature name, type, and system.
Select a creature to add it. Set the quantity — three Briar Wolves, two Cult Enforcers, and so on.
Adjust individual HP if you want variance between instances.

System-aware display

The adversary deck renders each creature's stat block in the format appropriate for your world's game system:

System	Fields displayed
Daggerheart	Role badge, tier, HP, stress, fear threshold, hope threshold
D&D 5e	Creature type badge (color-coded, 14 types), CR, AC, HP
Pathfinder 2e	AC, level, HP, saves, strikes

If a creature's stat block is missing fields the system expects, the builder flags them in orange so you can fill them in before play.

Party size and difficulty

Set the Party Size field at the top of the builder. This number drives the difficulty estimate shown next to the adversary deck total.

Daggerheart

Difficulty is displayed as a rough band (Low / Moderate / Severe / Extreme) — a gut-check based on tier, role, and party headcount, not a formula.

D&D 5e

When your world is set to D&D 5e or One D&D, the builder shows the Difficulty Bar — a graduated track with four breakpoints (Easy / Medium / Hard / Deadly) calculated from the DMG 2014 XP threshold tables:

Each creature's XP (looked up from its CR) is summed across the deck.
The raw XP total is multiplied by a creature-count multiplier (1× for one creature, up to 4× for 15+) to produce an adjusted XP total.
Adjusted XP is compared against per-character thresholds for the party's level, scaled by Party Size.
The resulting label (Easy / Medium / Hard / Deadly) and the bar position update instantly as you add or remove creatures.

Set both Party Size and Party Level (1–20) above the bar. Tick marks on the bar show the XP value at each breakpoint so you can see exactly how far from the next threshold you are.

💡Tip

Adjust Party Size for missing players. Adjust Party Level if characters are ahead of or behind the campaign's nominal level — the thresholds shift significantly between levels.

Objectives

Encounters with clear objectives run better than pure "fight until done" combats. The builder has a structured objectives section:

Primary objective — the main goal. What does success look like? (Defeat all adversaries, hold the bridge for three rounds, capture the courier alive.)
Objective type — Combat, Protect, Retrieve, Escape, Survive, or Custom.
Secondary objective — an optional bonus goal players may or may not accomplish.
Failure state — what happens if the party does not meet the primary objective. Write this so you know it, not to read it aloud.

Hooks

Attach one or more story hooks to the encounter. A hook is a narrative lead that connects this encounter to a broader thread — "The cult leader drops a letter from the Magistrate," or "One of the wolves has a branded collar from the Ironwood Ranch." Hooks appear in your GM notes during the live tracker so you see them at the right moment.

Linking to a location

Use the Location field to associate the encounter with a location entity in your world. This does two things: Connection Gravity surfaces this encounter when that location is active in Session Mode, and the location's article gets a back-link to the encounter.

Launching the live tracker

Click Launch Tracker from the encounter entity page or from the Encounters panel in Session Mode.

The tracker opens in a side panel with:

Initiative order — drag to reorder, or use the dice button to roll initiative using each creature's stat block modifier. Enter player initiative values manually.
HP and stress tracking — click a creature's HP to edit it. For Daggerheart, stress tracks separately from HP. Values update in real time across any open tabs.
Conditions — click a creature to apply conditions. Conditions with a duration count down automatically at the start of the affected creature's turn. Use N to advance turns and P to go back.
Loot notes — a free-text field at the bottom for recording treasure, items dropped, or information revealed. This feeds into the post-session debrief.

Resolving the encounter

When the encounter is over, click Resolve. Skryrún records the session number, outcome, and any loot notes to the encounter's history. Resolved encounters remain in your entity list — you can reuse the stat block setup for a rematch.

📝Note

The tracker is GM-only. Players with the companion link see only what you have explicitly revealed about the encounter entity — the tracker state is never visible to them.

Troubleshooting

A creature I created isn't showing up in the adversary search. The adversary search only returns stat blocks whose game system matches your world's active system. If you created a D&D 5e stat block but your world is set to Pathfinder 2e, it will not appear. Check the creature's stat block system in the entity editor, or change the world's system in World Settings.

The difficulty estimate doesn't seem right for my party. The difficulty band is a rough guide, not a formula. Adjust the Party Size field to match how many players are actually playing that session — a four-player party with two missing members plays very differently than the full group. For Pathfinder 2e and D&D 5e, also confirm party level is set correctly.

Conditions aren't counting down automatically. Condition duration tracking requires you to advance turns using N in the tracker. If you are clicking next turn manually through another method, the condition countdown does not trigger. Use the keyboard shortcut or the Next Turn button within the tracker panel itself.

The Encounter Builder option is missing from an entity page. The Open Encounter Builder button only appears on entities with the type set to Encounter. If the entity is typed as NPC, Location, or anything else, the button will not appear. Change the entity type to Encounter in the metadata panel.