Encounter Builder (2024 Rules)

Foundry VTT module for D&D 5e (2024 rules): builds encounters against the 2024 DMG's per-character XP budget, and generates 2024 DMG-style loot — both a per-monster "Individual Treasure" purse and a full Treasure Hoard — with a fully editable preview before creating anything.

Features

Encounter tab

• XP budget per 2024 DMG rules (Low/Moderate/High, no group multipliers)
• Browse monsters from ANY loaded Actor compendium (SRD + your own homebrew)
• Filters: search, CR, size, subtype, creature type, habitat (speculative, only shown if your dnd5e version actually has habitat data), and role (see Encounter Composition below)
• Party Level/Size can be synced from Foundry's own designated Party actor (dnd5e's Group/Party feature) via a "Sync from Party" button — auto-pulled once when the app opens, never silently overwritten mid-session
• Auto-Fill Remaining (randomized variety + repeat cap, respects every active filter) and Boss Encounter mode (one strong creature + supporting adds — targets the full budget instead of leaving a chunk unspent when there's no room left for adds)
• Boss-ify: mark any monster (auto-picked or added by hand) as the boss, then scale its HP, damage, AC, and ability scores up by a chosen tier — RAW / Moderate / High / Deadly — so a single boss can actually threaten a full party. Fully reversible per-monster
• Elite: a lighter, no-configuration alternative to Boss-ify — mark any number of monsters as Elite to scale them up at a fixed Moderate tier with one click, without the "only one boss per encounter" restriction. Boss, Elite, and Minion are mutually exclusive per monster
• Minion: convert any monster to MCDM-style Minion stats (Flee, Mortals!) — fixed low HP and fixed, non-random damage per hit, at a fraction of its normal XP cost — for fast, disposable group fights. Also reversible
• Encounter Composition: classifies monsters into roles (Brute/Tank/Skirmisher/Cleric/Caster) based on HP, AC, damage, and spellcasting relative to other monsters of the same CR — a homebrew heuristic, not from any book. "Compute Roles" scores the currently-filtered monster list (narrow by CR/type first to keep it fast), a Role filter joins the other search filters, role badges show up next to monsters already in the Encounter list, and Auto-Fill gains optional per-role slot counts (e.g. "2 Brute + 2 Skirmisher") — works together with Boss Encounter mode too, since the boss always keeps its own unconstrained slot. Roles are relative to the current candidate pool; recompute them after changing filters.
• Encounter HP mode (RAW / Minroll / Maxroll) controls how every monster's HP is set when placed, independent of Boss-ify/Elite/Minion
• Boss-ify's tier percentages/AC/ability bonuses, Minion's XP discount, and Boss Encounter mode's budget split between the boss and its supporting adds are GM-tunable per-user under Settings > Configure Settings > Module Settings > "Configure Values" (defaults match the numbers above). The starting Encounter HP mode and whether Boss Encounter starts checked are separate per-user settings right in the main Module Settings list
• In-app Help button (next to the tabs) explains every button and field in plain language
• Lair Actions: monsters that have them get a per-encounter "Lair" toggle, adjusting their XP to CR+1 for budget purposes — matches the 2024/2025 Monster Manual's fix for a 2014-era oversight where lair-fighting monsters got no XP bump at all
• Click a monster's name to open its stat block; a separate "+" button adds it — same pattern everywhere a monster or item is listed in this module
• Drag a monster straight from the search list onto the canvas to place a single, plain (un-scaled) token immediately — a quick-and-dirty alternative to the encounter list for a one-off placement; Boss-ify/Elite/Minion-ify still require adding it to the encounter list below instead
• Click-to-place token spiral formation on the canvas
• Creates a real Combat encounter when you're happy with the picks
• Compendium selection is remembered per-user across sessions
• Encounter Presets: save the current Party Level/Size/Difficulty, the full monster list (including per-monster Boss-ify/Elite/Minion settings), and the current Treasure Hoard plan (if one's been rolled) as a named, world-shared preset — Save As… / Load / Delete, right above the encounter list

Individual Treasure tab

• The 2024 DMG's smaller, separate "Individual Treasure" table: the incidental coin a single non-hoarding monster carries, as opposed to a full Treasure Hoard
• Rolled once per creature currently selected in the Encounter tab, summed into one purse — coins only (including electrum, which Treasure Hoard never rolls), fully editable afterward
• Search + manually add specific items from your own compendiums, on top of or instead of the rolled coins
• Filter the item browser by DMG-style category (Weapon, Armor, Ring, Rod, Wand, Wondrous Item, and more) — also available on the Treasure Hoard tab
• Customize…: turn any weapon or armor entry into a named magic find before it's materialized — see the dedicated section below

Treasure Hoard tab

• The 2024 DMG's detailed Treasure Hoard tables — coins, gems/art, and resolved magic items with real names, not a blind roll
• Coin formulas for all four CR tiers (0-4, 5-10, 11-16, 17+) are cross-verified against independent sources and treated as confirmed; the gems/magic-item band shape is a restructured (probability-preserving, not row-by-row) approximation
• Hoard tier is based on party level, not monster CR — deliberate choice, matches common practice among experienced DMs more closely than strict RAW
• Loot Basis dropdown: "Tier (RAW)" (default, follows Party Level) or a specific character level 1-20, which uses an opt-in homebrew table that smooths out the DMG's 4 wide tier bands into a per-level curve
• Reroll all magic items at once using your own hand-edited rarity counts, or reroll a single rolled item in place (same rarity, fresh pick, everything else in the plan left untouched)
• Search + add specific items from your own compendiums; rarity filter is ordered common→artifact, not alphabetically, and mundane (non-magical) gear is excluded from the loot browser entirely
• Creates a real Actor with real Items, placed as a hidden, non-combat token (never added to the Combat tracker — it doesn't fight)

Item Customize dialog

Available from any weapon or armor entry (rolled or manually added) in either the Individual Treasure or Treasure Hoard tab — turns a generic loot-list item into this encounter's specific magic find before it's materialized:

• Custom name and description — the description replaces the base item's text wholesale rather than appending to it
• A flat magic bonus (+1/+2/+3), correctly targeting the right dnd5e field for weapons vs. armor (a real schema quirk — using the wrong one is a silent no-op for AC). Never lets you accidentally downgrade an item that already has a higher bonus
• Up to two extra damage types (weapons) or resistance types (armor)
• A Requires Attunement toggle
• Rarity auto-suggests from what you picked (each point of bonus, plus each extra damage/resistance type, counts as a rarity step; armor lands one step higher than a weapon with the same inputs, matching the real DMG's own asymmetry) but is always manually overridable
• The suggested name updates live as you pick options, right up until you type your own — then it stops overwriting you
• Homebrew throughout, clearly flagged as such in the dialog — not an official DMG magic item generator

Status

Actively developed. Foundry-dependent code (canvas placement, Actor/Item creation and mutation, the Boss-ify dialog app) can't be unit-tested outside a live Foundry session — everything else (all pure-logic scripts, including the treasure/loot tables, the smoothed-level math, the Boss-ify/Minion-ify stat math, and the Encounter Composition role classification) has been checked with plain Node, and probability/gating claims are verified with simulated rolls before being called done. The Minion stat table is transcribed from MCDM's Flee, Mortals!; Boss-ify's tier percentages, Elite's fixed tier, and the Encounter Composition role thresholds are original house rules, not sourced from any book.

Midi QoL compatibility: Boss-ify's and Minion-ify's damage scaling has been live-verified against Midi QoL (v14.0.11, Foundry v14.365, dnd5e 5.3.3) — Midi subclasses dnd5e's own Activity classes rather than replacing them, so it reads the same scaled damage data as a normal roll, including weapons with "Include Base Damage" enabled. Elite reuses this exact same scaling path, so it's covered by the same verification.

Support

This module is free and will stay free. If it saved you some prep time and you feel like buying me a coffee, that's always appreciated — but never expected: ko-fi.com/elmimage