Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Rhomphaia 01-05-06, 03:10 PM	Time for what is turning out to be a pseudo-regular rant time for me. This time it has nothing to do with alignment, paladins or exalted status. This rant probably comes from my times of playing D&D 1e. The first time I flipped through a 3.0 Monster Manual, I saw a curious little entry called 'Challenge Rating'. I asked myself 'what the hell?' and immediately began to look up the definition. I was both astonished and incredibly pleased (to the point of prancing) at the same time. The reason is very simple. Earlier editions od Dungeons and Dragons had no semblence of Challenge Rating. In earlier editions, a DM would pretty much have to look at the hit dice of a creature as a gauge of if he should even consider the critter a worthy advesary for his player's PCs. If he judged that it was in-line on that basis, he then compared special features and abilities, maybe made some adjustments to fit a particular adventure, and hoped for the best. Mistakes and TPK or near-TPKs were common as a result. It took a skilled DM to be able to make encounters that he wanted both to be a challenge and meant to be survivable for the PCs. Of course any good DM put over-powered encounters into their games to keep the PCs on their toes, and that shouldn't change now. However, many of these were unintended and in ways so overpowering that by the time the PCs or DM knew what was happening, it was far too late to save the party. Now a tool had been added to remove that guesswork, or most of it. To me, Challenge Rating is a tool to help me gauge encounters and help them be survivable, and it has proven to have far fewer mistakes than adjucating the critters myself. However, since players often have just as much access to the Monster Manuals and Dungeon Master's Guide as the DM does, this has led to one of the worst metagaming problems I have seen ever. Players ******* and moaning about 'encounter balance'. Before, one or two encounters just meant the DM made a couple of mistakes and everyone learned from it. The players learned to run from X creature if the DM was running it and the DM learned to not throw X creature up against the party if he wanted them to survive. However, if it became a regular trend of every encounter led to party death or having to run away, then we recognized a problem and intervened, asking the DM what was going on. Not anymore. Too often it seems that ONE misplaced encounter gets the players jumping down the DM's throat about proper 'encounter balance'. Now is where I really rant. To every player who has ever complained about encounter balance over a small handful of encounters- Grow up and grow a brain. Not every encounter is meant to be overcome by your PCs. Hell, not everything you encounter is meant to be tricked, killed, fought, whatever. Hell, maybe you are not even supposed to interact with it. More often than not, such encounters are meant to be roleplayed out. Not every orc or troll is evil. Ever think that once in your adventuring career, with all the wierdness you see, that you may come across an ogre mother who is trying to find one of her kids? If you want your 1st level fighter to attack that owlbear who was getting a drink from the river, then go right ahead, just don't ***** at the DM when it rips you to shreds and begins eating you within the first round of combat. You had the option to run. Also, not every encounter is meant to be fought. Occassinally the purpose of an encounter (i.e.- how the PCs 'win' and thus gain experience) is by negotiation, not getting eaten, not fighting, sneaking past...or something other than making a bloody mess of the 'opponent'. I will say it again because it absolutely cannot be said enough...NOT EVERY ENCOUNTER IS MEANT TO BE A FIGHT TO BE WON BY THE PCS! Many DMs are not immune to blame either. I have seen a few times where an EL 4 encounter was thrown against one or two level 4 characters. This is not proper as far as the placed system goes. The big important fact to remember is that a party of FOUR characters can take on an EL equal to the average party level. I have seen this forgotten too many times and DMs throw one or two characters at an encounter of similar EL and expect them to come away with it in the same shape as four characters of the same level...not gonna happen. On a similar note, while it is cool to throw a climactic encounter at the PCs that is of a higher EL than their average party level, be very careful in adjucating such an encounter. I have seen DMs make the mistake of throwing four level five characters, already weary from a dungeon trek, up against a BBEG with a CR of 10. The reasoning? They should have taken him easy. Together they are level 20. Sorry, doesn't work that way...I don't care where you come from. Pretty much, I have seen that a climactic encounter with an EL of 1 or 2 above the party level works best for low to mid levels and up to four, maybe five levels higher if the group is upwards of 15. No matter what though, give your PCs the opportunity to run from the encounter or otherwise escape. This brings me to my final point. The other big mistake I have seen DMs make is to throw in a trap room where the doors close and lock and a monster appears. This is a do-or die situation and has only one purpose- to drain the PC resources. This is perfectly acceptable, as it keeps the players on their toes. However, for the love of Heironeous, do not make it a standard EL equal to the party level. The CR/EL of monsters and encounters has been calculated with the option of being able to run away in mind. If you make traps like this, make them a lower EL/CR...and whenever you put an equal EL/CR in an encounter, give the option to run somehow. You do not need to make it obvious, but make it an option nontheless. I guess what I am trying to say is that the little line in the 3.0 Monster Manual that I was originally so happy to see has turned into a big headache for me. Challenge Rating is a tool to help take some paperwork away from DMs, not a tool for player metagaming.
imperialjunkie 01-05-06, 03:53 PM	Good thoughts Rhomphaia. But you are a bitter, bitter individual ;) Yes, it is very important to keep Encounter Level and Effective Party Level balanced as much as possible. But some fluctuation is warranted. I try to go by the guidelines given in Table 3-2 on pg. 49 of the DMG. They recommend 50% of encounters be of equal EL as the party level. From there the curve allows for some really easy encounters and some really tough ones. But not many (10% Easy on one end; 5% Overpowering on the other). DMs can easily be tripped up by what seems like the disparity of the following situation: four level 1 NPCs are an even challenge for four level 4 PCs. That doesn't seem fair at all or a challenge. We have to keep in mind that an appropriate encounter is not meant to kill, but instead to wear down. The danger for adventurers lies in overcoming a succession of challenges that slowly deplete their resources (hit points, spells, class features, potions, etc.). If we keep this in mind we'll do well for our players.
Gailbraithe 01-05-06, 05:00 PM	Under 2E it was possible to calculate something equivalent to a CR for encounters. I forget where, but one of the zillion books (maybe a Dragon article?) had a whole process for figuring it out. Basically the same as calculating XP - you take the base hit die and modifiy it up for speical abilities, and then compare that to the total party levels, and you get a percentage. An adventure would have a numbe rof encounters adding up to 100% basically. Sort of a precursor to the CR system. I used it as a DM and rarely had balance problems - generally balance problems arose from mke looking at a new monster and not having the patience to wait to spring it on my players. It also meant that on those rare occasions I played, I was prone to *****ing about out-of-balance encounters. I recall one session where 3 2nd level characters encountered 20+ HD worth of hippogriffs. Out in the open, where we couldn't out run them. And my griffon illusion only ****** them off, rather than scaring them off. Oh lord did I ***** up a storm that day. I think every die roll was preceded and followed by a constant stream of me muttering "300% of our damn party hit dice, what kind of blah blah blah". After the DM nerfed my illusion, I flat-out told him that he was going to either kill us all of dues ex machina us out of the situation, and he got all pissy and said we could handle it. I told him I could do the math in my head and we were three rounds from TPK. Two rounds later, as the fighter is down to 1 HP, the rogue is out, and my mage is cowering under a bush (with her whopping 5 hit points and 9 AC), a whole flcok of griffons shows up and scares them off while leaving us in piece. And I'm sitting there muttering "Did I not say this would end in Deus Ex Machina?" Still pisses me off. Not only did he Deus Ex Machina us, but he stole the idea from me right after nerfing my attempt. Just mentioned it because, you know, it's not something that just started in 3.5 It's just easier for players to tell when the DM is being dumb now. Oh, and yeah yeah, I know, I'm a horrible player. Too many years DMing has made me intolerant of sloppy DMs.
Rhomphaia 01-07-06, 07:51 PM	I am not bitter, I am just tired of seeing threads put out by people who don't know how to play the game and just complain instead of trying to learn or threads put out by people who are complaining of such individuals. Oh, Gailbraithe, I know there was a horse-and-buggy type CR system in 2e, but it really was about as good as ad-hocing your way through it. My group never used the thing as the DM tended to make better encounters without it. And yes, this is a one and only bump.
allencon 01-07-06, 08:09 PM	I remember a few of my early experiences in pre 3ed. I even have the old monstrous compendium to ravenloft where CR didn't happen and the party had to pray the DM tallied all factors correctly or oops the party is turned into a sticky stain on the dungeon floor. CR's are good, and the tables for encounters in the 3.5 DMG give a good break down too. Also, DM's shouldn't habbitually rely on the "do or die" scenario for encounters, it's just bad DMing and even worse storytelling. In a paradoxical sort of way when everything in a campaign world is cookie cutter cloned, it almost induces a state of metagame thinking at the table. But definitely if there were no CR's for monsters and I had to rely on the old 2nd edition guidelines for determining encounters, (as a side note remember when most monsters only had a d8 as their hit die) I wouldn't be able to function. Sometimes the "mathematical" sum of a monsters abilities don't tell of its true power. This is something that can only be found out through vigorous play testing. Evening when DM's engineer new monsters under the section of new mosnter creation in the MM, judicious testing should be done to see if the monster reflects the CR accurately. One thing DM's forget too that hamstringing the PC's in certain situtaions, can raise the EL or the effective CR of an encounter. Well I'm going to shut up early for once so mark it on your calanders, it probably won't happen again for a while.
Rhomphaia 01-07-06, 08:22 PM	I remember a few of my early experiences in pre 3ed. I even have the old monstrous compendium to ravenloft where CR didn't happen and the party had to pray the DM tallied all factors correctly or oops the party is turned into a sticky stain on the dungeon floor. I always thought this was the usual result of adventuring in Ravenloft anyway...if you weren't already playing an undead that is.
TheChilliGod 01-07-06, 08:27 PM	Know whats worse than making an overpowering encounter, causing a TPK, and having your players whine and moan to you? Making an operpowering encounter, then play the encounter so badly, fudging every other dice roll and refusing to use any special abilities of the monsters, so that the players actually win the encounter with absolutely no casualties nor use of tactics beyond, "I fireball, then you move in", then having them whine and moan to you. Methinks that was the most memorable battle in existance. Because that battle was roughly an EL 10 higher than the party level, complete with 2 CR 10's, a CR 12, three CR 7's and about six or seven CR 3's, against a four-person, 6th level party with no proper tactical sense or teamwork. We were told to go straight in and wipe it out. And we did wipe it out, and none of us died or even hit negatives. I still have no idea what possessed the DM to do such a thing, I have no idea why the enemy barbarian didn't rage, nor the enemy cleric cast anything other than Stop Heart and Hold Person, nor why the CR 7 guys didn't have at least +1 swords, among other things. The DM is still ignorant of any wrong-doing, and faces nearly every player in his game quitting due to this among other unrelated nonsense. So when I see those articles about encounter balance, and that the players are moaning and whining to the DM because an encounter of EL Party level +10 caused a TPK, I laugh and say to myself, "You got nothing. At least your party properly died."
Arak the mighty 01-08-06, 01:04 AM	I often have encounters that are higher than what my players can rightfully handle. I try to present my world as "real" as possible. My players are intelligent, and can often figure out when talking/parley is better than fighting. They know when they're in over their head and when they should retreat. I'm not saying I throw in encounters that I know they'll die in, but encounters that they must be wary of. I have confidence in my group that they'll recognize those situations. 3rd Ed has done a wonderful job with the CR and EL stuff so that it's far *easier* for me to have those types of situations. I KNOW if my players are in over their heads, so I can PLAN ahead to adjust on the fly if they choose to fight and have a hard time getting away. Yes, I allow my players to die, but *because* I occasionally use an enemy that they aren't completely prepared to deal with, it's up to me to make sure they at least have a fair shot at getting out of the encounter in decent enough shape to get a raise dead spell cast on whoever needs it.
Andrew_980 01-08-06, 04:18 AM	I for one hate the cr thing, it is far from balanced for some creatures. It is a good concept but i cannot believe they think the CR of a dire ape or collosal scorpion are correct :mad:
was_fired 01-08-06, 04:50 AM	Just because some CRs are wrong doesn't mean the concept of CR is wrong. CRs are an extremely useful guide to find out which monsters to look at for sending against your party. Then you do the following: READ THE ENTRY. If you agree with the CR good, if you don't change it or don't use the monster. EL is a far less useful guide than CR since different monsters' abilities stack differently. Caster based monsters, monsters with save or dies, and monsters with ability damage / drain / negative levels are far more potent in groups than brawler. EL is mainly used as a tool for yelling at a DM that screwed up an encounter.