Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Scortius 06-28-06, 09:26 AM	Recently, I was playing in a campaign at my friends house where our group of 4 level 3s encountered a huge tribe doing some sacrifice. Since we're pretty much all good aligned, we felt we should go in. The guys wern't too hard to handle, being a bard, i just got them to sit and listen to me while my team coup-de-graced them. However, the challenge was yet to come. Suddenly, we were attacked by a giant cat CR 7 or 8 (i can't remember which one he said). The cat, to out surprise, had around 75hp and did 40dmg in a round with medorce rolls. Not to mention, he was mounted by 2 hellishly difficult guys as well. The cat ran through and trampled 2 members of our party. One fell to -7hp and the other was at half health. Luckily, the -7 guy auto-stabilized because he was too far to heal without getting trampled ourselves. Once the cat made one charge, we all scattered to avoid it. I hid behind a wall and guessed it would come in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The cat came and one-shotted me into -17, with mosts 3s and 4s rolled on d6s. I understand that life happens and perhaps hiding behind the wall was a bad decision; but I fell kind of annoyed that we're facing enemies that can easily kill our entire party without even dropping past 50hp. In the end, I rolled up a new character while the rest of my party fought the cat and finally killed it, successfully using every single potion they had. Is it just me, or was that enemy a bit much? I don't really understand how CR works, because my DM said it was a fine challenge, but I beg to differ.
Azezel 06-28-06, 11:34 AM	CR is based on a simple idea. A party of four equal level CP's should expend aproximately 1/4 of their resources (HP, Spell Slots, Class-Features-Per-Day etc) to defeat 1 enemy of a CR equal to their level. In other words - this party can tackle about four fights a day - with only a moderate chance of someone dieing. two Equal CR foes together equal an encounter difficulty of CR+2 One PC has a CR equal to his ECL. Therefore four level five characters should be able to fight four CR 5 monsters in a day - with a little time between each fight. or four level ten characters can fight two CR 8 monsters simultaniously and expend about 1/4 of their daily resources. Your level three party should be able to face four CR three monsters in a day, with only a slight chance of someone dieing. You should also have a fair chance against one CR 5 monster in a day, with similar odds of death. A CR 6 Monster is a pretty good challenge - chances are one or more PC will be hurt badly - you should pull out all the stops, use any and all magic items. A CR 7 monster is a very difficult fight, and if no-one dies then you are doing very well. If one CR 8 monster cannot kill at least one PC then your DM is not doing his job propperly. For my money - your DM was overestimating you - CR 7 is about as much as I would consider throwing at a Level three party - if the DM added two other monsters to his CR7 cat then the actual encounter difficulty would be bumped up to 8 or 9.
questionc 06-28-06, 05:53 PM	By the CR system, if your party was to only have one resource draining encounter in a day, CR 7 would be that challenge. It's a freakishly high CR... but adventures aren't supposed to be built around 1 battle. Realistically... if the party was capable of killing the monster, even losing a member, the CR couldn't have been much too high. It's a crummy way to go, I'll give you that.