Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 thanson02 Nov 18, 2014 8:29:12	Hey everyone. I want to make sure that I am understanding the relationship between the CR system and the XP budget.  I was hoping someone would be willing to help me out. In the MM, there is a chart that shows how much XP a monster with a particular CR has.  And my understanding of the CR system is that a creature with a CR of 1 is a challenge for 4 level one players.  So each level one player can handle and creature with a CR of ¼ or two with a CR of 1/8 on their own without any major issues.  If you get 4 players, it doesn’t matter if you send 1 CR 1 monster, 2 CR ½ monsters, 4 CR ¼ monsters, 8 CR 1/8 monsters, or a combination of these because in regards to XP budget, they are worth the same and they all add up to CR 1. Once players get to level 2, they should be able to handle one CR 2 monster (450 xp) or 2 CR 1 monsters (400 xp total).  They would also be able to handle an additional CR ¼ in that encounter to come up to 450 xp, but it would be a more difficult encounter and that is where the xp adjustment chart in the DM Basic rules would come in? Like I said, I just want to make sure I am understanding how encounter building works.  Any insight is greatly appreciated.
#2 iserith Nov 18, 2014 8:50:17	Combat difficulty is governed chiefly by the XP threshold (and the modifiers based on the number of creatures). Decide on a difficulty, "buy" monsters to fit it, and make adjustments to account for the encounter multipliers. Challenge rating is another consideration on top of that with the caveat being that care should be taken when using monsters of a higher Challenge rating than the party's average level.   If you want to just have a tool do it for you, use this: Encounter Builder. It's much easier. As well, this is not an exact science, so you're going to have to use your best judgment when it comes to determining whether a given scene's difficulty is suitable for the group.
#3 thanson02 Nov 18, 2014 13:00:19	iserith wrote:
#4 iserith Nov 18, 2014 13:26:51	thanson02 wrote:
#5 DaveDash Nov 18, 2014 14:14:29	It's more of a curve than linear.   These are my experiences: At lower levels a CR3 monster can be tough for a level 3 party, at level 17 a CR17 monster is a cake walk. Beyond level 5, deadly isn't really very deadly at all. I've thrown ridiculously higher than budget encounters at my group and they've cake walked them (even low on resources). On the other hand as well, it can be quite swingy if the players get unlucky. Things like surprise, terrain, and numbers seem to have the biggest impact on encounter difficulty. Since most encounters only last about three rounds, surprise effectively gives one or more combatants a huge boost in damage potential. Monsters that hit hard bit have low defensiveness are way more deadly than the inverse. The NPC Assassin at the back of the MM for example has weak AC and hitpoints, bit does absurd damage for its CR. Two of them almost dropped a level 11 Paladin in one round. Finally, I believe the intention of the designers is to mix lower CR monsters with a few higher CR ones. Low CR monsters can remain relevant throughout the game, and can help increase challenge while keeping XP rewards low.    Long story short, its an art not a science.
#6 Illithidbix Nov 18, 2014 18:08:01	Yep. The actual encounter building system is based upon the XP value of monsters. It's really just the 4E system, but with the complication of the XP muliplier for number of monsters.     CR determines how much XP the monster is worth (note a few monsters appear to have the wrong amount in MM, awkwardly*), and is also a useful "You must be this tall to fight this monster" guideline. From my poke of the maths, 1 CR X creature is a hard encounter for 4 level X players. The maths might be a little out at some levels of course.     Remember it's also a guideline, adding two goblins to a fight vs a Kraken probably doesn't actually double the effective encounter difficulty...   And it probably isn't aimed at players who are both optamised and know the rules/spells well. It's probably aimed as a guideline for a party of more casual minded players.       *CR 23 monsters are worth 50,000XP, but the MM lists lists the Ancient blue dragon. Ancient silver dragon and Empyrean as worth 32,500 XP in their entry. The Kraken is however correctly listed as 50,000XP. The Monsters by CR pdf lists them all as worth 50,000.
#7 Nevvur Nov 18, 2014 20:29:18	I prefer this chart as an improvement over the builder in the DMG basic, especially for encounters involving enemies with disparate CRs. Not sure how it holds up at higher levels, as my table is avg.6   http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?367697-Encounter-difficulty-how-to-fix-it
(Reply to #6) Coredump00	Illithidbix wrote:
#9 DaveDash Nov 18, 2014 21:22:58	It all depends on the hitpoint pool the party has to get through. Anything CR2 and above can generally survive most AoE spells without being wiped in one turn, and still can hurt even very high level characters. Thus it takes them a few resources to chew through said creatures. For example 10 CR2 creatures with 40 hitpoints each is 400hp worth of damage the party needs to do. That's as many hitpoints as a couple of high CR monsters, and 10 attacks per round to deal with. Id still factor such creatures into the XP budget. Only one such creature (CR2) with a high CR creature, however, no, it wouldn't have anywhere near as much impact.
#10 thanson02 Nov 18, 2014 23:39:24	Illithidbix wrote:
#11 Timborama Nov 19, 2014 9:51:06	Also worth noting: The math expects/assumes a 6-8 encounter "workday." This is why CR 17's are "pushovers" and not exactly "BBEG for level 17 PCs to face alone right after they wake up" kinda material. And as I always say, CR and the Encounter Builder are more guidelines than systems. Some enemies are vulnerable to your PC composition/optimization, while some others can wipe the floor with them based off their abilities.   Adjust accordingly!
#12 Illithidbix Nov 19, 2014 11:10:30	Coredump00 wrote:
(Reply to #11) DaveDash	Timborama wrote:
#14 AndyDay Nov 25, 2014 9:33:21	FWIW, here's a story about how nuts low level encounters can get.   As a GM for 5E, my head spun off when I tried to create an encounter using the DMG, so I said Forget it, and just make encounters that are right for the story, CR/XP be darned.   I had a party of 5 PCs at level 3, beseiged in a very weakly fortified tower by a company of 30 Guards, lead by a Knight. I assume this is well beyond what the party should be able to handle. They assumed as much, but rather than surrender, they chose to fight (as, suicidal PC). In the ensuing battle, they lured the NPCs into the fort and hammered them with a bomb and a single blast of Thunderwave, which summed up to kill about 2/3 of the guards. The rest were hacked through relatively easily, with the last handful surrendering (they don't suffer from PC-suicide syndrome, after all).   Long and short... PCs are way more powerful than they seem!   **EDIT: And thunderwave is totally OP