D&D 5E CRs and what is going on?

[aramis erak]

Not to re-rail this discussion on encounter distance, but I just wanted to answer the idea that a Balor being beaten by 6 level 7's is a failing in CR math. According to the encounter chart, the 22000 XP Balor that's a Medium encounter for a party of 4 level 19 PCs is a Deadly encounter for 6 level 7 PCs. Level 7 is the highest level where it's still in the Deadly category for a party of 6 as a solo encounter. The high level party does treat them as speedbumps, since they're expected to handle 5.5 similar encounters before calling it a day, while the larger level 7 party is still only supposed to manage about 2.75 of these. The High CR just means it can easily KO a lower leveled character, while the high encounter challenge (and deadly encounters get much higher than 1833 per PC vs 1700 deadly threshold) is only supposed to account for how much of the party's resources the encounter can be expected to take, and the chance for a PC to actually die to poor luck.

CR 19. 22,000 XP.
party of 6x 7th level PC's at 1700 allowed Difficulty Value EACH, for deadly. 6x1700=6000+4200=10200 DV

DV of encounter is XP/2, because party exceeds 5 PC's. Thus DV is 11000. That's only 800 DV into the Deadly range.

Most PC's can triumph (with losses) against up to 2x the deadly threshold, and cautious play and a little luck to DV's of triple.

It ain't broken. You just aren't calculating it right.

 

[MostlyDm]

The balor is certainly weak compared to similar creatures such as the marilith or pit fiend. I would

• Add an extra sword attack
• Make the sword a vorpal weapon like it was in the past
• Use the demon summoning rules

Good advice; I'm with Shadowdweller in that while the damage math kind of checks out (due to Death Throes) I don't much like the flavor of weighting the Balor's death so highly.

Just one nitpick though, Prism... the Balor already kind of has a Vorpal sword.

Why? Check it out: Vorpal swords only decapitate mooks. Any monster with Legendaries, any big monster, any monster the DM basically rules isn't eligible for insta-death, just takes 6d8 extra damage on a natural 20 instead.

And when the Balor rolls a natural 20 with its sword, it deals triple damage instead of double. What damage dice? Well, coincidentally, the Balor's sword deals 3d8 slashing, and 3d8 lightning.

So on a natural 20, lo and behold, the Balor deals an extra 6d8 damage. Just like a Vorpal sword, with the assumption that PCs count as Legendary monsters.

Depending on the tone of the game, you could assume PCs aren't that special, and kill 'em instead. But in a significant sense, the Balor's sword is already treated as Vorpal.

 

[Prism]

Depending on the tone of the game, you could assume PCs aren't that special, and kill 'em instead. But in a significant sense, the Balor's sword is already treated as Vorpal.

Yeah I can see that they were kind of playing for the vorpal weapon but without the head being lopped off. I'd just add that back in. I don't see the PCs as legendary, especially since this thread is discussing the fact that low level characters can take on the Balor. I'd still allow a vorpal weapon to be able to work against a 20th level character to be honest.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Yeah I can see that they were kind of playing for the vorpal weapon but without the head being lopped off. I'd just add that back in. I don't see the PCs as legendary, especially since this thread is discussing the fact that low level characters can take on the Balor. I'd still allow a vorpal weapon to be able to work against a 20th level character to be honest.

One way to go is to base the effectiveness of the vorpal strike on who is being hit and who is wielding it. At CR 19, any character of 19th or higher level takes extra damage. Anyone below 19th level just loses a head. That would be sufficient reason for lower level characters to be afraid of such a creature.

 

[MontyKC1974]

I spent 2 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq engagement ranges were anywhere from 5' to 300'. We fought mostly in urban environments though.

Afghanistan was 100' to 3000' depending on terrain. Though Afghanistan is EXTREMELY hilly, rocky and not flat in any one place. So most engagements started when we were told by satellite or aircraft that an enemy unit was in the area.

Point man always scanned 100 to 300' ahead of us, while the rest of the platoon scanned within 100'. Three of us had binoc's, all of us Night Vision and Thermals.

Anyway.

I started the Hoard of the Dragon queen. Im running it straight from the book. Got through chapter 1 and 2 so far and its been a BREEZE for the characters. I dont see it getting any harder anytime soon.