Hey guys, just looking for a little advice...

[psychophipps]

I'm going to be running a full-custom campaign here shortly and I'm looking for advice on how to handle the critters I'll be using in terms of Challenge for XP and encounter difficulty.
The world is a cross-up of GURPS Barnstorm and Princess Mononoke where demons and devils possess and defile the bodies of demihumans and animals. I'll be using this to explain cross-breed critters like Manticores and "evil" versions of normal critters like Blood Hawks and Death Dogs. Of course, this also lets me go Full Retard on horror aspects with demons and devils ripping out of corpses to be fought and to give the base critters funky stuff like shooting spikes and tentacles.
Should I just be stacking the CRs together when I do this or should I dig deeper to find the right mix by stats?

Sent from my XT1254 using EN World mobile app

 

[DEFCON 1]

If it's a horror-like campaign... don't worry about CRs. Just make up your monsters how you like and throw them at your party and see what happens. Parties don't freak out in fear when they face "balanced encounters".

 

[Mercule]

I'd agree with the notion of throwing balanced encounters out the window. That's not to say that the PCs shouldn't encounter some things they can beat, just that they don't have to be able to beat everything. It would be best if the PCs had at least some clue about whether or not they could take things, though. That might be through being toyed with and released or some other clue. *shrug* Whatever works for the specific flavor you want to evoke.

Also, you might want to go with story awards for advancement. If the PCs are going to be trying to avoid run-ins with things with some regularity, they need another way to advance or otherwise feel rewarded in-game. I wouldn't make advancement particularly rapid, though. That just doesn't fit the genre, most of the time. Again, depending on exactly the flavor you want, letting them earn XP from occasional "reasonable" encounters might actually be the right pace.

 

[cooperjer]

Defcon 1 has a good point, but if you want to balance the creatures you're combining the CR system only cares about four factors: damage per round, attack bonus, effective hit points, and AC. When you mix a couple different features together consider how those features affect the four significant factors. If there is no change then there is no CR change.

The DMG has a section on monster design near the back. It doesn't always match what is in the MM, in part because they adjusted the MM values based on play test. How your characters interact with the monster might also affect the CR of any new design you have.

 

[GMMichael]

First of all,
[video=youtube;oAKG-kbKeIo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAKG-kbKeIo[/video]

Next, you'd be wasting your time to try and calculate CRs since they rely on rules that you'll probably be breaking.

Finally, if your players don't know what to expect most of the time, you can expect a lot of indecision and/or random ideas from them.

To answer the question, be prepared for a lot of winging it.

 

[psychophipps]

Yeah, I figured as much on the winging it. I will be mixing things up with interspersed "regular" encounters.

Sent from my XT1254 using EN World mobile app

 

[psychophipps]

Thanks for the replies, y'all.

Sent from my XT1254 using EN World mobile app

 

[Oofta]

When I make up monsters i judge their CR based on similar monsters, or use the monster builder guidelines in the DMG as a guideline.

In general though, I just throw what makes sense for the story, and if I think it might be overpowering I make sure I set up the scenario so they can make a hasty retreat.