D&D 5E Serious gamers and new CR formula

[OB1]

While I think the DMG could have done a little better in providing alternates to a 6-8 encounter day, I think as long as the daily xp guides are followed it's not that difficult to work around this. But I do think it's crucial that the daily xp number is hit regularly or players will have a tendency to walk over challenges because they are either not conserving resources or have too many to use. The following is off the top of my head and without the books near me, but I bet the community could quickly come up with some strong guidelines for 1 encounter, 2 encounter, and three encounter days.
6 Encounter Day - Med Encounter - Med Encounter - Short Rest - Hard Encounter - Easy Encounter - Short Rest - Easy Encounter - Deadly Encounter - Long Rest
3 Encounter Day - Hard Encounter - Short Rest - Deadly Encounter - Short Rest - Deadly Encounter - Long Rest
2 Encounter Day - Hard Encounter when reinforcements arrive it turns Deadly - Short Rest - Deadly Encounter - Long Rest
1 Encounter Day - Start Encounter with Hard group of Minions of the BBEG, when they are down to 2-3 minions Deadly BBEG enters the fight, when the board is cleared add a Hard group of 2-4 of the BBEG's top lieutenants seeking revenge - Long Rest

Regardless of the guidelines, I think it's important that the PCs can affect the outcome. There should be ways that the PCs can reduce an 8 encounter day to 3 encounters or prevent reinforcements from arriving in a 2 encounter day. It will make the day easier, and reduce the "challenge" of the fight, but that's because the players have done things to earn it.
And really, that's the same thing with optimized characters. Optimized PCs have spent resources that they could have spent on something else to reduce the randomness of combat encounters and make them "easier" to defeat. 5e actually encourages experimentation with character design because of the chosen level of appropriate design.
If the DM hands out magic items, it's a real bonus and combats will be easier. If players choose combat optimal designs for their characters, it's a real bonus and combats will be easier. In both cases, it opens up freedom to the DMs and Players to follow the path that it most enjoyable for them, rather than a preset design.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I strongly disagree. A kraken by itself is terrifying for any but the most high-level characters.

I think it is more accurate to say that it is a collection of hammers, and it turns your favorite sea-faring vessel into the anvil.

I find it difficult to take people's opinions of how 5th edition works seriously when they make statements like this one.

Yes, if a PC fights a monster fully outside that monster's context in a scenario that bends every advantage to the PC's exclusive benefit... but saying "when you design an encounter so that the monster is set up to fail, the monster fails," is kind of obvious, I think.

This is theory-craft used inappropriately because it intentionally confirms a bias by using a scenario that really only comes up if the DM says "I want to use this monster, but I also want to completely hamstring it on purpose."

You roll up your choice of 1st level character, I'll set up a scenario in which a kraken actually makes sense as an encounter, and we'll see which one comes out the victor - or, we can cut to the chase and say "yeah, no, that's a ridiculous idea that wouldn't actually demonstrate anything useful."

White-room theory-craft has a place - this is not it.

Let me state my thesis clearly, and let's see if we agree or disagree:

Thesis: a kraken's ability to seriously threaten a PC relies on one of two things, either the nearby presence of a body of water, or assistance from a large number of other creatures (minions). There is no scenario in which it is surprising that seven 10th level PCs (as originally mentioned) managed to defeat a lone kraken, unless the scenario includes a large body of water.

(There could be scenarios in which it is surprising that a specific group of PCs managed to defeat a kraken, e.g. a group of 4 shield master rapier-wielding champion fighters and 3 Tempest clerics might have problems even against a landlocked kraken, but it's not surprising in a general sense.)

If you disagree, please present your counterexample.

 

[MostlyDm]

Hemlock, I guess I'm confused why we would ever assume an encounter with a kraken did *not* involve a large body of water? Honest question. It just strikes me as a deeply bizarre assumption. For serious.

Less seriously... I mean. I could white room an encounter between a level 4 party and a single bat, and guarantee the bat wins every time.

The encounter begins with the party in midair, 500' from the rocky ground, with no ropes, ledges, etc. on which to grab on.

Done. Party loses, bats are the real threat.

 

[MostlyDm]

I guess if one of them is a wizard with Featherfall prepared he might survive. Then he can swear himself to meting out bloody vengeance upon the BBEBat

 

[MostlyDm]

Or I could make the rocky ground below an endless field of lava instead. That should take care of any levitaters/featherfallers.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Most groups I've played with equate wandering monsters with XP ATM's. Unless you are literally willing to TPK with your wandering monsters, and your players know it, it's a fairly pointless mechanic. Now, it would be different if a wandering monster encounter resulted in no long rest for the day, but good luck selling that to the group. They'll just expect to finish the fight, go back to sleep and then maybe wake up 10 minutes later the next morning.

That's true if you give them good, high-XP wandering monsters like Slaads and Earth Elementals. But if you give them trash wandering monsters like giant rats, the PCs spend HP and maybe even spells to kill eight giant rats and all they get out of it is 200 XP and eight rat carcasses, which is really annoying. Crawling Claws are even worse.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Hemlock, I guess I'm confused why we would ever assume an encounter with a kraken did *not* involve a large body of water? Honest question. It just strikes me as a deeply bizarre assumption. For serious.

Less seriously... I mean. I could white room an encounter between a level 4 party and a single bat, and guarantee the bat wins every time.

The encounter begins with the party in midair, 500' from the rocky ground, with no ropes, ledges, etc. on which to grab on.

Done. Party loses, bats are the real threat.

Haha, my paranoia wins! There's a reason why my wizards learn Feather Fall at first level. (Remember that Feather Fall works on up to six creatures.) The lava field isn't a good comparison for the landlocked kraken though, because in the case of the lava field, the bat is irrelevant--it's the terrain which does all the damage. The analagous situation for a kraken would be placing it in an environment where it cannot survive at all, such as on land if it is unable to breathe air. Except that it's not, it's explicitly amphibious. The kraken presumably is amphibious for a reason, but the way it's built, it's not really amphibious at all--the kraken shouldn't venture more than 100' or so from water. It wouldn't matter a whit if it were fully aquatic, because effectively it is aquatic-only already when it comes to combat.

The deeper answer to your question: a threat with boundaries is less scary than an unbounded threat. The first-level wizard is only a threat to the kraken under certain circumstances. The kraken just avoids those circumstances and is therefore not scared of the PC. The kraken is a threat to 10th level PCs only under certain circumstances. The PCs just avoid those circumstances and are therefore not scared of the kraken.

There are threats, like spellcasting dragons and vampires, which will scare the pants off the PCs because of the can't run/can't hide/can't fight dynamic[1]. The kraken isn't one of them. As mentioned previously, it is an anvil, but it needs a hammer to be scary. An abomination cult might be a good match. Kidnap villagers at night, bring them down to the shore for the kraken to devour, HP Lovecraft-fashion.

[1] You actually can hide from a vampire by never venturing out of an inhabited dwelling except during daylight hours, but even that doesn't work perfectly. And being required to hide indoors all the time on pain of death is actually pretty scary compared to "don't go near the ocean." Unless you're a fisherman instead of a murderhobo PC, in which case "don't go near the ocean" is pretty scary after all.

Remember that I'm not claiming that krakens are unusable. You could scare a PCs with a kraken by using it to threaten something they love, like a town's economy. If they have to proactively engage it in the water, and letting it escape is a loss because it will just keep killing innocent humans, it becomes a lot scarier. Kraken-as-Jaws is a scarier scenario than Kraken-as-Jason-Vorhees. I'd probably want to be at least 11th level before tackling the kraken in a Jaws-type scenario where you're protecting innocents.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Let me state my thesis clearly, and let's see if we agree or disagree:

Thesis: a kraken's ability to seriously threaten a PC relies on one of two things, either the nearby presence of a body of water, or assistance from a large number of other creatures (minions).

I disagree that minions are necessary for a kraken to seriously threaten a PC, and I disagree that there is merit to analyzing what an aquatic monster's capabilities are when we assume it is found where it wouldn't be - same with flying monsters being assumed never to fly, sunlight sensitive monsters assumed to be encounter outdoors in open terrain under a cloudless sky at noon.

Monsters all have the context in which using them makes sense, and that context is important because they are designed assuming they are encountered in that context - meaning their weaknesses like severely hindered movement speed on land or sunlight powerlessness are possible to exploit, not exploited by default, when deciding how challenging to consider the creature.

There is no scenario in which it is surprising that seven 10th level PCs (as originally mentioned) managed to defeat a lone kraken, unless the scenario includes a large body of water.

It is surprising that a kraken was encountered removed from a large body of water, regards of how many PCs of what level encountered it.

 

[MostlyDm]

I

Haha, my paranoia wins! There's a reason why my wizards learn Feather Fall at first level. (Remember that Feather Fall works on up to six creatures.) The lava field isn't a good comparison for the landlocked kraken though, because in the case of the lava field, the bat is irrelevant--it's the terrain which does all the damage. The analagous situation for a kraken would be placing it in an environment where it cannot survive at all, such as on land if it is unable to breathe air. Except that it's not, it's explicitly amphibious. The kraken presumably is amphibious for a reason, but the way it's built, it's not really amphibious at all--the kraken shouldn't venture more than 100' or so from water. It wouldn't matter a whit if it were fully aquatic, because effectively it is aquatic-only already when it comes to combat.

The deeper answer to your question: a threat with boundaries is less scary than an unbounded threat. The first-level wizard is only a threat to the kraken under certain circumstances. The kraken just avoids those circumstances and is therefore not scared of the PC. The kraken is a threat to 10th level PCs only under certain circumstances. The PCs just avoid those circumstances and are therefore not scared of the kraken.

There are threats, like spellcasting dragons and vampires, which will scare the pants off the PCs because of the can't run/can't hide/can't fight dynamic[1]. The kraken isn't one of them. As mentioned previously, it is an anvil, but it needs a hammer to be scary. An abomination cult might be a good match. Kidnap villagers at night, bring them down to the shore for the kraken to devour, HP Lovecraft-fashion.

[1] You actually can hide from a vampire by never venturing out of an inhabited dwelling except during daylight hours, but even that doesn't work perfectly. And being required to hide indoors all the time on pain of death is actually pretty scary compared to "don't go near the ocean." Unless you're a fisherman instead of a murderhobo PC, in which case "don't go near the ocean" is pretty scary after all.

Remember that I'm not claiming that krakens are unusable. You could scare a PCs with a kraken by using it to threaten something they love, like a town's economy. If they have to proactively engage it in the water, and letting it escape is a loss because it will just keep killing innocent humans, it becomes a lot scarier. Kraken-as-Jaws is a scarier scenario than Kraken-as-Jason-Vorhees. I'd probably want to be at least 11th level before tackling the kraken in a Jaws-type scenario where you're protecting innocents.

I understand your point much better now. I agree that the kraken is not a universal threat the way a dragon/vampire/rakshasa/etc are. Neither is the Tarrasque, for that matter. They are terrifying in their element; the point of them is to put their element in the PCs way, or put something the PCs need or want in that element.

I still think they count as scary. I guess that's the only thing you've said that I strongly object to... A page or two ago I got the impression you were saying krakens just aren't scary, which I objected to.

Even a purely aquatic beastie like an aboleth is more threatening in the universal sense though. More assumed direct minions and such. A kraken isn't really BBEG material. It's more like a terrifying arrow in the BBEG's quiver.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I disagree that minions are necessary for a kraken to seriously threaten a PC, and I disagree that there is merit to analyzing what an aquatic monster's capabilities are when we assume it is found where it wouldn't be - same with flying monsters being assumed never to fly, sunlight sensitive monsters assumed to be encounter outdoors in open terrain under a cloudless sky at noon.

You say you disagree, but I'm not sure with whom you're disagreeing because you're fully aware that you're not disagreeing with me. We agree that krakens in aquatic settings are scary. Reread post #90:

7 level 10 PCs vs. a kraken? Underwater, maybe that would be a tough fight. But above ground, I'm not surprised the kraken lost.

Our disagreement is about epistemology, not CR or D&D: you assume the kraken must have been encountered in advantageous aquatic terrain (+1 to difficulty level), whereas I don't think that assumption is justified by shoak1's words in post #20.

For instance, 7x L10 PCs killed a Kraken (CR23, 50k exp) in what the DMG would consider to be a "hard" encounter, but the PCs knew it would be the only encounter of the day and were fresh off a long rest.

(Yes, I know that Shoak is miscalculating the difficulty rating in that quote.) I don't think Shoak was using tricky kraken tactics like smashing a ship the PCs are riding on, grabbing two PCs with tentacles, and retreating underwater to digest them--it sounds like the kraken was being used as basically a meatsack, so it's not surprising that it died like a meatsack. I could be wrong in that guess, but that's not a disagreement over krakens and their potential, it's a disagreement over Shoak's writing, and only Shoak knows the answer.