Thoughts On The Challenge Rating System

[the Jester]

One thing that's been touched upon briefly above that really affects how difficult an enounter is, is the composition of the party.

For example, a party composed of only small characters has a lot more trouble with DR than a medium party. A party without a cleric finds undead to be much tougher. A party without a rogue finds traps to be more dangerous.

The CR system seems to assume that you have one of the optimal characters in your party. This is not always the case, but the reward doesn't change (unless you figure that the party composition changes the EL, which is an interesting approach to take).

 

[diaglo]

One thing that's been touched upon briefly above that really affects how difficult an enounter is, is the composition of the party.

For example, a party composed of only small characters has a lot more trouble with DR than a medium party. A party without a cleric finds undead to be much tougher. A party without a rogue finds traps to be more dangerous.

read the story hour in my sig.

3 small PCs and 2 med PCs. no cleric.

fighting undead.

and the rogues can't use sneak attack nor crit the darn undead...

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

The rules about CR are strange... for example: the rule says that a fighter 20 is a CR 20, and the tarrasque is a CR 20 too, so... you gains the same xp for the fighter and the tarrasque... o you think this is right? i think npc's doesn't work with the CR rules, since they are 1/4 of a apropriate CR...

Classed opponents do tend to have a lot less muscle but they are expected to have a bit more flexibility. FREX, a hydra is very dangerous toe-to-toe for its given CR but is easily killed if you can attack with ranged weapons. An NPC Fighter would be expected to have a bow and/or magical potions, etc., plus enough intelligence to make such simple tactics less effective.

 

[styker]

Classed opponents do tend to have a lot less muscle but they are expected to have a bit more flexibility. FREX, a hydra is very dangerous toe-to-toe for its given CR but is easily killed if you can attack with ranged weapons. An NPC Fighter would be expected to have a bow and/or magical potions, etc., plus enough intelligence to make such simple tactics less effective.

But, for example a SOLAR or a BALOR... they are very strong, CR 23 and 20... a fighter even with bows, potions and magic items will never be as strong as a balor or solar of equal cr since the strategy doesn't count (the creature have inteligence and strategy too...)

 

[helium3]

Classed opponents do tend to have a lot less muscle but they are expected to have a bit more flexibility. FREX, a hydra is very dangerous toe-to-toe for its given CR but is easily killed if you can attack with ranged weapons. An NPC Fighter would be expected to have a bow and/or magical potions, etc., plus enough intelligence to make such simple tactics less effective.

In my opinion, the CR's for NPC opponents are more innaccurate than the CR's for straight monsters. I think it has something to do with the way NPC gear is handled. Basically, when you get to higher levels the PC's will have several times more gear than the NPC's, and that really starts to matter. In one of my older games, where the PC's got to 15th and 16th level this was really apparent. If the NPC's were of the appropriate CR and didn't get the drop on the players in some way, combat was over in two to three rounds with a minimum of fuss.

 

[iwatt]

.... a min-maxed party of four Clerics and wades into melee combat, he will be killed without the party breaking a sweat....

Very few things can stand up to a min-maxed party of 4 clerics.

 

[satori01]

Wrong. A CR 20 is supposed to be a balanced encounter for a four person 20th level party, which (using the definition of balanced encounter in the D&D) means that it should use up about 20% of their resources and have literally no chance of killing any of them. A 20th lvl fighter (or wizard, or cleric, etc.) is CR 20.

Err wrong to what you said. 20% of resources is never defined in the DMG, it could be what you said, or it could be one player takes the dirt nap while everyone else is realtively unscathed. An encounter that is +2 cr over the parties Average level is considered twice as difficult as an encounter with a CR value equal to party level.

Monster CRs to me are a decent indicator of the power level of a monster. While the CR of a monster is the prime determinate of an encounters EL, I think a lot of people overlook such important factors as the terrain, surprise, how many resources the party has already expended and other mitagating factors.

A party that has to go through 4 enounters where the CRs are Average Party level -1 with no rest and no recovery of spells and then fight the BBEG who has terrain advantage and is +2 CR over Average Party level and I can easily see a final exp bonus for that encounter of + 50% for circumstance and terrain advantage.

As for the person describing his parties encounter with the Earth Elemental, I agree a dm should be aware when he is throwing a monster that a party does not stack up well against, and I would say your dm proabaly was aware and did it on purpose. Any game where players have the option to customize their characters in a specialized way is going to yield "equal" monsters that they cut through like butter, and monsters that cut through them as butter.

I wouldnt penalize a player of a cleric(or paladin), specializing in turning, by reducing the exp on an encounter due to a really nice turn roll that killed the undead. Nor would I increase the exp of an encounter that featuring a monster that stacks quite nicely against a specialized party, unless terrain or other considerations neccistated it.

A sneak attack/ critical hit specialized party is going to suck against high DR/ not crit creatures. However that party against a whole host of creatures with low ACs and realtively low damage like Purple Worms or Gray Renders are going to rock the casbah .

 

[styker]

Terrible are monster with gear, for example inteligent monster that have gear in the treasure... they will use it... and more difficult to beat then (Balor with cloak of displacement)...

 

[Felnar]

Several people have mentioned that dragons CR's aren't accurate, but does anyone have a good way of adjusting their CR's.

 

[Darkness]

Several people have mentioned that dragons CR's aren't accurate, but does anyone have a good way of adjusting their CR's.

Well, 3.5 already adjusted several dragon CRs. I don't know which ones, if any, are still too low.