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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 7709458" data-attributes="member: 6787650"><p>Sorry. You're not dumb, I'm probably not explaining enough context. The context is:</p><p></p><p>I have a simulator which can run combats dozens or hundreds of times to estimate the outcome of combats, e.g. 22 orcs vs. a Marilith. I'm using that, and simple analysis of the DMG table, to try to find a rule of thumb for BR which makes BR pretty much fungible, so that 50 BR worth of units is pretty much as good as any other 50 BR worth of units.</p><p></p><p>This was inspired by your question, "Why not just use CR instead of the BR table?" The initial answer I gave to you was, I think, wrong. It took me some thinking through examples to conclude this, and I checked myself by examining the DMG CR table and running some sims. In my post I examine the proposal you originally made of just using CR and conclude that it's actually not too bad.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That probably wouldn't be an exciting story, and not one that is well-suited to a mass combat system: Tarrasque kills the army and takes no damage because it's immune to nonmagical weapons. (Even if there are a handful of guys with magic weapons, it's still probably better-suited to playing out as a detailed combat, not a mass combat.) Mass Combat systems shouldn't be used when the outcome is already predictable.</p><p></p><p>Feel free to ignore CRs above 20 if they don't fit your story, but as for me I think it's nice to be able to know how to handle ancient dragons-that-are-not-whites, as well as krakens, empyreans, etc. Especially I like knowing how to handle a Rise of Tiamat-type scenario where e.g. 100 young dragons, 20 adults, and 4 ancients on one side are fighting against 30 adults and 10 ancients on the other, and I like having some assurance that the results I get from doing so are going to roughly match up with what I'd get from playing the battle out in detail. Treating CR 24 as BR 32 seems to do that better than treating it as BR 24.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 7709458, member: 6787650"] Sorry. You're not dumb, I'm probably not explaining enough context. The context is: I have a simulator which can run combats dozens or hundreds of times to estimate the outcome of combats, e.g. 22 orcs vs. a Marilith. I'm using that, and simple analysis of the DMG table, to try to find a rule of thumb for BR which makes BR pretty much fungible, so that 50 BR worth of units is pretty much as good as any other 50 BR worth of units. This was inspired by your question, "Why not just use CR instead of the BR table?" The initial answer I gave to you was, I think, wrong. It took me some thinking through examples to conclude this, and I checked myself by examining the DMG CR table and running some sims. In my post I examine the proposal you originally made of just using CR and conclude that it's actually not too bad. That probably wouldn't be an exciting story, and not one that is well-suited to a mass combat system: Tarrasque kills the army and takes no damage because it's immune to nonmagical weapons. (Even if there are a handful of guys with magic weapons, it's still probably better-suited to playing out as a detailed combat, not a mass combat.) Mass Combat systems shouldn't be used when the outcome is already predictable. Feel free to ignore CRs above 20 if they don't fit your story, but as for me I think it's nice to be able to know how to handle ancient dragons-that-are-not-whites, as well as krakens, empyreans, etc. Especially I like knowing how to handle a Rise of Tiamat-type scenario where e.g. 100 young dragons, 20 adults, and 4 ancients on one side are fighting against 30 adults and 10 ancients on the other, and I like having some assurance that the results I get from doing so are going to roughly match up with what I'd get from playing the battle out in detail. Treating CR 24 as BR 32 seems to do that better than treating it as BR 24. [/QUOTE]
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