D&D 5E CR and Encounter Difficulty: Is It Consistently Wrong?

[Psikerlord#]

The 5E earned XP is exactly and ONLY the CR. The Adjustments for difficulty values are nowhere stated to apply to Earned XP. So while 5x 50XP badguys may be counted as 500 Difficulty XP, nowhere does it say they're worth more than their base 250 XPV for defeating them. Note that the D&D AL modules are also explicit that the earned XP is only the CR derived value.

(The adjustments for what is included match up with the DXPV, but the awards listed in the back do not, being only the CR XPVs.)

Hmmm this is weird. If the encounter is more difficult because of larger than usual numbers of foes, why doesnt that translate into xp the party is awarded? Makes no sense to me.

 

[Mouseferatu]

One solution that's been mentioned already, but I think deserves further attention, is simple HP boosting. For a "solo," going for max hit points (or even a bit higher), rather than average, makes a huge difference. You're probably adding a round or two to the battle that way, and when the "average" fight is three rounds, the difference in danger and resource-usage with an extra one or two can really bump up the intensity.

It won't fix every solo encounter by itself, but it'll sure correct for a lot of them.

 

[Mistwell]

So when I am building NPCs and custom monsters

Building monsters is not building encounters. The question posed in this thread was encounters, not individual creature design.

, where's the part in the DMG that let's me assign a XP value? It's based on CR. In fact the entire system is based on CR, despite how you interpret that side bar.

False. The system is not based on CR. The system is based on XP. They say that outright - it's not really open to interpretation, the entire encounter building section uses XP and only XP.

XP *and* proficiency bonus are derived from CR not the other way around

Only for building new creatures/NPCs. But most games are not doing that...those are in fact all optional rules to begin with. There is an entire book of monsters/NPCs to use, and it's intended to be used for just that.

 

[Mistwell]

It's very strongly linked to CR as CR determines a monster's XP value.

No, it does not. The XP entry for the monster determines a monster's XP value. I think you, like Dave, are confusing the optional new monster/NPC building rules, with the core encounter building rules. The core encounter building rules use XP, and just XP, and XP is listed for each monster/NPC in the MM.

OTOH I think you are saying that the issue is not that the CR values are wrong but that the XP budgets are (perhaps) wrong.

No I am saying the new monster/NPC building rules are the parts hanging you guys up. I have no idea if they are "wrong" or not, but that's not really a primary issue for the game anyway as you have an entire book of them to use. When you build encounters generally, you use an XP budget, and you use monsters and/or NPCs from the MM.

Anyway I think that people are using "CR" loosely to mean "encounter balancing" guidelines. Whether that is because the CRs are wrong or the budgets are wrong is interesting but not needed to say whether the system as a whole works.

The encounter guidelines are ALL based on XP. Again, CR plays ZERO role in those guidelines, other than the warning light I described above. It's simply false to go around claiming you build encounters using CR. You really don't. Beyond that warning light, CR is irrelevant to building encounters. Only XP matters for that part.

 

[Mistwell]

I don't think this ("weakly linked") is true. They are 1:1 coupled. DMG guidelines include adjusting the effective HP/damage in order to adjust the CR, and also include abilities where you adjust the output CR directly. Then you calculate XP from that CR--just like in AD&D. Can you find a single example of a monster whose CR and XP value don't match?

Ah, looks like you are also confusing the optional new monster/NPC building rules with the core encounter building rules. They're not the same. The encounter building rules uses just XP. You don't "adjust" CR at all it's purely a warning indicator for whether there might be something that is too difficult due to the nature of that creature relative to your party, and not any part of building the encounter beyond that. You adjust encounter difficulty and XP Budget, not CR.

At this point that's three people in a row claiming CR is used for building encounters, quoting the new monster/NPC rules. I gotta ask - have you guys read the DMG, Pages 81-85? It really and truly does not matter what the CR is for this section, beyond that one small sidebar which is purely about when to exercise caution. Encounter building and difficulty is purely based on XP, beyond that warning issue. It's not CR.

 

[Mistwell]

The 5E earned XP is exactly and ONLY the CR.

In the "Creating Encounters" section of the DMG, which is the official game rules for creating encounters, CR is irrelevant beyond that warning I mentioned. It's 100% XP based. XP can be rewarded for many things in the game, not just killing monsters. Encounters are based on XP. Period. It's not even open to interpretation - the entire section is about XP, except that Caution sidebar on CR.

The Adjustments for difficulty values are nowhere stated to apply to Earned XP

Because it's based on an XP budget and an encounter difficulty section that is based on XP. You don't adjust CR, you adjust XP (IE add in more XP in threats, or subtract out more XP from the threats).

 

[Rhenny]

One solution that's been mentioned already, but I think deserves further attention, is simple HP boosting. For a "solo," going for max hit points (or even a bit higher), rather than average, makes a huge difference. You're probably adding a round or two to the battle that way, and when the "average" fight is three rounds, the difference in danger and resource-usage with an extra one or two can really bump up the intensity.

It won't fix every solo encounter by itself, but it'll sure correct for a lot of them.

This is especially true for creatures that deal larger amounts of damage, ones that have area of effect breath weapons, or other spell-like abilities. The extra round or two that lets a dragon recharge a breath weapon, or gives a caster the chance to throw another fireball, etc. will make the combat much more difficult.

 

[KidSnide]

One solution that's been mentioned already, but I think deserves further attention, is simple HP boosting. For a "solo," going for max hit points (or even a bit higher), rather than average, makes a huge difference. You're probably adding a round or two to the battle that way, and when the "average" fight is three rounds, the difference in danger and resource-usage with an extra one or two can really bump up the intensity.

It won't fix every solo encounter by itself, but it'll sure correct for a lot of them.

That's important. I ran a solo dragon encounter during the playtest with 9 PCs and the legendary rules that showed up in one of the on-line articles, and I built a lot of custom solo monsters for 4e. Here's my quick and dirty formula for good solo play:

a) Make sure that the creature has enough legendary actions that it can go frequently in the round. For my dragon, I gave it 6 legendary actions, which meant that the initiative count went: dragon's main action; 3 PCs; dragon takes 3 legendary actions; 3 PCs; dragon takes 3 legendary actions; 3 PCs.

b) Make sure that the solo has a good mixture of terrifying attacks that hit everyone who isn't giving up tactical advantage for safety and single target attacks that let you pour the punishment onto a single PC. You want the solo to have a good mixture of hurting everyone, hitting back regularly and occasionally concentrating fire to take out a single PC (usually a PC who just did something effective and didn't get out of the way). When calculating damage, take into account the type of resistances and defensive magics that the PCs are likely to take.

c) Increase the hit points to last however many rounds you want. Due to the large number of PCs I was facing, I quadrupled the hit points.

d) Tweak the saving throws so the solo succeeds meaningfully more often than it fails, but not so often that it never has to use legendary resistance. You want it set up so the PCs feel like they are making progress if they force the solo has to use a legendary resistance, but you don't want the solo to burn through all that resistance in the first couple rounds and then get slaughtered by endless status effects. The level and make up of your PC party will have a big effect on this, and it's a little tricky to get this right. Don't forget that your solo is making a tactical decision about whether to use legendary resistance, so don't be afraid about letting your casters win on some "lesser" spells so the solo can save at least one legendary resistance to defend against a truly debilitating effect. That's part of giving your players a sense of progress.

(My dragon had good saving throws, magic resistance and legendary resistance. It was definitely too much.)

e) Tweak the AC so the martial characters aren't at a major advantage or disadvantage when compared to the casters. In general, it's more fun if the PCs hit fairly often but have a massive pile of hit points to run through than if they hit infrequently but have a more manageable pile of hit points. But at the same time, the casters will be at least partially dependent on the saving throw management above, so you don't want a situation where the melee characters are the only ones whittling through the hp.

-KS

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Ah, looks like you are also confusing the optional new monster/NPC building rules with the core encounter building rules. They're not the same. The encounter building rules uses just XP. You don't "adjust" CR at all it's purely a warning indicator for whether there might be something that is too difficult due to the nature of that creature relative to your party, and not any part of building the encounter beyond that. You adjust encounter difficulty and XP Budget, not CR.

At this point that's three people in a row claiming CR is used for building encounters, quoting the new monster/NPC rules. I gotta ask - have you guys read the DMG, Pages 81-85? It really and truly does not matter what the CR is for this section, beyond that one small sidebar which is purely about when to exercise caution. Encounter building and difficulty is purely based on XP, beyond that warning issue. It's not CR.

Dude. Turn down the shrieking and review the table on page 275 of the DMG. "CR" and "XP" are equivalent terms for discussion purposes. When I say things like "CR is basically uncorrelated with actual difficulty for non-stealthy melee monsters," the clear and obvious implication is that I would also say that "Kill XP is basically uncorrelated with actual difficulty for non-stealthy melee monsters."

This relationship shouldn't be confusing anyone, it's been part of (A)D&D for decades. (Did 4E break the link or something?)

 

[Schmoe]

Part of this is why I want WotC to address different encounter rates (perhaps as part of their Unearthed Arcana series). Folks who are having one encounter per day should not really be using the existing XP guidelines to determine how much their party can take. There's probably plenty of DMs looking to hurl one random encounter as part of an overland travel at the party and wondering how to make it risky and memorable, and the current RAW doesn't go much into how do to that well.

Actually, I think the DMG already does this, to an extent. It provides a way to calculate an XP budget for the party for each day/long rest. If you consider a party of four 1st-level adventurers, the budget for encountersis 1200 XP per day. At first glance, it seems like that would suggest a group of a Hobgoblin Captain (700 XP) and 5 Hobgoblins (100 XP each) is a reasonable encounter, but you still need to take into account the multiple monster multiplier. With that factored in, a reasonable single encounter for the group is a Hobgoblin Captain (700 XP) and a single Hobgoblin (100 XP), because the multiplier for two monsters is x1.5.

Now, at this point you also might want to consider CR. The captain is a CR3, so that indicates that the captain might be too much against a 1st-level party. It might be better to just have an encounter of 6 Hobgoblins.

This is just theorycraft for me, but 6 Hobgoblins seems like an extremely challenging battle for a 1st-level party, one that will likely drain almost all of their resources. Isn't that what people are asking for?