D&D 5E do CRs seem a bit arbitrary?

[iserith]

HA! That is awesome - I am guessing from the icon/name you're the same poster? What a nice one shot! And you're not kidding - giant sharks are no joke, especially to a level 3 or lower party - they can drop level 1 or 2 characters in one hit, and level 3 ones in two, which they will do with advantage. I'd probably sub a hunter shark - with no flee condition - depending on the group. Still, love the idea of making up an entire scenario based on using the most useless monster in the book!

Yep, that's me and thanks!

I like the giant shark in there as a sword of Damocles - kill too many sea horses and now you have to deal with the shark. But if you think you can deal with the shark, then kill all the sea horses you like! I think it creates a good decision point. If you read the ensuing discussion, one poster suggests taking the hammerhead skeleton and moving it to Sirenia's shrine - a great tactic to use in this situation and a good example of players making good decisions based on the situation that bends the difficulty curve in their favor despite what the CR or XP budget might say.

 

[KarinsDad]

Also very good points. Mostly what I think we're proving is that this is all just hard to measure.

Pretty much. There are some monsters that are at the high end of their CR (e.g. wolves, especially if there is more than one), but as a rough rule of thumb, the CR systems basically works ok. Not perfect, but better than just HD.

 

[evilbob]

Yep, that's me and thanks!

My only regret is that you didn't figure out a way to pun Aquaman's name for the grell somehow...

 

[neobolts]

I'd just like to say that "encounters on a budget" is such a pain in 5e. If you want to start with an XP budget and build backwards, you have to figure out the magical quantity of a mob that matches up with your budget when the multiplier for that quantity is applied. So awkward.

I'm just going to end up designing encounters and then see how hard they happen to be instead.

 

[CapnZapp]

I'd just like to say that "encounters on a budget" is such a pain in 5e. If you want to start with an XP budget and build backwards, you have to figure out the magical quantity of a mob that matches up with your budget when the multiplier for that quantity is applied. So awkward.

I'm just going to end up designing encounters and then see how hard they happen to be instead.

Congratulations, you've just seen through the wreckage that is the DMG guidelines.

Not only will you save a ton of work, you will actually end up with way better results. And not only that: you've just gained resistance to the endless forum debates about "challenge ratings" and "encounter economies"...

 

[neobolts]

Congratulations, you've just seen through the wreckage that is the DMG guidelines.

Not only will you save a ton of work, you will actually end up with way better results. And not only that: you've just gained resistance to the endless forum debates about "challenge ratings" and "encounter economies"...

My next concern is that I will will build what feels like an appropriate encounter for the party, and then look at the total XP and realize it is way past lethal and have to start toning it down.

 

[iserith]

I'd just like to say that "encounters on a budget" is such a pain in 5e. If you want to start with an XP budget and build backwards, you have to figure out the magical quantity of a mob that matches up with your budget when the multiplier for that quantity is applied. So awkward.

I'm just going to end up designing encounters and then see how hard they happen to be instead.

There are tools to make this very easy. My comments on the reliability of judging difficulty solely based on numbers stands, however.

 

[Chocolategravy]

Yes, as you've pointed out, while equal CR should mean equal power level, it doesn't, there is a LOT of variance and you can easily have something 2 CR higher being weaker. They didn't do a terribly good job of it and it's not because it's impossible, there are a lot of vary obvious standouts that could have been tweaked with a small amount of effort.

Another example is where they've ignored the crit damage rules. Some monsters all the way up to CR 12 who have fairly average damage do it with a low number of large dice rather than several dice and bonus damage. So if you just look at average damage numbers these creatures seem fine, but in play they aren't. These creatures have extremely high crits, so much so that they can take characters from full HP to dead in one hit.

Another problem is that low level monsters are generally over powered and high level monsters under powered. The encounter guidelines say you shouldn't be using monsters of CR over the party, but by level 17 the CR 24 monsters aren't particularly challenging. The actual guideline should be you shouldn't even use monsters of equal CR of the party until maybe level 5 and by 15 you probably should be using monsters only close to or over the party level.

 

[evilbob]

Yeah, after all, it's not too hard to challenge a party with CR 0, 0 XP, 0 damage sea horses!

Ok, I'm going to completely derail my own thread to answer your challenge. It seems like "how you interpret things" is a huge factor. For example:

Answer 1: Just pick up the eggs. If the party has at least 4 adventurers in it, start each of them next to an egg.
- Round 1, everyone use their action to pick up an egg and hide it on their person.
- Round 2, everyone move next to another egg and pick it up. Seahorse wave 1 arrives, moves to 7 eggs.
- Round 3, seahorse wave 1 steals 7 eggs and escapes; everyone move next to another egg and pick it up. Minimum 12 eggs saved; win condition.
If the party has 3 adventurers, you'll save 9 and lose 7 on round 3, and seahorse wave 2 shows up. On round 4 if you won initiative against the seahorses, you can take 3 more and win. If you lost initiative, you will need to kill at least 5 of the wave 2 seahorses on round 3 with a maximum of one person (AoE spell perhaps?). That will save only 8 eggs on round 3, but on round 4 only 2 more will get lost, and you can use your remaining actions to pick up 3 more eggs - 11 saved, win condition. (If the party has 2 people, you lose.)

But what if you can't hold 3 eggs on your person? If you can just kill the first two waves of seahorses as fast as they show up, they cannot steal more than 7 - win condition. If it takes your party longer than 2 rounds to kill them, you'll need to make sure at least one person can get bitten by the shark each round while you continue to kill seahorses (preferably anyone who can soak 22 damage in one hit). Once they're dead: win condition. Nothing said the shark won't just leave once the condition is met.

Killing the seahorses is either really easy or impossible. If they all show up in a clump (DM's choice), they can all be killed in one AoE each round. If they are spread out to all four sides, you'll need potentially more than one attack by each player (depending on number of players) that also cannot miss an AC of 11 to kill them all - probably impossible, unless everyone happens to have AoE / multiattacks (like a fighter / monk / caster group) and lucky rolls.

But what about spell casting underwater? Well, what about it? I couldn't find anything that says you can't. In fact, given that the PHB calls out that "the words" aren't important, just saying them - I would think there's no reason to think it wouldn't work. So again: you either win easily with AoE or you lose.

Ok, ok, but let's say you can't hold more than one egg, and you can't cast anything with verbal components underwater, and you want to be practical and not attract the shark because it's not just the win condition but also escaping that you hope to do. Then you can hope you have a caster with minor illusion, which is about the only spell you'd have access to at this point in the game without a verbal component that can do literally anything. Create a huge sound that scares off seahorses. Win condition. Or possibly create something not bigger than 5' that also scares off seahorses. But that also doesn't work? Well we get back to party size again; it MIGHT be possible for you to stack at least 11 minus party number of eggs into a 5' square and cast minor illusion so that the square looks like something that's not eggs. Seahorses have a -5 to their Int check to disbelieve you, so considering you likely have a DC 13 spell save, that's a 15% chance to disbelieve. So everyone grab an egg, then stack the rest (so that a total of 11 are saved) into that square and cast minor illusion on it. You may also need to kill the first wave of seahorses, since a seahorse only needs 2 rounds to successfully steal an egg, so that would give you 5 rounds to hide them instead of 4. For a large party this probably isn't hard, but for a small party it might be impossible.

Ok, ok, ok, so your DM decides that none of that works? Start everyone near the statue and hope you can roll well. You have 4 rounds until you lose, or 5 if you take out at least 5 of the first wave of seahorses (but that will take more actions, so it's probably not worth it unless you know you can kill them all in 1 action). Everyone make a check, starting with the (hopefully free action) one to determine how to make the other checks. You could win in 1 round with only 3 people, or you could lose, depending on your rolls.


Overall, the shark isn't really a big deal: it can only down a single character per round starting in round 3 at the earliest, and the whole thing is over in a max of 5 rounds (potentially one or two more if you took a while to kill seahorses). Unless you rule that the shark sticks around, in which case that's not a practical option regardless. Fighting the seahorses is either simple or nearly impossible, depending on your spellcasting interpretation, especially since melee attacks have disadvantage underwater - and the "breathing underwater" thing is again not a big deal, since the whole thing is over in 30 seconds. The trick is that the seahorses only need 2 turns to steal an egg. Technically 3, but you'll never catch them - not when you can only move 15' per round and they can move 20'. The whole "skill checks" thing is really binary as well; you either make 4 rolls in time or you don't. It seems like everything to do with the fishing boat or the shark skeleton is a trap; you just can't possibly do something useful with those fast enough to stop the seahorses.

So: lots of ideas, but mostly depending on how the DM rules - or you can just make a bunch of checks quickly.

 

[iserith]

Ok, I'm going to completely derail my own thread to answer your challenge.

Haha! Glad you found it interesting enough to think and post about it!

It seems like "how you interpret things" is a huge factor.

That's D&D 5e for ya - the experience depends on the DM more than anything (though players and rules are important, too).

Answer 1: Just pick up the eggs. If the party has at least 4 adventurers in it, start each of them next to an egg.
- Round 1, everyone use their action to pick up an egg and hide it on their person.
- Round 2, everyone move next to another egg and pick it up. Seahorse wave 1 arrives, moves to 7 eggs.
- Round 3, seahorse wave 1 steals 7 eggs and escapes; everyone move next to another egg and pick it up. Minimum 12 eggs saved; win condition.
If the party has 3 adventurers, you'll save 9 and lose 7 on round 3, and seahorse wave 2 shows up. On round 4 if you won initiative against the seahorses, you can take 3 more and win. If you lost initiative, you will need to kill at least 5 of the wave 2 seahorses on round 3 with a maximum of one person (AoE spell perhaps?). That will save only 8 eggs on round 3, but on round 4 only 2 more will get lost, and you can use your remaining actions to pick up 3 more eggs - 11 saved, win condition. (If the party has 2 people, you lose.)

Arguably, unless you have a way of securing the eggs on your person in a way that the sea horses cannot get to them with certainty, there's always the chance that a sea horse can steal an egg from someone. Securing an egg in this fashion might be an action of its own which leaves a window in which sea horses can get at other eggs. The eggs are 1 cubic foot each.

But what if you can't hold 3 eggs on your person? If you can just kill the first two waves of seahorses as fast as they show up, they cannot steal more than 7 - win condition. If it takes your party longer than 2 rounds to kill them, you'll need to make sure at least one person can get bitten by the shark each round while you continue to kill seahorses (preferably anyone who can soak 22 damage in one hit). Once they're dead: win condition. Nothing said the shark won't just leave once the condition is met.

The shark comes after you if you kill 10 or more sea horses. You might have succeeded in stopping Hippocampus' plans, but now you have to deal with the giant shark!

Killing the seahorses is either really easy or impossible. If they all show up in a clump (DM's choice), they can all be killed in one AoE each round. If they are spread out to all four sides, you'll need potentially more than one attack by each player (depending on number of players) that also cannot miss an AC of 11 to kill them all - probably impossible, unless everyone happens to have AoE / multiattacks (like a fighter / monk / caster group) and lucky rolls.

But what about spell casting underwater? Well, what about it? I couldn't find anything that says you can't. In fact, given that the PHB calls out that "the words" aren't important, just saying them - I would think there's no reason to think it wouldn't work. So again: you either win easily with AoE or you lose.

My ruling would be that you can't cast spells with a verbal component underwater.

Ok, ok, but let's say you can't hold more than one egg, and you can't cast anything with verbal components underwater, and you want to be practical and not attract the shark because it's not just the win condition but also escaping that you hope to do. Then you can hope you have a caster with minor illusion, which is about the only spell you'd have access to at this point in the game without a verbal component that can do literally anything. Create a huge sound that scares off seahorses. Win condition. Or possibly create something not bigger than 5' that also scares off seahorses.

I didn't know minor illusion had no verbal component - good to know. I think it's possible to scare some of them off as a delaying tactic depending on the player's stated approach. Maybe apply the frightened condition. This might call for an ability check and might only apply to the sea horses already "on the board."

But that also doesn't work? Well we get back to party size again; it MIGHT be possible for you to stack at least 11 minus party number of eggs into a 5' square and cast minor illusion so that the square looks like something that's not eggs. Seahorses have a -5 to their Int check to disbelieve you, so considering you likely have a DC 13 spell save, that's a 15% chance to disbelieve. So everyone grab an egg, then stack the rest (so that a total of 11 are saved) into that square and cast minor illusion on it. You may also need to kill the first wave of seahorses, since a seahorse only needs 2 rounds to successfully steal an egg, so that would give you 5 rounds to hide them instead of 4. For a large party this probably isn't hard, but for a small party it might be impossible.

That's a neat idea.

Ok, ok, ok, so your DM decides that none of that works? Start everyone near the statue and hope you can roll well. You have 4 rounds until you lose, or 5 if you take out at least 5 of the first wave of seahorses (but that will take more actions, so it's probably not worth it unless you know you can kill them all in 1 action). Everyone make a check, starting with the (hopefully free action) one to determine how to make the other checks. You could win in 1 round with only 3 people, or you could lose, depending on your rolls.

Some of those actions might just succeed or fail outright depending on the approach employed. Others might be checks. I provide the DCs just as a shorthand for difficulty when it's uncertain. So up to the DM's view of the player's described action, as you say at the start.

Good ideas here - I try to create scenes that provoke this kind of thought, so it's good to have feedback that shows I'm hitting that goal!