D&D 5E Serious gamers and new CR formula

[iserith]

I always wonder what people consider a "real challenge" in Pen&Paper. I mean, does it require the DM to try his best to get the party killed? Or should the monsters be so hard that no matter how dumb the DM plays them, he can't prevent a TPK unless the PCs play smart?

A "real challenge" is one in which the PCs can succeed or fail at a given goal by using their skill - regardless of the difficulty. Challenge and difficulty aren't the same thing. Difficulty is how likely the group is, through application of their skills, to succeed at the challenge. A satisfying challenge in my view is one in which the players can meaningfully impact the difficulty of a challenge by playing smart.

Some groups might want a ton of very difficult challenges per adventuring day. Or just a couple. Others might want a mix of medium to hard challenges per adventuring day like the DMG suggests. It varies.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

That's a really good question! I think that, for planning purposes, a "real challenge" is meant to mean that the difficulty scales. I don't know that any DM wants a TPK. At least, no good DM wants that. There might be an encounter where, with sufficient warning, the players know that *if they were to engage, they might risk a TPK*.

But I think that players often enjoy having certain encounters be difficult- to test them. The big bad, if you will. Without a challenge, however you define it, there is no sense of danger to overcome. How that is defined varies from table to table- an optimized group might define it differently than a beer & pizza group.

You really don't need to worry about CR for that though. It's just the secret DM art of making the players feel threatened without actually risk that they are being TPKed.

 

[shoak1]

Step 1: Look at CR as being the highest level at which the party should face that creature if they outnumber it.
Step 2: Go to the encounter building section of the DMG, see that "Deadly" encounters are the only ones that are meant to come with a serious risk of losing the fight and of some characters dying, and in response use the XP budget for "Deadly" encounters as your "should be around this amount, or higher, for each encounter."

The numbers already in the game tell you exactly what you want, if you just use them the way 5th edition explains they are meant to be used.

Upon reinspection, the DMG formula could work, with a few modifications.

First, the DMG suggests a scaling multiple of .5 if 6+ PCs. I would say the scaling multiple should be 0.25 per PC > 4. So if 7 PCs, 1.75. In effect that means if you have 7 PCs, your XP budget would be 300% what it would be if you had 4 PCs (at 1st level, 4 PCs would have a deadly budget of 4x100=400 xp, while 7 PCs would have 7x100=700x1.75=1,225).

Secondly, the DMG provides no recommendation for encounters where the PCs know they can use all their resources. I would suggest giving +40% the normal XP budget per encounter less than 7 that there was in the day. So +240% xp budget if there is only 1 encounter that day.

Those 2 modifications seem to together square with my experience. 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. Based on the DMG and my adjustments, the XP budget would be 7x1900=13.3k, x1.75 for 7 PCs=23.3k, x2.25 for a 1-shot encounter=52.4k exp.

btw the Daily adventuring budget guidelines seem useful only in balancing easy/med./hard encounters, not in significantly reducing the number of encounters per day and spending more per encounter. In other words, a party facing only 1 encounter and able to use all its resources still cant handle 6-8 times the xp budget.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[iserith]

You really don't need to worry about CR for that though. It's just the secret DM art of making the players feel threatened without actually risk that they are being TPKed.

If a TPK is the failure condition of a given challenge and the DM makes it where failure is not possible, then it's not really a challenge in my view, regardless of the difficulty. As I see it, it isn't a challenge unless the PCs can succeed or fail by using their skill.

That said, a TPK is just one of many possible failure conditions.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Secondly, the DMG provides no recommendation for encounters where the PCs know they can use all their resources.

That's because there is no such encounter if playing the game as presented in the books - only ones where the players might think they can use all their resources, but have no way to be sure they won't have need of them after the encounter.

For instance, 7x L10 PCs killed a Kraken

That's incredible. I don't see how they managed - that would be a nearly assured TPK at my table if the players chose to fight rather than flee/avoid. But then, I haven't had any trouble getting my encounters to match to the descriptions of encounter difficulty in the DMG encounter building guidelines, so maybe it is just a difference in the way the monsters are run by the DM.

 

[jrowland]

Thinking back thru my previous encounters, I would estimate my group (4x level 10s) can handle 5-7 CR14s as warm up encounters, with a CR 16 as boss fight at end of day (as 8th encounter). And I would say +15% more CRs per extra PC (we often have 5-7 players). If the party is fresh off full rest and know they can pop all their pills in an encounter (not 6-8 encounters that day), I would probably throw CR 20 at them.

There is some confusion here. 5-7 CR14s? What do you mean? 5-7 creatures with CR14 or 5-7 encounters of CR14? The former would would be very difficult to deadly for 4 level 10s and the latter makes no sense as there is no such thing as an encounter with CR14.

CR is measure of a creatures "appearance on stage" or "level at which PCs can be reasonably assured to be able to defeat the creature". It is a measure of assumptions of PCs abilities. A theoretical creature that can do 20 points of damage on an average hit with AC10, -5 to hit, and 1 hp might be CR 2 because it can auto-kill a PC (no saves, your dead-dead at negative max hp) so the CR is bumped to reflect that. Yes, such a creature is a pushover and easy to kill, even a handful of them, but there is a good chance to auto-kill a PC, so its CR reflects that. Its not about how "powerful" it is in an objective sense, but relative effectiveness. It doesn't mean "Thou Shalt Not Ever Face a Creature Whose CR Is Greater Than Your Level", only that you, as encounter designer, need to pay attention to its abilities relative to your PCs. In fact, a CR 15 with vulnerabilities against a party of 4 level 10s that deal damage targeting that vulnerability might warrant adjusting its XP budget down! Which leads me to:

Your XP budget is a separate thing and this "determines" difficulty. Note however, that 1000 orcs facing 4 level 10s may be un-challenging in the direct combat sense despite the exceeding your budget into deadly. The XP from a given creature can be adjusted if you, as encounter builder, think PCs have advantage (lots of radiant dmg vs undead, for example) or even a disadvantage (need magic weapons to hit/damage but PCs do not possess any).

Last note: Assuming you mean 5-7 encounters whose XP budget is medium/hard for level 14 PCs, perhaps you are choosing LOTS of low CR creatures (whose XP shouldn't be counted) or perhaps high CR creatures who you know the PCs can handle (undead vs a radiant heavy group) or even one CR14 creature that the PCs outnumber 4 to 1! All of that can change the effective deadliness of the encounter, not to mention, creature tactics, terrain, etc.


TL;DR:

1. CR says if PC Level<<Creature CR, warning before use (it is not de-facto "hard" but can be)
1a. PC Level >> Creature CR might not even count XP towards difficulty
2. XP budget and relative number of combatants determines difficulty (plus terrain, tactics, etc)

 

[Rya.Reisender]

If a TPK is the failure condition of a given challenge and the DM makes it where failure is not possible, then it's not really a challenge in my view, regardless of the difficulty. As I see it, it isn't a challenge unless the PCs can succeed or fail by using their skill.

That said, a TPK is just one of many possible failure conditions.

Who cares if it's a real challenge or not, what matters is what the players think it is. The goal is everyone having a fun time after all.

 

[shoak1]

There is some confusion here. 5-7 CR14s? What do you mean? 5-7 creatures with CR14 or 5-7 encounters of CR14? The former would would be very difficult to deadly for 4 level 10s and the latter makes no sense as there is no such thing as an encounter with CR14.

5-7 individual encounters with solo CR 14 rated monsters

 

[shoak1]

Upon reinspection, the DMG formula could work, with a few modifications.

First, the DMG suggests a scaling multiple of .5 if 6+ PCs. I would say the scaling multiple should be 0.25 per PC > 4. So if 7 PCs, 1.75. In effect that means if you have 7 PCs, your XP budget would be 300% what it would be if you had 4 PCs (at 1st level, 4 PCs would have a deadly budget of 4x100=400 xp, while 7 PCs would have 7x100=700x1.75=1,225).

Secondly, the DMG provides no recommendation for encounters where the PCs know they can use all their resources. I would suggest giving +40% the normal XP budget per encounter less than 7 that there was in the day. So +240% xp budget if there is only 1 encounter that day.

Those 2 modifications seem to together square with my experience. 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. Based on the DMG and my adjustments, the XP budget would be 7x1900=13.3k, x1.75 for 7 PCs=23.3k, x2.25 for a 1-shot encounter=52.4k exp.

btw the Daily adventuring budget guidelines seem useful only in balancing easy/med./hard encounters, not in significantly reducing the number of encounters per day and spending more per encounter. In other words, a party facing only 1 encounter and able to use all its resources still cant handle 6-8 times the xp budget.

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