D&D 5E How is the Giant Badger CR1/4?

[AaronOfBarbaria]

That's why we want CRs to follow the DMG guidelines.

The CRs in the Monster Manual match the DMG guidelines to the letter, and to the intent, of those guidelines - it's important to remember that "After seeing your monster in action, you might want to adjust the challenge rating up or down based on your experiences." is just as much a part of the guidelines as checking HP or damage totals against the table is.

 

[DaveDash]

Who cares? It's a 1/4CR creature. After first level is a DM going to throw a pack of 20 feral giant badgers at you?

You could do some serious damage by summoning enough giant badgers with a few CR3~ evil Druids. Just using the average damage rules from the DMG (instead of rolling) you could swarm a party and do about 40DPR against each character with enough of them.

Or use them as sappers to burrow under the group when they think they're safe in a Leomunds Tiny Hut.

 

[pedro2112]

Speaking of Giant Badgers, they were featured in a battle in an Adventurer's League module that was played at our FLGS last night. 4 Tables were playing the same mod, and at least one PC was killed by a badger at each table!

 

[Dausuul]

The CRs in the Monster Manual match the DMG guidelines to the letter, and to the intent, of those guidelines - it's important to remember that "After seeing your monster in action, you might want to adjust the challenge rating up or down based on your experiences." is just as much a part of the guidelines as checking HP or damage totals against the table is.

You acknowledge, then, that checking HP and damage totals against the table is part of the guidelines.

 

[Sacrosanct]

As the title says. Look at it! Now look at the DMG, nothing about it fits into the CR 1/4 category. In fact, it's basically the poster-child for CR 1/8. So why's it CR 1/4?

Because honey badgers don't give a sh**

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

You acknowledge, then, that checking HP and damage totals against the table is part of the guidelines.

I am afraid I do not see the point of your statement here.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Actually it isn't; it's too low. This is a CR 1/2 monster listed as 1/4. That's arguably worse than a CR 1/8 listed as 1/4.


Ermmm... all of these statements are true, but they don't invalidate the "dartboard" complaint. If you have two monsters, identical except that one has more hit points and does more damage, the latter will pose a bigger threat in all circumstances. Ergo, it should have a higher CR.

As you say, CR cannot be taken as an absolute. You can't know how much of a threat a CR 5 monster will be to a 3rd-level party unless you know the builds of the PCs and the skills of the players. But CR should be reasonably reliable as a relative measure: A CR 5 monster is more of a threat than a similar CR 4 monster, and the difference is fairly well measured by their XP values. That's why we want CRs to follow the DMG guidelines. It makes that relative measure more reliable.

The CR of the giant badger is reasonably accurate. By-the-book it'd be CR 1/2, they bumped it down to CR 1/4 because, I presume, they do more rigorous analysis and playtesting of this thing and found out that it wasn't earning the CR 1/2 estimation. But, the distance between a bottom-of-the-barrel CR 1/2 and a top-of-the-line CR 1/4 is not very far, and CR ratings are always going to require a bit of art.

It's a fairly reliable indication of how hard a giant badger is going to be to fight for most parties.

And that's CR doin' it's job.

 

[DaveDash]

CR generally becomes less accurate and meaningless as you level up. It basically depends on party composition, resource levels, etc.

I have found a lot of the higher tier CR monsters in the MM very weak against high level PCs, however stuff made purely using the DMG rules tend to be a lot better - lower attack bonuses but significantly higher DPR.

A creature that is +10 to hit but hits for 150+ damage across multiple attacks scares the hell out of PCs more than say a Dragon or a Balor that does pretty measly damage at +14 attack.
I still remember my PCs being scared as hell after fighting a CR15 Banshee that could drop them on a DC16 failed con save and also hit for 10d10 necrotic - way more scared of that than a Balor.
AC is capped so the higher attack bonus that WoTC gave creatures but the lower DPR really makes a lot of higher level monsters quite a flop.

 

[Flamestrike]

7 of the little monsters is a 'Hard' challenge for a group of 5 x 2nd level PCs.

Throw 6-8 waves of them at the PCs allowing 2 short rests there somewhere.

1/4 sounds about right. If they were CR 1/8, it'd be 12 of them each wave for a hard encounter.

 

[Plaguescarred]

How is the Giant Badger CR1/4?

Because Francis is tough

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KqjOGdOMtA