D&D 5E Let’s Read Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse.

[Sulicius]

Even if the quickling wins initiative (not unlikely), if the wizard has mage armor and shield the quickling will have to burn all it's attacks to take her out, then the cleric hits the quickling with toll the dead whilst reviving the wizard with a healing word. The quickling can only take one more hit. It still loses.

If players are less skilled it's the DM's job to adjust the difficulty of encounters accordingly. No CR system can do it for them.

Like I said, the quickling should always run back behind cover, and with its speed being 4x that of the players, it should be able to stay ahead of them with ease.
All I am saying is that I want monsters to be of roughly similar strength in combat at the same CR, and the quickling clearly isn't. Just because you can imagine circumstances where quicklings die quickly doesn't mean anything.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Like I said, the quickling should always run back behind cover, and with its speed being 4x that of the players, it should be able to stay ahead of them with ease.

What cover? Who said there was cover? And if there is cover why can't the players use it to force the quickling to come to them? They could shut themselves in a 10 square room and smack the quickling as it comes through the door.

All I am saying is that I want monsters to be of roughly similar strength in combat at the same CR, and the quickling clearly isn't. Just because you can imagine circumstances where quicklings die quickly doesn't mean anything.

There are always circumstances where X dies quickly and circumstances where X is challenging. CR can't do circumstances.

If CR is going to be used, it makes more sense for the DM to adjust it themselves taking circumstances into account.

 

[dave2008]

That rather overestimates the benefit of blurred movement.

That may be, but it is the same benefit provided by nimble escape (which I also think is to large). I t hink +1 or 2 to effective AC is better, but the roadmap in the guidelines suggest +4.

Defensive CR is definitely 1/4. Base 1/8, +1 from AC. They would need to be AC 17 for +2 from AC.

The effective AC is 17 (base 16 +1 from evasion = 17) which gives 2 bumps of the CR so 1/2.

As for throwing daggers, how many can they carry? But kit them out with bows, put them outside, and they are basically invulnerable, at the same CR.

The guideline doesn't ask you how many daggers, though technically they only need 1. They don't have to throw them to earn the CR. That is why I agree with you that CR is only a starting point.

 

[dave2008]

If CR is going to be used, it makes more sense for the DM to adjust it themselves taking circumstances into account.

I agree (though less about CR and more about encounter XP budget).

 

[Micah Sweet]

What cover? Who said there was cover? And if there is cover why can't the players use it to force the quickling to come to them? They could shut themselves in a 10 square room and smack the quickling as it comes through the door.

There are always circumstances where X dies quickly and circumstances where X is challenging. CR can't do circumstances.

If CR is going to be used, it makes more sense for the DM to adjust it themselves taking circumstances into account.

I would think the fact that there are always circumstances is a mark against the CR system, as it presumes there aren't.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I agree (though less about CR and more about encounter XP budget).

Yeah, I think we generally give too much weight to CR, which causes it to let us down. It's impossible for CR to be "accurate" against all parties and all circumstances. At best, it's a guideline that can be used to calculate your budget, which needs to be adjusted based on your party make-up and other encounter factors (terrain, surprise, etc).

CR works, it just doesn't work like we tend to think it does.

 

[Faolyn]

Actually that is not true. There is no guide for "Blurred Movement" with respect to CR because it came out after the DMG. The can't anticipate every new feature in the DMG monster making guidelines. However, that doesn't mean it has no effect on CR. I would imagine WotC factored it in and we can look to see if there are similar features in the DMG that we can use to figure our a good adjustment.

That's because the DMG is waaay too specific when it comes to what affects CR. Like, it uses Stench as a factor, but that's the only thing in there that has anything to do with poisoned. Merely inflicting the poisoned condition doesn't alter the CR at all, even if you can inflict it for long periods of time or it has a rider attached (like being paralyzed while poisoned).

 

[Faolyn]

Have you seen later seasons of the Flash?

So what we need to do is hook a quickling up to a cosmic treadmill...

 

[MonsterEnvy]

On Dragons being over powered for their CR. The Gem Dragons properly match up, so I can see the other Dragons being fixed come the new core.

 

[Faolyn]

A first level wizard is dead before they can cast it on average and only defeats a quickling if they have sleep prepared and if they know that is probably the weakness of the Quickling. So yeah, against an optimized metagamer, they are easy pickings if they win initiative.

Or the under-optimizer who just grabs classic spells. I have a friend who frequently uses sleep even against obviously higher-level foes because she really doesn't bother to look at what each spell does or compare them to other spells, and I always feel so bad when I have to tell her her spell has no effect.