Dragonlance Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen shows up in the wild!

[dave2008]

Right. Currently CR is useless for figuring out what challenges a group. It might as well not even be there.

CR is for determining which monsters are stronger than other monsters. There are exceptions, but in general it is really good for that.

One number, CR, cannot be the same thing for every group. The same monster can be a TPK to one group and Medium fight to another. It is not possible to make single number do all of that work.

Please note, in the above I am specifically talking about 5e.

 

[Maxperson]

On a per encounter basis that is not how the DMG encounter guidelines are constructed. The serious challenge comes over the course of the adventure day.

Not according to everyone who argues with me. I argue how it's balanced over the day and I get told, "Nobody plays that way and you can do it in one encounter." In any case, if it is encounters over the adventuring day, and I agree with you that it is, challenge rating is the wrong term to use. Hell, it should just go away and be XP budget at that point.

I think that was the correct call generally, but I do wish they gave clear direction on how to make single encounter a serious challenge.

Absolutely.

 

[dave2008]

According to Kobold Fight Club, CR 19 is Deadly before level 14. In my experience that is not true at all, especially for solos. Action economy accounts for A LOT in 5E.

However the DMG definition of "deadly," which I assume KFC is using, doesn't align with what most people are asking for.

@Maxperson asked for a 50/50 fight. I understand that to mean in a group of 4 PCs each PC has 50/50 chance of defeat (death) so you looking at loosing 1/2 your PCs.

The DMG deadly says there is a "chance" to one or more PCs will go down. That is closer to 25%, maybe less, than the 50% chance I think people are asking for. If you want that, you need to go beyond what the guidelines give you as a default

 

[Maxperson]

However the DMG definition of "deadly," which I assume KFC is using, doesn't align with what most people are asking for.

@Maxperson asked for a 50/50 fight. I understand that to mean in a group of 4 PCs each PC has 50/50 chance of defeat (death) so you looking at loosing 1/2 your PCs.

Not 50/50. A chance the entire party is going to lose(TPK/be knocked out) has to be present for one fight to be a challenge.

 

[dave2008]

Sure it does. It's not a challenge unless it's a risk to the whole group. Death being nearly as trivial as a cure spell means that a PC dying doesn't mean anything. It's just like being knocked out only for a bit longer than 6 seconds.

Then isn't the problem the spells? Just get rid of the offending spells (or gate keep them in some way). My current group has no one that can cast healing spells and I assure that death is a serious threat!

 

[dave2008]

Not 50/50. A chance the entire party is going to lose(TPK/be knocked out) has to be present for one fight to be a challenge.

I think that is what I mean by 50/50. What I mean by that is each character has a 50% chance of death. Isn't that what you mean or are looking for each character to have a 75% chance or more of death?

 

[Remathilis]

However the DMG definition of "deadly," which I assume KFC is using, doesn't align with what most people are asking for.

@Maxperson asked for a 50/50 fight. I understand that to mean in a group of 4 PCs each PC has 50/50 chance of defeat (death) so you looking at loosing 1/2 your PCs.

The DMG deadly says there is a "chance" to one or more PCs will go down. That is closer to 25%, maybe less, than the 50% chance I think people are asking for. If you want that, you need to go beyond what the guidelines give you as a default

I think people generally think that deadly should be "tpk" rather than "this might drop one or more of your PCs to 0 HP". Which has never been what WotC said deadly is.

 

[dave2008]

I think people generally think that deadly should be "tpk" rather than "this might drop one or more of your PCs to 0 HP". Which has never been what WotC said deadly is.

Yes, truly the chance of TPK should be about 3x deadly if you go by the XP per day guideline.

 

[overgeeked]

I'm old enough to remember when this was a dragonlance thread.... Perhaps take this somewhere else, so those of us that want to read about DL can....

Pepperidge Farms remembers.

We can’t talk about Dragonlance because that leads to lore vs character options debates and that shuts down threads.

 

[Remathilis]

Not 50/50. A chance the entire party is going to lose(TPK/be knocked out) has to be present for one fight to be a challenge.

Then settle combat with a coin toss; heads PC win, tails PCs die.

D&D combat is skewed that PCs will survive, let alone win, more encounters than they lose.