Hey everyone! Like a lot of DMs, I've struggled to get CR to work reliably in my games. Unlike a lot of DMs, I can honestly claim that it's my fault.
5e drafts heavily off of 3e's core mechanics, so it made sense to recruit its encounter building tool. Rodney Thompson and Peter Lee both pushed to do something else, but we already had a small budget, a tiny team, and lots of work. I locked us into CR because it fit with our timeline and was a tool that our existing DM base already understood. Looking back, I think I made the right call as a producer, but it wasn't a great call from a design point of view.
Over the past two weeks I've been tinkering with an alternate approach to encounter building, one inspired by games like Warhammer 40k. It assigns a point value to characters and creatures. A balanced encounter has equal points on both sides. If the characters' point value is below the monsters, it's a tough fight. If the reverse is true, it's an easy fight.
EDIT: System tested and found wanting. Replacement up:
https://github.com/mikemearls/5e_point_encounters/blob/main/challenge_points.md
Here's the old version for memory's sake:
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I've put the bones of the system up on GitHub:
The math is still early, so expect changes as I spin up some code to run a deeper analysis of the monsters and characters in the 5e SRD. Hit me up here with any questions or comments.
5e drafts heavily off of 3e's core mechanics, so it made sense to recruit its encounter building tool. Rodney Thompson and Peter Lee both pushed to do something else, but we already had a small budget, a tiny team, and lots of work. I locked us into CR because it fit with our timeline and was a tool that our existing DM base already understood. Looking back, I think I made the right call as a producer, but it wasn't a great call from a design point of view.
Over the past two weeks I've been tinkering with an alternate approach to encounter building, one inspired by games like Warhammer 40k. It assigns a point value to characters and creatures. A balanced encounter has equal points on both sides. If the characters' point value is below the monsters, it's a tough fight. If the reverse is true, it's an easy fight.
EDIT: System tested and found wanting. Replacement up:
https://github.com/mikemearls/5e_point_encounters/blob/main/challenge_points.md
Here's the old version for memory's sake:
------------------------------------------------
I've put the bones of the system up on GitHub:
GitHub - mikemearls/5e_point_encounters: A system for balancing encounters in 5e using point values
A system for balancing encounters in 5e using point values - mikemearls/5e_point_encounters
github.com
The math is still early, so expect changes as I spin up some code to run a deeper analysis of the monsters and characters in the 5e SRD. Hit me up here with any questions or comments.
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