D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] CRs still out of whack?

[LokiDR]

They may be trying to make things fit their CRs better, but they never said that they were going to make all creatures of a given CR equal in difficulty. Elementals are quite simply intended to be tough for their CR, just like the new hydra is supposed to be tough for its CR.

Then what is the point of CR? I see "this is really CR 2.5 and this is really CR 3.5" but the elemental was beating them as if it had levels on them, not the other way around. If a CR 5 is acting like a CR 7, it should at least be listed higher than 5. I am still not convinced the party composition was the majority of the problem.

That aside, I'm going to have to say there's some problems with your party composition. It's their choice to not have a cleric, or a straight arcane spellcaster. Depending on the mounted fighter's feats, they may not even have a quality tank. But they've made those choices, so they should expect to run into situations that they really aren't prepared to handle. This sounds like one of them.

The don't have a pure arcane spellcaster or cleric because I didn't allow them to have one. I expect this to be a problem for multilple combats or situation where magic is really neccessary (like huge numbers of weak oppents or specifically magical opponents) but this did not fall into either category. The elemental is essentially a brute. I expect brute monsters to match up to brut-ish PCs. Is this an invalid assumption?

The fighter is the best melee machine in the party (single hit damage, AC) but his HP are on the low side. Full plate, sword and board with bastard sword should be pretty effective.

If all CRs are formed with the assumption you are powergaming to some extent, then all CRs should be a problem. But the drider, digester, and medusa weren't nearly as much a problem for their respective CRs. That is why I bring up the water elemental.

 

[Zogg]

Loki, I assume you are the DM, so you should also know the strengths and weaknesses of the party. Obviously a water elemental going up against a party of 6 rogues is going to be yield a different encounter than a water elemental going up against a party of 3 barbarians and 3 wizards.

Also, were you rolling exceptionally well for the elemental, and was the party rolling poorly? CR can't be held accountable for the extreme rolls, even kobolds can kill a high-level character with a series of crits.

 

[Jhyrryl]

Is this an invalid assumption?

Yes.

A brute creature is going to deal damage - that's what makes them brutes. You can expect a brute creature like an elemental, a hydra, a dragon, etc., to dish out damage roughly equal to 25% of the party's hit points. In a party of 4, that's a full character's hit points, and if it happens to be one of the PCs on the lower side of average, you're going to see a character die if the party's other abilities (i.e., magic) can't mitigate that loss. When a character dies, the party looses 25% of it's firepower, or more. Suddenly the encounter is lop-sided in favor of the monster, and if the PCs can't force a change in the situation, more PCs are going to die.

That's not power-gaming, that's simply the way the game works. If, as the DM, you have decided that you're running a magic-weak campaign, as it sounds like you have by denying clerics and wizards, then you are the one responsible for making sure that you take that into account when you present challenges to your group.

In short, you assumed that you could change the rules of the game without having to account for those changes across the board. That simply doesn't work. Each creature is its own set of rules, so when you use a given creature in your altered game, you have to do the work of evaluating what kind of impact using the unmodified rule in conjunction with your modified rules is going to have on the outcome of the encounter.

Having changed the rules, you are right, CR is a worthless number to you because the number makes some assumptions about the PCs. Those assumptions were invalidated by your PC requirements.

 

[Caliban]

The don't have a pure arcane spellcaster or cleric because I didn't allow them to have one. I expect this to be a problem for multilple combats or situation where magic is really neccessary (like huge numbers of weak oppents or specifically magical opponents) but this did not fall into either category. The elemental is essentially a brute. I expect brute monsters to match up to brut-ish PCs. Is this an invalid assumption?

Yes, this is an invalid assumption.

In general, a "brute" monster should be able to put out more damage than any two non-powergamed melee types, and be on par or better than a single power-gamed melee type.

This is because it is expected that the monster will be outnumbered at least 4 to 1, and that the party will have a method of recovering hit points during the fight.

Since you ruled out clerics, they have no readily available means of recovering hit points during a fight, and run a significantly higher risk of death when facing opponents who can deal out signficant damage over a short period of time.

This becomes even more apparent at higher levels, where the game expects things like mass cures and heal spells to be available.

If you don't allow clerics (or some other form of rapid healing), then "brute monsters" should have their CR adjusted upward for your campaign. Also any "nukem" type arcane opponents.

 

[Staffan]

The don't have a pure arcane spellcaster or cleric because I didn't allow them to have one. I expect this to be a problem for multilple combats or situation where magic is really neccessary (like huge numbers of weak oppents or specifically magical opponents) but this did not fall into either category.

One of the elemental's weakest points is its Will save (a mere +2, and no SR). It's pretty hard to attack it at that weak point without spellcasters.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Then what is the point of CR? I see "this is really CR 2.5 and this is really CR 3.5" but the elemental was beating them as if it had levels on them, not the other way around.

Any time you use an incremented system there's a degree of rounding. By "strong for CR5" that it is tougher than the majority of CR5s but not enough to be CR6. Kind of like how you'll find leaps on PCs carry capacity and not gentle curves.

The don't have a pure arcane spellcaster or cleric because I didn't allow them to have one. I expect this to be a problem for multilple combats or situation where magic is really neccessary (like huge numbers of weak oppents or specifically magical opponents) but this did not fall into either category. The elemental is essentially a brute. I expect brute monsters to match up to brut-ish PCs. Is this an invalid assumption?

Yep, invalid. Fact o' the matter is that casters counter brutes by dumping large amounts of mostly unavoidable damage on opponents at range. Casters are especially good against DR/- creatures because energy attacks bypass DR. Fireballs, searing light, lightning bolt, etc all do damage on par with multiple hits from a fighter. Then there's augmenting the durability of the party tank through buff spells and healing. Even against things they can't affect due to SR or just being low on spells they can be useful in combat by being a nuisance or a flanker (in a fight vs. an iron golem the mage Shielded, Mage Armored, Blurred, and Mirror Imaged to be unhittable enough he could survive as a flanker, giving the fighters an extra +2 to dump into Power Attack)

I run a low magic game world and trust me, you have to carefully choose your high HD creatures because the party can't blast it, charm them, use Protection vs. (something), or toss up protective Walls like they normally would. As a result I tend to give things with special abilities a "situation modifier:neutered magic" adjustment to CRs and hold them for later. There's a number of things that start getting important like the lack of high level magic items (few flaming/frosting or burst items), not to mention potent spell batteries like high level wands and staves. DR is incredibly dangerous since it nerfs so many attacks and when stacked on a creature that can't be sneak attacked like an Elemental the party's damage output is just low. (FYI: when fighting high DR or sneak-resistant targets the rogue in my game would resort to attacking with a torch rather than his blade just to do the d4 fire damage; now he lobs flasks of alchemist fire and thunderstones to stay out of range)

Compare your party to a typical party of a fighter, rogue, wizard, and cleric using the NPCs out of the 3.0 DMG. At low levels no big deal but at about 6th level or so it starts getting obvious because the casters would have had 3rd level spells and been dumping 5d6 spells on the Elemental (or even 3d4+3 magic missles). Likely your psuedo-mage was firing d8+2 arrows (-5DR =~2hp ea.) when even a MM (~10hp) would have taken out about 15% of the elementals HPs.

 

[Grazzt]

The APL 6 party in my game just recently fought a large water elemental (CR 5). That elemental nearly killed 2 people... <SNIP>

I didn't have problems with elementals before. Is this really a CR 5?

The only thing that changed for elementals (water specifically) is the way their slam attacks work. In 3e, it was "Slam +10/+5 melee (2d8+7)". In 3.5, its "2 slams +10 melee (2d8+5)" Both were/are CR 5.

So, if the party didnt have trouble before, they shouldn't have really had trouble this time.

 

[James McMurray]

The don't have a pure arcane spellcaster or cleric because I didn't allow them to have one. I expect this to be a problem for multilple combats or situation where magic is really neccessary (like huge numbers of weak oppents or specifically magical opponents) but this did not fall into either category.

A battle against a creature with DR that the party cannot penetrate should count as a "situation where magic is really neccessary."

 

[Spatula]

Re: Re: [3.5] CRs still out of whack?

The only thing that changed for elementals (water specifically) is the way their slam attacks work. In 3e, it was "Slam +10/+5 melee (2d8+7)". In 3.5, its "2 slams +10 melee (2d8+5)" Both were/are CR 5.

So, if the party didnt have trouble before, they shouldn't have really had trouble this time.

3.0 elementals didn't have unbeatable DR. In fact, 3.0 elementals have very weak DR for their CR, compared to other outsider-types. That's going to make a big difference vs. a magic poor party (which probably could have handled the 3.0 version).

Also, two attacks at +10 and +5 vs two attacks at +10 and +10 is not an inconsequential change.