Grog said:
I've seen it stated many times over the years, both here and at other forums. It's certainly been my experience, as well. The problem with building mass encounters in 3E is that, in order to add enough monsters to make it a "mass" battle, you have to make the monsters so weak that they're not much of a threat to the PCs anymore, even in a large group.
I agree, but let me refine that answer. The CR/EL system breaks down for large numbers of enemies where the CR is less than 2 below the character level of the party they are supposed to challenge. This is particularly true for 'balanced' creatures (like say the Gnoll) with no significant strengths to pit against player's weakness, and less true for specialists (like say the Ogre) whose bruising strength gives them at least some threat for several levels beyond what you'd expect for thier CR. It's also less true for creatures who have a degree of level independancy in thier attacks (say a ranged touch attack like 'acid spit' or the ability to use magic missile as a spell-like ability) that allow them to at least be a nuisance to higher level characters. It's also less true for high CR creatures rather than low CR ones, precisely because high CR creatures are likely to be strong specialists and/or have attacks which are still somewhat effective regardless of the level of thier target.
But, in general, it is certainly true, and to the extent that it is not, the reasons for why it is not only demonstrate and highlight how little the CR/EL system actually takes into account when trying to rate the difficulty of the encounter.
The CR/EL system says that 16 orcs are an EL 7 encounter. But are orcs, with their 5 hit points, 13 AC, and +4 attack bonus, really a threat to 7th level characters? The fighter can cleave through them with ease. The wizard can wipe out the whole horde with just a spell or two. Even the rogue isn't going to have much trouble.
In truth, it probably takes about 64 orcs to be a EL 7 encounter for a 7th level party, while at the same time 64 orcs is probably closer to EL 11 for a 3rd level party. This is because the challenge is actually relative to who is being challenged.
The problem I have is that it seems like the design team is going to take that insight, and instead of making the XP of the encounter relative, is instead going to make the encounter itself relative to whoever faces it. That approach is perfectly fine for a gamist approach, but it throws consitancy and versimlitude completely out the window.
And yes, I know that I could probably create a situation where the orcs ambush the PCs and use terrain advantages, traps, etc., to make the encounter a challenge. But the fact that I'd have to put a lot of work into an encounter that the CR/EL system says should be an appropriate challenge by default, tells me that the system doesn't handle this type of combat very well. And my experience with 7 years of playing 3.x D&D bears that out.
Mine as well. I would not that the example you raise doesn't just highlight how badly the CR/EL system handles this sort of encounter, but how badly it handles encounters in general. The fact is that you could grant the same terrain advantages to something that is assuredly CR 7, and come up with an encounter that is much harder than its EL suggests. Now, I can handle that sort of thing ad hoc, but it would be better if the system explicitly reminded new DM's that favorable or unfavorable terrain changes the encounter level sometimes dramaticly.
Who said there wouldn't be much challenge?
Not much of a challenge compared to how much of a challenge it would be in 3rd edition.
Look, I know that these design & development articles are frustratingly vague, but inventing things that the developers didn't say only makes the problem worse.
Maybe so, but it would be nice if we read each others comments generously. I don't think he meant to imply that it would be a pushover, merely that 20 goblins appears to be the new 4 (or 8) goblins.
There are plenty of 3E campaign worlds that do this, too (I'm looking in your direction, Forgotten Realms).
Yes, and it sucks and is widely ridiculed. But its not the fault of 3E, it is actually a legacy of 1st edition which had the same sort of problems we are here describing (0 level 'minions'). The flavor just stuck.
I seriously don't know where you're getting this.
Streamlined minions, for example. It's hard to get at this without creating a strawman to knock down, and we don't really know anything at this point, but it definately seems to be the trend.
