A CR 2 Triton can summon a CR 3 Water Elemental?

[AllisterH]

"Defensive" spells generally speaking, are much worse than offensive spells since unless you know beforehand what's coming up, it makes more sense to simply focus on offense and kill the target with attack spells.

For a level 2 party, few casters are going to waste their slots with Prot from Evil due to the limited time it exists (you basically have to be in battle) AND you have to know you're potentially going up a summoner (thus having the spell memorized)

 

[pawsplay]

Prot evil lasts minutes, protects from summoned creatures, and prevents mind control and possession. On top of everything else, it provides some nice defensive bonuses. It's one of the most potent spells in your arsenal, and remains so until you get Magic Circle. Waste slots? If you haven't been taking it, you've been missing out....

 

[Hella_Tellah]

For a level 2 party, few casters are going to waste their slots with Prot from Evil due to the limited time it exists (you basically have to be in battle) AND you have to know you're potentially going up a summoner (thus having the spell memorized)

Why does everyone keep saying this creature is meant to be fought by a level 2 party? It's not. It's meant to be part of a higher ECL group: a company (2-5), squad (6-11), or band (20-80), 90% of them mounted. Says so right there in the stat block.

 

[Runestar]

Prot evil lasts minutes, protects from summoned creatures, and prevents mind control and possession. On top of everything else, it provides some nice defensive bonuses. It's one of the most potent spells in your arsenal, and remains so until you get Magic Circle. Waste slots? If you haven't been taking it, you've been missing out....

Unless you have reason to believe you will be fighting the triton, you will rarely ever cast it prior to combat (minutes isn't really all that long). And if you are casting it during combat, that is 4 rounds the wizard is wasting, and in the meantime, the elemental can still attack those not protected by said spell.

Why does everyone keep saying this creature is meant to be fought by a level 2 party? It's not. It's meant to be part of a higher ECL group: a company (2-5), squad (6-11), or band (20-80), 90% of them mounted. Says so right there in the stat block.

I don't think wotc designers made the distinction. When they assigned cr to a monster, it is based on how one such monster will challenge a group of 4 PCs of that level, and less so of how 4-5 of them might affect the fight, given certain criteria.

I believe that somehow, they felt that 1 such triton was deemed a fair fight against a 2nd lv party. I am guessing that as mentioned, the "swinginess" of the fight boiled down to whether it could get off its SNA ability or not.

This does make me wonder....a wolf is cr1, while a druid with a wolf companion too is cr1...

 

[Hella_Tellah]

I don't think wotc designers made the distinction. When they assigned cr to a monster, it is based on how one such monster will challenge a group of 4 PCs of that level, and less so of how 4-5 of them might affect the fight, given certain criteria.

Really? Because it's right there in the stat block, and the triton sure makes a whole lot more sense if you read the whole stat block. Why should the Organization entry on a monster be any less important than its skills, or its will save?

It looks to me like the monster was designed to show up in a large group with riding animals, summon a creature, and run away--that's what the book says, anyway. The encounter works, ECL-wise, when you run it that way, and it doesn't when you ignore that information. Which one do you think was intended?

 

[Kaisoku]

I do recall a post or rant/rave or something by Monte Cook that mentioned they didn't create the monsters in the MM "in a vacuum". Dragon CRs being a perfect example... they are designed with the idea that players wouldn't be running into them as a random encounter, and will likely be prepared for the fight in advance, etc.

It's possible the Triton really was given a CR based on how it was to be played (in a group, and played as a Neutral Good, run away first, encounter).

 

[Noumenon]

Why does everyone keep saying this creature is meant to be fought by a level 2 party? It's not. It's meant to be part of a higher ECL group: a company (2-5), squad (6-11), or band (20-80), 90% of them mounted. Says so right there in the stat block.

To clarify what you're saying, it's not that "company (2-5)" means there must be more than one of them (after all, dragons come in "clutch (2-5)" also). It's the fact that under Organization, "solitary" isn't included at all.

Personally, it's an automatic assumption for me that you might find a humanoid alone. And I design encounters by looking for CR 2 and then finding something that is CR 2. I don't use a naturalist approach where I decide whether sharks swim in schools and then decide the party will have to face 15 sharks. There may well be a band of tritons on porpoises on the other side of the reef, but the 1st level party's task is only going to be keeping the lookout from seeing where their ship went down.

It looks to me like the monster was designed to show up in a large group with riding animals, summon a creature, and run away--that's what the book says, anyway.

It looks to me like the monster was designed to

fiercely defend their homes. They attack with either melee or ranged weapons as the circumstances warrant.

Well, maybe they all live in group homes...