A Thought About CR

[Gothmog]

I was just thinking about CR and what it is supposed to mean, and something just occurred to me. CR should be determined by an encounter that would push a party to its limits- basically having a 50/50 shot at winning. I never understood why they chose an encounter with a CR equal to the party's as depleting 20-25% of their resources. It seems like a completely arbitrary number, especially since what comprises 20-25% of a party's resources will vary greatly from party to party, but an encounter that pushes them to the make or break point will be more uniform (though still not perfect). The 20% number is an unrealistic number because it is counter-intuitive and difficult for a DM to estimate easily. When you design encounters, do you design them to be even CR with a group (a cakewalk), or more challenging?

For example- In 3E, a 3rd level party would be hard pressed to survive an encounter with a troll CR 5. However, an encounter with 4 orcs is only CR 3. Basically, if you divide the current CRs by 2, you get a good approximation of what would be a very tough encounter for the party. The DMG says that a fight with a CR 1 to 4 higher than party level is very difficult, while one 5 or more higher is lethal. That is a lot of latitude to cover, and it will vary greatly depending on equipment, magic, etc. Doesn't assigning a CR based on an even-odds fight make more sense than trying to figure out how many encounters of a given CR would deplete 25% of resources?

 

[rangerjohn]

They're not saying 25% total but per encounter. Supposedly, 5 encounter with CR equal to your level is assured death. You've used 125% of your resources for the day. A case could even be made for 4 encounters, one of your resources is hps, so unless you used your healing resources after the battle... What you are advocating is 1 or 2 encounters a day possibly dying in each of them.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

It makes perfect sense either way.

The vanilla guidelines suggest that the majority of encounters should be CR equal to the average level of a 4 person party. That as sensible a yardstick as any.

There are plenty of other ways to do it.

In a 'typical' day, say, a 9th level party meets 4 CR 9 encounters with brief rests in between. They are "done" for the day, tired, out of useful spells.

It should be no surprise that if all 4 of those encounters showed up at the same time, PC deaths are quite likely. That would, in fact, be a CR 13 encounter. Possibly doable. Or possibly lethal.

 

[Daedrova]

It is important to understand how and why the CR system is set up as it is before we start to alter it. I do see why it could make sense that a CR 9 encounter should be all that the party can deal with, but that is simply not how the system operates. The same CR 9 would take a single 9th level character to his/her limits (100% of resources), and the character would have a 50% chance of dying. Note that a CR 9 creature is an EL 9, and about an even match, in combat, with a 9th level character (or should be). And a 9th level character would be a CR 9 against any other opponent. The reason an equal CR takes only 25% of a 4 person party's resources is precisely that each of the four people would need only to contribute 25% of his or her resources to give the 100% required to overcome that CR 9 encounter (or EL 9). Take a look at the tables of the DMG and you will see why the system is figured as it is for experience as well.
Also, the way the encounter system is set up is necessary for equivalencies when considering higher or lower ELs or CRs. Notice that two CR 9 will give the same amount of experience that a CR 11 will give when compared against the same party level. This is in figuring that two CR 9 creatures will also make a EL 11. Likewise, two 11 CR creatures would make a EL 13, as would four 9 CR creatures, and which is why Ridley's Cohort stated that if all four of these CR 9s did show up at the same time they are just as likely to fail at overcoming the encounter as to succeed, since it will demand that each of the 4 characters (note again, they would also be CR 9) give 100% of his or her resources. I hope that this has helped to clarify and not created any confusion.

edit: and sidenote, when considering the CR for monsters vs characters/parties above, it is more likely that a monster will need much more HP since the amount of damage per round will increase when faced with more creatures. Though that problem is eliminated when multiple monsters are faced at the same time (the whole party is not focused on defeated the one monster in the encounter... granted, they could and likely should concentrate on just one monster at a time, other monsters/characters will have the oppurtunity to deal out their damage/take the expected amount of recources or HP from the party [members].)

 

[rangerjohn]

You just put what I said in different words. I am not saying it wouldn't work. I am merely asking if he wants only 1 ecounter a day which the odds say will eventually be a TPK. 50/50 is fine for a one time thing, repeated that bad 50 % is going to come up.

 

[DragonLancer]

CR's do need some reworking (hopefully that will be fixed under 3.5). In the last 2/3 years that 3rd edition has been about, I've found that going by the CR's the monsters arn't strong enough once the party hits real damage dealing spells and has a fair amount of magic items. Once the party hits 5th+ levels, I've found that in order to challenge the party (not kill or serious hurt) I have to use monsters with a CR 3-4 higher than their levels.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi there Gothmog!

I was just thinking about CR and what it is supposed to mean, and something just occurred to me. CR should be determined by an encounter that would push a party to its limits- basically having a 50/50 shot at winning. I never understood why they chose an encounter with a CR equal to the party's as depleting 20-25% of their resources. It seems like a completely arbitrary number, especially since what comprises 20-25% of a party's resources will vary greatly from party to party, but an encounter that pushes them to the make or break point will be more uniform (though still not perfect). The 20% number is an unrealistic number because it is counter-intuitive and difficult for a DM to estimate easily. When you design encounters, do you design them to be even CR with a group (a cakewalk), or more challenging?

For example- In 3E, a 3rd level party would be hard pressed to survive an encounter with a troll CR 5. However, an encounter with 4 orcs is only CR 3. Basically, if you divide the current CRs by 2, you get a good approximation of what would be a very tough encounter for the party. The DMG says that a fight with a CR 1 to 4 higher than party level is very difficult, while one 5 or more higher is lethal. That is a lot of latitude to cover, and it will vary greatly depending on equipment, magic, etc. Doesn't assigning a CR based on an even-odds fight make more sense than trying to figure out how many encounters of a given CR would deplete 25% of resources?

I arrived at similar conclusions over a year ago. You can download my solution here (337 people already have):

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45989

Incidently that solution is technically out of date. A few tweaks have been made here and there from feedback and playtesting. But you'll get the idea.

 

[Dismas]

Rich Redman posted this article about CR http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20modern/fb/20030527a . It is his d20 modern column, but most of the article is quiet generic.

 

[The_Gneech]

Once you get past third level or so, CR becomes increasingly useless because there are just so many random factors in any given combat. Given the same setup for what is supposedly a "balanced" encounter, you could have all sorts of strange results...

Heroes roll great, monsters botch: Cakewalk. Oh lookee, a new magic item for free!

Both parties roll average: Well, that was a good fight.

Heroes botch, monsters roll great: TPK! Oh, the agony!

Monsters play dumb and heroes are smart: Cakewalk.

Both sides use average tactics: Good fight.

Heroes use average tactics and monsters are brilliant: TPK!

Monsters use average tactics are heroes make dumb mistakes: TPK!

Hero unexpectedly rolls a "1" on what should be an easy save: Hero is down! Party is weak!

...and so forth. There are just too many variables to accurately predict combats the way CR is designed to do.

-The Gneech

 

[Desdichado]

Lately I ignore CRs except as a vague representation of a monster's potency. It's too easy to fall back on relying on CRs instead of relying on your own sense of strategy/tactics and what you know your PCs are capable of, like we used to in the old days.