Desdichado
Hero
[deleted frikkin double post]
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A Thought About CR
- Thread starter Gothmog
- Start date
Enceladus
First Post
Remember where it says its a guideline?
This is not a rant, flame or otherwise!
I get really frustrated when I read that CR become useless etc. Before we go there could we discuss the very next page in the DMG that talks about what to do with easier to harder encounters and how to modify the experience etc? It gives pretty good instructions on how to think outside the box. The table given is not the law!
Lets go further back and look at the title of the book:
Dungeon Master Guide
Lets talk about what its not first.
Its not the Declaration of Independance. No.
Its not the Bible, the Codex of Hammurabi (google it if you don't know) or even the Consitution of the United States of America!
It is for all intents and purposes exactly what the third word in its title says it is, a "guide". If you use it as such life becomes much easier.
REwork what?
Balderdash! Poppycock! Fiddle Faddle!! I play high levels all the time and have yet to encounter this bogus theory.
This is not a rant, flame or otherwise!
I get really frustrated when I read that CR become useless etc. Before we go there could we discuss the very next page in the DMG that talks about what to do with easier to harder encounters and how to modify the experience etc? It gives pretty good instructions on how to think outside the box. The table given is not the law!
Lets go further back and look at the title of the book:
Dungeon Master Guide
Lets talk about what its not first.
Its not the Declaration of Independance. No.
Its not the Bible, the Codex of Hammurabi (google it if you don't know) or even the Consitution of the United States of America!
It is for all intents and purposes exactly what the third word in its title says it is, a "guide". If you use it as such life becomes much easier.
Obviously the CR is going to be based on typical performance; no one number can capture what will happen as we manipulate luck and skill through every permutation.
Or do you really want Monster Manual entries to read like this:
CR 4
CR 3 if players get lucky
CR 5 if players get unlucky
Why?
Anyway, an Nth-level character is CR N -- presumably capable of pushing another Nth-level character to his limits. That same CR N character is an EL N encounter, capable of challenging four CR N characters, i.e. of putting up a good fight before dying and using up about one-fourth of their resources.
You can compose a reasonable adventure for four Nth-level characters out of a string of EL N encounters. Any one encounter that pushes a party to its limits should end the adventure then and there (typically).
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Desdichado
Hero
Not really; they are used as part of a formula in which you input average party level, party size, etc., and then they are used again in a formula to calculate experience. Formula utilization has become, whether or not this is exactly what the designers intended or not, a substitute for the GMs best judgement, more often than not.D'karr said:
To me, CRs are a handwave explanation of the creatures challenge potential; I completely ignore the formulae that include them.
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