Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Anubis" data-source="post: 2646227" data-attributes="member: 2358">UK talks a good game, but he and I have debated this issue numerous times and I beleive his system has too many holes.  This new system has very nasty holes in that the monster CRs come out LOWER than those in the book.  This is unacceptable.  Part of the problem is that a lot of CRs in the book are already too low!Did UK mention that, under his new system, Fire Giants work out as CR 8?  This means it should be a moderate encounter for a Level 8 party.  If you look at Level 8 characters, though, you'll notice low AC and low hp.  On top of that, even fighters will need 10 or better to get a hit on their best attack.  Given that and the Fire Giant's 142 hp, it looks a lot like a Fire Giant could full attack a party fighter ONCE and flatten him.  Twice if the Fire Giant rolls bad.  The party will use practically all their resources and a couple are almost guaranteed to die.  This isn't a moderate encounter, this is a VERY DIFFCICULT encounter.  Certainly not CR.There are other examples, but you can see from the Fire Giant the direction those examples would go.Anyway, I had proposed a system wherein the Golden Rule would be applied by halving all CR modifiers beyond the flat HD mod for monsters or the flat class mod for anything with a character class.  Under my system, the Fire Giant works out to a nice and neat CR 12.  This is below the ultra-high numbers of UK's old system, but still higher than the ridiculously low numbers of the book and UK's new system.  A nice rate to keep PCs from biting off more than they can chew or be thrown into battles they can't win.The only (possible) flaw in my system is that some high-ability creatures still seem a bit low, meaning that the right method MIGHT be to halve all CR modifiers beyond the flat HD mod plus ability scores mods for the monsters and maybe flat class mods plus ability score mods for classes.UK goes on and on about arbitrary this and rate them the same and all this other garbage, but I ask you folks this.  What is the bottom line with CR?  I give you this answer: "Does it work in-game?"  So, does it work in game?  A monster of a CR equal to the party should be a "moderate encounter", and 13-1/3 such encounters should gain a level.  Well, using UK's old system, monsters of a CR equal to the party were easy (very easy).  Meanwhile, using the book or UK's new system results on monsters of a CR equal to the party being tough (sometimes overly tough).  My system, if used with the core rules (with CRs properly modified as detailed in UK's system if you use uber-powerful supplementals such as the Action Points and Defense Bonus systems from Unearthed Arcana or the Hero class from FCTF), works, and isn't that the only bottom line that matters?UK got almost everything right.  The basic CR mods, the build of the CR models, lots of stuff.  Unfortunately, he could never tune a Golden Rule capable of making all that stuff work in an actual game.</blockquote>

Verification