Are CRs redoundant?

[Sulimo]

re: CR's redundant?

I've often wondered about this. Especially in the case of games where the amount of magic items and spells were significantly lower than the standard.

 

[Ravellion]

Maybe I didn't plug my brain in today, but what exactly are you saying here?

I do know, XPs aside, CRs are good for a quick judge of the power of a monster (unless of course, it's a dragon ).

LOL! Just DM'ed a CR10 Black adult today... was worth just as much XP as the three random chimeras on the way back to the strong hold.

Black Dragon: 8 round fight, druid almost died, Wizard completely out of spells, everyone playing their best.

Chimeras: "Chaaaaarge!" (2 rounds later) "The same XP as the Dragon!? You've got to be kidding!"

Rav

 

[kenjib]

That's a good point about the XP cost for creating magic items and spells Terraism. It does cause a problem. I don't really like the idea of using XP as an expendable currency to start with though. There's that really stupid rule about how you can't expend XP on a spell or magic item if it would take you below your current level. How the heck do you explain that one in non-metagame terms? Get rid of this rule though, and you introduce some other problems that might need to be addressed.

I think there should be a different mechanism for limiting magic item creation and spell use other than XP drain, but I'm not sure what the best way to do it would be. Yeah, a seemingly simple change like what I pointed out has some far reaching consequences. Oh well.

 

[Squire James]

Don't hold your breath waiting for WoTC to come up with a comprehensive CR document (unless you're an air genasi, of course). It's pretty obvious to me that their monster CR's are guesses based on (at best) playtesting against parties of various levels.

 

[Henry@home]

Both Skip Williams and Piratecat have said as much, at different locations, so it is apparently true. There were many playtesters involved with testing CR's on monsters, and from descriptions it sounds like it was done about the way a novice at cooking learns how to bake a cake: End result - 12 ruined cakes in the garbage, and 1 beautiful cake on the kitchen table.

 

[William Ronald]

I thought that WoTC was leaning more towards the ECL as introduced in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.

One thing I would like to see is something to detail how to reward experience points for military battles. Hmm, maybe a supplement called Total War. (There are some situations where I can see awarding experience points for fighting large numbers of low level creatures. I recall that Honorius, a roman, stood on a narrow bridge and fought lesser opponents one man at a time until the friendly troops arrive. I think a character should get some credit for trying to be heroic.)

 

[Numion]

Another advantage of the CR system is that it allows for easy calculation of classed mosnter XP awards. Giving a´kobold a level of barbarian and giving a Dragon a level of barbarian are very different things. The CR system accounts for this in regards of the XP awarded.

Some people think that the CR system is broken if you give levels to monster, so go figure...

 

[Fenes]

I don't use CR's to give out XP, only to judge the power of a craeture, and since I don't follow the wealth guidelines too closely, not even often at that.
I don't care about how much xp a classed minotaur should give, or what classes it should have. I develop an adventure, and give out xp when it is finished. Doesn't matter if the PCs won or lost, if the slaughtered the foes or outhought them. For that there are in-game rewards like fame and fortune. XP will accumulate no matter the luck or skill of the players, and at a rate set by the DM and the group.

 

[graydoom]

Seconding what Fenes said, you don't have to use the CR to determine XP. You can just use it to estimate whether the monster would be a good challenge, and then award however much XP you want to award. This has the benefit of advancing the PCs at the rate you think they should advance.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I hate the CR/XP system in 3.0 and in 3.5. The table is taken perhaps directly form Rolemaster. The idea that all classes advance at the same time, once again, from Rolemaster.

I'm old school and remember when xp was class based. That's okay in some ways as the classes certainly had a wide range of power variancy which isn't quite as bad now but monsters had a variable value based on it's actual hit points. Then TSR decided people were stupid and just gave flat XP awards. Now it's the Rolemaster system where the XP awards are variable based on the level of the characters fighting it.

Well, that's fine, but why not complete the route with all of the xp awards that were available in rolemaster for skill use? For spell use? For all the little things like dying and coming back.

The system in 3.5 (Forgotten Realms variant) works and I'm glad that they're able to advance lower leverl characters faster but it's still pretty unelegant.

Perhaps common xp values need to be provided under the challenge rating in monster books with a division value next ot it? Like:

CR 1 Party Size Divided XP
1-3 300 4 75
1-3 300 4 60

Ext...