Are CRs redoundant?

[hong]

I hate the CR/XP system in 3.0 and in 3.5.

And it took the man TWO YEARS to figure this out. Yes, folks, this has to be a record.

 

[Grazzt]

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.

Not to hijack the thread, but if you look through your 3e/3.5 books and your Rolemaster books you will find a lot of similarities. No surprise either that one of the lead designers for 3e (Monte Cook) worked as editor/etc. on Rolemaster products back oh-so-many years ago.


We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

 

[JoeGKushner]

As far as I'm concerned, it's not hijacked.

On Monte's own boards, I keep pleading with the man to update Dark Space to 3.5 and have it be Dragon Star compatible or something since he now has all the rights to it.

In terms of CR's though, another thing I don't like is how a class level equals a CR on a 1 per 1 basis.

Ah well, perhaps one day we'll see a few big Dragon articles that talk about various assumptions of power and how to modify CR's on a campaign style basis. For example if you're running a 24 point campaign, the PC's are going to be weaker (in theory) than those in a 32 point campaign and if you're running a high magic campaign, the players will have less challenge than a grim and gritty campaign.

 

[Grazzt]

Ah well, perhaps one day we'll see a few big Dragon articles that talk about various assumptions of power and how to modify CR's on a campaign style basis. For example if you're running a 24 point campaign, the PC's are going to be weaker (in theory) than those in a 32 point campaign and if you're running a high magic campaign, the players will have less challenge than a grim and gritty campaign.

Yeppers. And if you run a really low magic campaign where spells are rare or almost unseen and magic items are indeed rarely if ever seen or found (and are definitely not fabricated on a daily basis), the CRs for a lot of monsters would need to be bumped up (in most cases).

I myself, dont really like the CR system. I can see its usefulness (I guess) as a way to gauge party strength vs. monster strength, but before we had CRs, we did manange to make it through two editions of AD&D (not counting OD&D here) without such a system. I imagine its here to stay, but yeah, it needs some work of some sort.

 

[jaerdaph]

d20 Modern to the Rescue!

Yeppers. And if you run a really low magic campaign where spells are rare or almost unseen and magic items are indeed rarely if ever seen or found (and are definitely not fabricated on a daily basis), the CRs for a lot of monsters would need to be bumped up (in most cases).

On a related note, d20 Modern designer Charles Ryan gives some suggestions for doing just that in this article here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20modern/bp/20030403a

 

[Luddite]

The CR system is a "Good First Pass" for determing how difficult an encounter will be. It allows newer DMs to have an idea the reletive power level of creatures.

As for the XP for CR verus Party Level. Knowing that they planed on 13 encounters of equal level to gain a party level, is nice to know. Now I can decide if I want to go faster or slower.

In the end, its very useful to know what the "Base" Reward system is, so that you can adjust to taste.

-The Luddite

 

[Nighthawk]

For myself, I consider the CR system to be a cool concept that is flawed in its implementation. For various reasons, it's vague and murky nature is too much to deal with as written. Strangely enough, my experience so far has been that people either like it or dislike it, with fewer falling in-between. I wonder if this is typical or not?