Challenge Rating Replaced With...What?

[The_Universe]

Greg Bilsland's blog is a new one (he's a new guy at WotC), and he lets slip quite a cool hint:

"I remember specifically asking Logan Bonner about the 3.5 problems with level adjustment and challenge rating. With a wry grin, he replied, “Challenge rating, what’s that?”

This begs the question...how will GMs in 4e know what creatures represent an appropriate challenge for their party? We've heard that encounter design is supposed to get easier...but if CR is going away, how will that actually happen? Surely the designers don't think that DMs prefer to guess relative power level based on hit die, or something!?

I know there've been a lot of complaints about the unreliability of CR and EL over the years...but it's one of my favorite parts of D&D. If it's going away, I need to know it's going to be replaced with a similar indicator of power level that will make my DMing life easier.

This is the first 4e tidbit that makes me genuinely displeased.

 

[F4NBOY]

I can't remember where i've read about it, or if it was just a dream, but I think it was already pretty clear from some tibbits that CR was gone. I'll look for it.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

How about we trust the DM's judgement. And if 1st level characters encounter a mind flayer/beholder/great wyrm they run like hell?

 

[Morrus]

Someone somewhere said something about "adding up XP values" of critters to get the total you want, and that critters had set XP rewards again. It may be on the info page somewhere (no time to look); and I may be misremembering.

If so, I love the simplicity of that - if it can work.

 

[Snapdragyn]

From what I've read, I believe it's going to be replaced with simple XP. It seems that XP is going to be a flat number assigned to each monster, not a variable adjusted by level & number of monsters & total rainfall in Spain over the last month & all that mess -- just monster A = B XP. To use completely made up numbers, if the 'Appropriate Encouter' chart in the DMG lists 5000 XP (or 4500-5500, or whatever) as an appropriate challenge for a party at 5th level, then you just throw together monsters whose XP would total 5000.

 

[hexgrid]

Monster level and XP values.

From here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070827a

An encounter’s total XP value determines its difficulty, allowing you a lot more freedom to mix tougher and weaker monsters.

This sounds like the "fixed experience awards" variant from Unearthed Arcana.

 

[Jer]

This begs the question...how will GMs in 4e know what creatures represent an appropriate challenge for their party? We've heard that encounter design is supposed to get easier...but if CR is going away, how will that actually happen? Surely the designers don't think that DMs prefer to guess relative power level based on hit die, or something!?

They've talked a bit about "monster level" being used instead of CR. Matthew Sernett talks a bit about it over here:

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13567546#post13567546

I also remember some quote from Mike Mearls about how monsters were going to have levels, and in general you would modify encounters by grouping together an appropriate number of monsters of the same level as your party to fight. So if you have 5 5th level characters in your party, you would generally throw them up against 5 5th level monsters. I can't find that link right now, so take it with a grain of salt - it may actually be from some Lovecraftian fever-dream instead of a real quote...

EDIT: Ah hexgrid found it - i thought it was in the blogs or in the Gen*Con notes, but it was in the Design and Development article. Whew - no evil Nyarlathotep inspired dreams after all...

 

[The_Universe]

How about we trust the DM's judgement. And if 1st level characters encounter a mind flayer/beholder/great wyrm they run like hell?

Because I'm the DM, and I hate having to make that kind of judgement call without any guidance from the rules whatsoever.

 

[F4NBOY]

no evil Nyarlathotep inspired dreams after all...

Just got my sanity points back

 

[frankthedm]

CR as the name is going. Rather than the default of 4PC on one foe of CR equal to their level, the default assumption will be one level appropriate foe per PC.

From what I read, monsters are separated into roles, Like Bruiser, archer or caster

At each level a monster of a given role has stats to fill that roll, modified by the creature itself. A sixth level ogre brute will have noticeable differences from the stats of a 6th level gnoll brute. But any four of them, mix and match will have the stats to challenge the four person, 6th level party