Challenge Rating Replaced With...What?

[Jer]

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

QFT - I liked having the Basic and Expert rules back in the day because they gave a pretty good indication of what monsters were supposed to be at what levels - if it was in the Basic book it was probably okay to throw at level 1-3 characters. If it was in the Expert book, it probably wasn't.

I like to KNOW when I'm probably throwing a TPK at my party. I mean, it may not STOP me from throwing a TPK at my party, but I'd at least like to be able to do it on purpose instead of by accident.

 

[Pygon]

I keep hearing about this 1 appropriate foe per PC in an encounter.

As much variety as that allows, I hope 4e provides clear guidelines on how to build encounters with fewer or more creatures than that. Fighting similarly sized groups of creatures all the time will get old, and would be a significant departure from previous versions.

"Get the leader!"
"Ok, I'll take out the, uh, what are the other roles again?"

 

[Mouseferatu]

I keep hearing about this 1 appropriate foe per PC in an encounter.

As much variety as that allows, I hope 4e provides clear guidelines on how to build encounters with fewer or more creatures than that. Fighting similarly sized groups of creatures all the time will get old.

"Get the leader!"
"Ok, I'll take out the, uh, what are the other roles again?"

Considering that the first sample combat we saw was a group of PCs against a red dragon, I think it's a safe assumption that the rules will allow for fights that aren't group vs. group.

 

[wedgeski]

I must admit I'm continually amazed about the lack of trust being shown to the WotC guys. The_Universe, I have to ask, did you think they were just going to rip CR out and not replace it with anything?

 

[Cheiromancer]

This is not too worrisome. When I was exploring the CHI/RHO system I was adding up the square of the CRs of the monsters to get their "power rating" (symbolized by "CHI"). Then I would do the same thing with the PCs. Their ratio was a good estimate of how challenging the encounter would be. And CHI is a good estimate of the treasure that the encounter should bring.

Point is, I didn't really need the CR except to calculate the CHI value. I hope that the "XP" in 4E will have the same sort of property.

 

[Pygon]

Well that's what happens when something is excitedly announced and no more information is given.

The way they were slapping new 4e style art up all over the place (which I haven't acquired the taste for yet - that troll head is way too big), and saying so many things without saying anything at all, it honestly makes me wonder what they are going to hurl at us and depend on the unconditional acceptance of the extremely vocal to get everyone else to conform.

Lately, though, I'm relaxing a bit. The designer blogs are giving me some good hints of just how hard they are analyzing the viability of the new concepts. I'm waiting to see the preview material for Races and Classes in December.

 

[F4NBOY]

This begs the question...how will GMs in 4e know what creatures represent an appropriate challenge for their party?

There will be a value in the monster stats for that, based on a brand new system for tailoring combats that's easier, simpler and better.

We've heard that encounter design is supposed to get easier...but if CR is going away, how will that actually happen?

Because the new system will let you tailor combats with multiple different monsters with different power levels much faster than making all that crazy calculation with different CRs.

Surely the designers don't think that DMs prefer to guess relative power level based on hit die, or something!?

Surely not.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

How about we trust the DM's judgement.

That idiot? He's... wait, I'm the DM a lot of the time.

See? I know myself. If you think I'll trust myself, you're even madder than me!



Guidelines are always nice, even if you overrule them. You take a look at a monster, see a number that indicates how tough it is, and you know whether you should look closer or not.

 

[BlackMoria]

I must admit I'm continually amazed about the lack of trust being shown to the WotC guys. The_Universe, I have to ask, did you think they were just going to rip CR out and not replace it with anything?

I don't want to be jerk to point this out, but.....well, I just be a total jerk and point this out.

About the release of 4E.

Winter Fantasy 2007: Various WOTC people stated:

1. 4E was still quite a ways away.
2. They were not actively working on 4E at this time (Feb 07)
3. 4E will come eventually come but 3.5 sales will still brisk and that the future release schedule of 3.5 products would reflect that
4. Any important information about D&D will be announced at Winter Fantasy instead of GenCon.

This comments were heard at the D&D seminar at Winter Fantasy.

Fast forward to GenCon 07, six months after Winter Fantasy and....points 1 through 4 above are not longer true and was in essence, misinformation.

More recent history - Rich Baker on points of light in existing campaign settings states they will NOT mess with existing campaign settings in a major way.

The sample chapter from the Orc King gives the vary clear impression that the Forgotten Realms goes to hell in a hand basket and is nearly unrecognized from the present timeline.

This doesn't jive with what Rich Baker said.

Now about the trust issue....

Call me old fashion but one criteria for a relationship built on trust is honesty, is it not?

Yeah, I'm a big fat jerk for saying it....

 

[Mouseferatu]

1. 4E was still quite a ways away.
2. They were not actively working on 4E at this time (Feb 07)
3. 4E will come eventually come but 3.5 sales will still brisk and that the future release schedule of 3.5 products would reflect that
4. Any important information about D&D will be announced at Winter Fantasy instead of GenCon.

This comments were heard at the D&D seminar at Winter Fantasy.

No. Those comments were misheard at Winter Fantasy.

This has already been discussed in about 2,497 other threads, but here it is again. Many of those quotes were taken/reported out of context online, and took on a life of their own. But they don't represent what was actually said.

1. The "quite a ways away" comment was at Winter Fantasy '06, not '07.

2. What was said was that they weren't working on a 4E that would require miniatures. That second part of the statement, as well as the context in which the statement was made, are often left out when people quote it.

3. Also said well more than a year (let alone 6 months) ago.

4. "...the show currently known as Winter Fantasy will be the primary place to push D&D, and 2007 will reveal a lot". That's a far cry from all important information will be announced at WF rather than GenCon.

If you don't want to trust WotC, that's your call. But you should make that decision based on the facts, not what's been widely misreported.

(Here's the thread dealing with the above issues, if you'd like the reference: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=204662)