D&D 5E CR and Encounter Difficulty: Is It Consistently Wrong?

[Fanaelialae]

Someone on these boards worked out a system for eliminating the numbers multiplier from 5e, by instead reducing the XP values of higher-CR monsters relative to lower ones, meaning (speaking roughly) that you had to add fewer low-CR monsters together to reach the higher-CR equivalent encounter values. But I can't now remember the name of the poster or the thread.

Is this the thread you're referring to?

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?367697-Encounter-difficulty-how-to-fix-it

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=53980]Fanaelialae[/MENTION], thanks, that's the one!

 

[Tormyr]

The one downside of that thread is that the system was written back when the Basic DMG v0.1 was out. v0.2 changed the encounter building rules so that the threshold changed from "up to this number is a hard encounter" to "after this number is a hard encounter." The PEL system can be modified so that everything after 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100% is the Easy, Medium, Hard, and Deadly threshold, and it holds up fairly well and is roughly equivalent to the normal XP based encounter design.

The greatest contribution that PEL made in my opinion was the elimination of the hard jumps between numbers of monsters or number of players. A fight of 7 monsters was no longer ridiculously more difficult than a fight of 6 monsters, and 6 PCs did not make the fight super easier than 5 PCs. This can be duplicated with the XP encounter based design if the table of monster and character numbers is expanded to each number rather than covering ranges. More on that after I get back from dinner.

EDIT: So my encounter build is in Excel, and it lets you choose a number of PCs at various levels and a number of monsters at various levels. It tells you the encounter XP after the correct multiplier is used. I expanded on the table given by the DMG so that there were separate entries for each number of monsters and each number of PCs. Then I used 1, 4 and 7 PCs as the standard party sizes given in the DMG. So for an encounter with 1 monster, at 4 PCs (3-5 in the DMG) the XP multiplier is 1 and at 7 PCs (6-8 range in the DMG) the xp multiplier is .5. You can then go in 1/6 increments for 5 PCs and 6 PCs. 5PCs is a .83 multiplier, and 6 PCs is a .67 multiplier. It would be annoying to do by hand, but it is fast and easy on a spreadsheet.

 

[aramis erak]

Dude. Turn down the shrieking and review the table on page 275 of the DMG. "CR" and "XP" are equivalent terms for discussion purposes. When I say things like "CR is basically uncorrelated with actual difficulty for non-stealthy melee monsters," the clear and obvious implication is that I would also say that "Kill XP is basically uncorrelated with actual difficulty for non-stealthy melee monsters."

This relationship shouldn't be confusing anyone, it's been part of (A)D&D for decades. (Did 4E break the link or something?)

3E, actually. 3E had a number of monsters whose XP values were not matched to their CR values. AD&D 2E included them because people had issues remembering to use the stars when added to HD.

It's also worth noting that the threshold values for medium are just a bit below the CR-derived XPV divided by 4....
about 4.4 overall (Tier 1: 4.4, Tier 2:4.2, Tier 3: 4.5, Tier 4: 4.6).

CR is a quite quick way for "If a party of 4 is of level X, a CR X monster is a moderate encounter"...

It also is, unlike AD&D, DIRECTLY linked to the XP value of the monster. It cannot, however, be substituted easily, due to the semi-log scale.

 

[Tormyr]

So I posted my encounter builder.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1186

It allows you to quickly estimate an encounter's difficulty based on the composition of the party and the monsters. The encounter multiplier gradually scales based on the number of monsters and player characters rather than the large jumps in the table in the DMG.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

3E, actually. 3E had a number of monsters whose XP values were not matched to their CR values. AD&D 2E included them because people had issues remembering to use the stars when added to HD.

Can you remind me what you're talking about here RE: "stars"? I do not remember any systems of stars added to XP. Each monster simply had a flat XP value attached--it was indeed calculated from HD + special abilities using tables in the DMG, just like in 5E, but the MM didn't contain any intermediate data (what 5E would call "CR") but only the final output: XP value. The 2nd edition way of setting encounter difficulty was to list "No. appearing", and if that meant you encounter 3-18 Hadozee, well, 3-18 Hadozee was what there was.

 

[Hussar]

I think he's mixing up 2e with Basic/Expert which did use the star system to denote particularly difficult opponents for their HD.

 

[aramis erak]

I think he's mixing up 2e with Basic/Expert which did use the star system to denote particularly difficult opponents for their HD.

Not mixing them up, so much as failing to communicate clearly,

AD&D used a HD listing such as 1*** for a frail but fairly potent critter - and AD&D 2E listed the XP Value for GM ease, because too many freaking idiots couldn't remember to count the stars.

3E did away with that notation mode... using only a per critter entry for XP, with a CR for balance. And not all matched their CR based XP value. (Most did.)

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Not mixing them up, so much as failing to communicate clearly,

AD&D used a HD listing such as 1*** for a frail but fairly potent critter - and AD&D 2E listed the XP Value for GM ease, because too many freaking idiots couldn't remember to count the stars.

3E did away with that notation mode... using only a per critter entry for XP, with a CR for balance. And not all matched their CR based XP value. (Most did.)

I've never seen anything in 2nd edition use that notation mode. In the attached picture of a Flowfiend stat block, , notice that it gives way more experience than a normal 7HD monster, but there are no stars on the HD. It must be purely an OD&D/AD&D1 thing.

 

[aramis erak]

Look at Tables 31 & 32 in the 2E DMG, emdw45 ... it's rigid. I forgot that it's not the same as the AD&D 1E nor BX/BECMI version (but note that I mostly used BECMI/Cyclopedia, where it was used right through the End of TSR...)

For calculating the AD&D 2E XP value, take the listed HD, and add extra HD for the special abilities to find the effective HD for XP purposes.
Magic resistance counts as 2 extra HD, needs magic to hit is +1 HD, Flies adds +1 HD, High intelligence adds +1 HD, 4 or more attacks in a round adds +1 HD... there's 6 of the 7 "missing" HD. The unspecified special attack ("see below" probably accounts for that.

It was particularly easy to rescale AD&D 1E to 2E... the * was about 1/2 a HD of special ability... I think I recall seeing 20******* in Cyclopedia... Yep. Undead Beholders, p. 161. And the 12****** Headsman. And Immortals are all ********.