Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Upper_Krust" data-source="post: 806147" data-attributes="member: 326">Hi WizarDru! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I presume you mean the headers, I thought they were sufficiently large to read okay. They may seem quirky at first glance but they soon become second nature.  My pdf doesn't change what Challenge Ratings are, fundamentally they still represent exactly the same thing - at what Party Level the monster (or npc) constitutes a moderate challenge for a party of 4-5 characters.But you don't have to do that unless you were intent on creating brand new monsters for every game. Also once you overcome the initial unfamiliarity with the system (as with any system) using the factors becomes second nature.Even then, monsters are only as complex as you make them. All the factors are laid out in black and white, its a simple matter of pick and choose.  Exactly! My intention is to make that guideline as accurate as possible so as to avoid glaring mistakes as with many core monsters.  Not at all. There are glaring flaws with the current rules:One of the key flaws with regards the core rules are that monsters and non-player characters simply don't equate in any meaningful way.  I mean are they honestly saying that a 25th-level NPC and a Great Wyrm Red Dragon are equal challenges!? Furthermore that both above examples would unequivocably defeat a party of 16th-level characters, when the situation is heavily in favour of the 16th-level PC party against the single 25th-level NPC. Yet the core rules attest that this encounter would be impossible for the PCs!!So we have a situation whereby either monsters or npcs are collectively wrongly assessed. Followed by the fact that the higher level the party the more their allowed encounters are constricted.eg. A party of 40th-level epic PCs would only gain EXP from CRs between 32 and 48! Which is laughable considering npcs of much lower and much higher level would be viable opponents.  Of course DMs are still free to do so if they wish, but 'eyeballing' it you can still get it wrong. My method removes the guesswork.Read the situational modifiers section.Of course there are still elements outside our control (not just party composition, but also dice rolls), but thats not our concern. We are simply trying to work within the factors we can control to determine accuracy. Obviously there always has to be an element of chance, Challenge Rating is supposed to aid the DM in determining the odds.  Exactly, which is one of the primary reasons why the relationship between Challenge Rating and Encounter Level scale differently to what the core rules attest.  Exactly my point! A CR 23 creature (by the core rules) should have posed a 50/50 threat to the party, but of course this totally isn't the case!   Well you didn't tell me what the first monster was so I don't know. I have a list of all the epic monster CRs near the back of the pdf.The Paragon Half-Fire Elemental Beholder (I anticipate) would be close to CR 54 (27) under my auspices.Meaning that the 19th-level party would have been facing an EL +6 encounter and should have been at less than a 50/50 chance of success. I would be very interested to hear how your PCs dismissed it so easily (?) I envision it involved a hefty amount of luck (or some other factor I am not yet privy to)?I disagree. Its actually pretty simple to see the improvements I advocate.Thanks very much for the quick feedback, greatly appreciated! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I hope if you use it for your high-level campaign you will see the benefits much more clearly.</blockquote>

Verification