Did WotC change some monster's CR's ?

[Shadowdweller]

In particular, I think that Giant CRs are too high. I wish their Hit Dice were lower (since they break the whole pattern-by-size laid out in the MM).

Except, at the risk of opening a tired old debate again, they (giants) don't. What the MM says about monsters and CR is no more than three times the CR in HD (p. 297). Which giants fall well short of. HD pattern by size? There's some minimums recommended and some maxima for the smaller creatures. But for anything larger than size small, there's NO maximum.

 

[Garnfellow]

Some dragon CRs were raised.

Otherwise, nope, no change.

Actually, no. Several CRs were tinkered with -- the Ettin, for example. There were enough changes to justify consulting the 3.5 SRD when developing encounters.

 

[Staffan]

Also, some monsters were given extensive changes which included CR. For example, compare:
3.0 Nalfeshnee; Huge outsider; HD 11d8+44; Init +1; Spd 30 fly 40 (poor); AC 28; Atk Bite +15 (2d4+6) and 2 claws +13 (1d4+3); SA Spell-like abilities, summon tanar'ri, smite; SQ DR 20/+2, SR 24, Tanar'ri qualities, know alignment, see invisibility; SV Fort +11 Ref +8, Will +13; AB Str 23, Dex 13, Con 19, Int 22, Wis 22, Cha 16; Feats Cleave, Multiattack, Power attack; CR 16.
Smite does 15 points of damage in a 60 ft radius and forces a Will save (DC 18) or make people be in "stupor" for 1d10 rounds. Spell-like abilities: At will-alter self, call lightning, chaos hammer, chill touch, death knell, deeper darkness, desecrate, detect magic, feeblemind, forget, greater dispelling, invisibility (self only), magic circle against good (self only), mirror image, raise dead, slow, teleport without error (self plus 50 pounds of objects only), unholy aura, unholy blight, and web. These abilities are as the spells cast by a 12th-level sorcerer (save DC 13 + spell level). Their summons work twice per day, and either have a 50% chance of getting 1d4 vrock, 1d4 hezrou, or 1 glabrezu, or a 20% chance of getting another nalfeshnee.

3.5 Nalfeshnee: Huge outsider; HD 14d8+112; Init +1; Spd 30 fly 40; AC 27; Atk Bite +20 (2d8+7) and 2 claws +17 (1d8+3); SA Spell-like abilities, Smite, summon tanar'ri; SQ DR 10/good, tanar'ri qualities, SR 22, true seeing; SV Fort +17, Ref +10, Will +15; AB Str 25, Dex 13, Con 27, Int 22, Wis 22, Cha 20; Feats Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Multiattack, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (bite); CR 14
The Smite ability no longer deals damage, but has DC 22 and dazes people instead of putting them in a non-defined "stupor". Their spell-like abilites have been reduced to: Call Lightning, Feeblemind, Greater Dispel Magic, Slow, Greater Teleport and Unholy Aura. Summons are the same.

So, +5 to hit, double base damage before Str, more HD and a much bigger Con leading to tons more hp, replace Know Alignment and See Invisible with True Seeing, and some reduction in spell-like abilities that probably didn't see much use... and a Challenge Rating that's two *less* than before.

 

[Trainz]

Special as in "retarded," eh?

Uh... no.

He's good. Quite in fact, or I wouldn't have played in his games for well over 10 years.

We both DM alternatively, and we make an effort to use the same rules interpretation in both campaigns. When something's not clear, we sit down with the players, and we agree on a way to do things. A uniformed way.

 

[Trainz]

Some dragon CRs were raised.

Otherwise, nope, no change.

How so ?

I need data.

Thanks !

 

[kenobi65]

Regarding dragons and CR:

I remember reading somewhere (maybe on these boards, for all I can remember) that the designers intentionally made the dragons' CRs lower than you'd expect.

The reason given for this was that they believed that dragons are usually encountered in situations in which the PCs are knowingly going after the dragon (i.e., invading his lair), and are able to prepare appropriately (i.e., have buff spells going, have appropriate energy protection, etc.).

Given this, if you, as a GM, are going to place a dragon as a "surprise" encounter, it'd seem reasonable to use a weaker dragon than the CR system would indicate to be appropriate for your party, unless you're really out to kill some PCs.

 

[Storm Raven]

However, my DM views combat encounters in a special way...

Lets say we meet a giant scorpion, fly up, and rain death from above, he won't give us any XP because he says that there wasn't any risks involved.

If by "special way" you mean "a way that contradicts the material on awarding experience contained in the DMG", then you are spot on. You see, encounters in 3.0/3.5 are about overcoming a challenge, not suffering risk. A non-combat encounter may very well have no risk, and yet you can gain experience from those types of encounters through problem solving, negotiation or other means. In a similar way, defeating a monster through a clever strategem that reduces (or eliminates) the risk to the party should also be rewarded, perhaps even more so than standing toe to toe would be.

The CR system is meant to measure the amount of resources that a party must expend to overcome the challenge: using up spell slots, potions, and item charges counts as resources expended. It is not a measure of danger for the party, although the two are somewhat linked.

 

[coyote6]

How so ?

IIRC, all the dragons' CRs were increased by 1. A quick comparison of the 3.5e & 3e SRDs confirms that all of the chromatics' CRs increased by 1.

The ettin and ogre also went up by 1 CR each.

 

[uzagi_akimbo]

Uh... no.

He's good. Quite in fact, or I wouldn't have played in his games for well over 10 years.

We both DM alternatively, and we make an effort to use the same rules interpretation in both campaigns. When something's not clear, we sit down with the players, and we agree on a way to do things. A uniformed way.

Still, not giving XP because you overcome an encounter by using your resources cleverly, instead of hacking your way through it ? So disabling a giant with Tasha's Laughter and then hacking to pieces the poor sod while he is laughing his head of is probably unchallenging too ( I mean, he cannot strike back, can he ? So where is the challenge ?), just like, neutralizing him with a "Hold Monster", or "Charm" one of their numbers to perhaps aid you against them ? Probably sneak attacking isn't especially fair either.....

Unless you play a very specific type of campaign e.g. "we are the Barbarian Horde" or "Knight of Valour and Platemail - that us !" where such tactics do not fit the setting.

Crivens !

Perhaps he runs an ok and fun campaign and is nice guy to be around, but penalizing players just because they resolve encounters in a way not pre-planned by him is low, and just lazy. If he doesn't want encounters to run a particular way, he should design them to be "watertight" against something like that. You say he GMd for 10 years - so he shouldn't be a newbie anymore and have developed enough skill as to how to run and set-up and interesting encounter. And if he is bothered by the way one or another spell/effect will break his adventures ("Fly" can be a big bother, I admit ) , have him make up a house-rule for it, and tell the players in advance, so they can plan accordingly.

But expecting players to "just take it on the chin", instead of being clever and coming up with a more efficient solution to fight something (which I would actually consider far more a teaching expereince - hence XP ), just to get the XP at all, is just abusive and mildly sadistic IMNSHO. Or he is cramped into a "do it the barbarian way" style of play.

Whatever his actual reasons, it severely contradicts the DMG on XP allocation for overcoming or avoiding an encounter. And that rule is there for a reason, mainly to resolve the brainless 1st edition rule that you have to kill a monster to get XP from dealing with it - which was one of the main reason's AD&D tended to be overly "hack'n slashy". Because creative, and especially non-violent soultions just did not pay off for the PCs by the rules.

I wonder how he would rule if you used conjuring tactics and let some (dispensable) monsters or animals fight for you while you shoot the monsters up from the second and third tier... give the XP to the summoned beasties, because they did the "hard work" ?

In the original vein - another monstrosity with a deceptively low CR is the Hydra, a combat brute par execellence, where it is explained even in the MM itself, that the players are expected to not go toe-to-toe with it if they want to survive at normally appropriate levels. So hope your GM never finds out or is resistant to the not so subtle hint by the MM's designers......