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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
DM's, what's your experience with suggested Challenge Ratings?
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<blockquote data-quote="MonkeezOnFire" data-source="post: 7058119" data-attributes="member: 6784845"><p>1) This is mostly true at low levels but once the party gets access to reliable AOE spells then its not. Heck even at level 1, a high roll on sleep can trivialize this type of encounter. In my experience the toughest combats are with enemies roughly equal in number to the party's size where each opponent is roughly equal in challenge. This way there is no single target that holds most of the challenge where if that target falls then then combat's tension goes with them, but the combat also can't be blown away by AOE spells. I've also found that single enemy encounters are very scary if the single enemy higher CR than what the party's level is expected to be able to handle. For instance with the advice you received you might be inclined to throw a dragon at low level PCs (since single encounters = easy). But this can easily be a tpk as low level PCs lack high burst damage and the dragon can most likely knock someone out every round (or all of them with breath weapon). </p><p></p><p>2) In this situation I'd shift the difficulty evaluation by one. Medium becomes your new easy, hard becomes medium, etc. Also not that deadly means "risk of one PC dying" not "possibly tpk." PCs are expected to win hard encounters without loss. This doesn't fit all games, so if your group expects that every combat be a challenge I'd throw mostly hard and deadly encounters their way with the occasional medium or easy to show them how cool they are.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="MonkeezOnFire, post: 7058119, member: 6784845"] 1) This is mostly true at low levels but once the party gets access to reliable AOE spells then its not. Heck even at level 1, a high roll on sleep can trivialize this type of encounter. In my experience the toughest combats are with enemies roughly equal in number to the party's size where each opponent is roughly equal in challenge. This way there is no single target that holds most of the challenge where if that target falls then then combat's tension goes with them, but the combat also can't be blown away by AOE spells. I've also found that single enemy encounters are very scary if the single enemy higher CR than what the party's level is expected to be able to handle. For instance with the advice you received you might be inclined to throw a dragon at low level PCs (since single encounters = easy). But this can easily be a tpk as low level PCs lack high burst damage and the dragon can most likely knock someone out every round (or all of them with breath weapon). 2) In this situation I'd shift the difficulty evaluation by one. Medium becomes your new easy, hard becomes medium, etc. Also not that deadly means "risk of one PC dying" not "possibly tpk." PCs are expected to win hard encounters without loss. This doesn't fit all games, so if your group expects that every combat be a challenge I'd throw mostly hard and deadly encounters their way with the occasional medium or easy to show them how cool they are. [/QUOTE]
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