Factors Affecting CR and EL

[Hussar]

Action Points, which are the default in the Eberron Campaign Setting, imo effectively add a level to the party. And NPCs don't get them! Talk about loading the dice.

Yeah, I did mention this above. AP's are a huge bonus for PC's. I totally agree that it might shift the APL of the party by one. It's quite easy to get these factors to stack as well. A game with 35 point value PC's, Action Points, and a group that synergizes well could easily function three full levels above what is printed on their character sheets.

Conversely, a game where wealth is low, the players aren't acting as a group but as individuals, and classes are chosen from the weak end of the scale could see the group operating two, even three levels lower than what they should be. In other words, don't be surprised if your group consisting of a monk, bard, truenamer and ranger, with 1/2 wealth all trying to be divas get splatted time and again by Paizo modules.

 

[WarlockLord]

Environment I first noticed this with drow. Drow are crap PCs. I complain about them alot. They are designed for a belowground environment. If you take them aboveground, they will die. They also make bad monsters.

Hit points Again, if a monster doesn't have enough HP (Mind Flayer, Drow, Elves, anything with a Con penalty) it will die. Special abilities do not compensate for HP (already mentioned above)

The inherent annoyingness of Spellcasters and SR You cannot buff yourself if you have SR. It takes a standard action, or an immediate action if you blow a feat. If you lower the SR, the PC spellslingers will blow you to the Nine Hells. And it won't be pretty.

 

[Doug McCrae]

You cannot buff yourself if you have SR.

You can. SR doesn't affect spells you cast on yourself. The PHB doesn't mention this but it's in the DMG page 298 - "A creature's spell resistance never interferes with its own spells, items or abilities."

 

[Hussar]

*snip*
The inherent annoyingness of Spellcasters and SR You cannot buff yourself if you have SR. It takes a standard action, or an immediate action if you blow a feat. If you lower the SR, the PC spellslingers will blow you to the Nine Hells. And it won't be pretty.

You can. SR doesn't affect spells you cast on yourself. The PHB doesn't mention this but it's in the DMG page 298 - "A creature's spell resistance never interferes with its own spells, items or abilities."

And, ladies and gentlemen, we have a perfect example of how DM's can affect CR. A simple mistake in the rules leads to large consequences. By Warlocklord's reasoning, a Drow cleric could never heal himself without lowering her SR first. Thus, a Drow cleric becomes much less of a threat. However, by following RAW, we see that this is not an issue and the CR comes back into line.

Note that Doug McCrae is 100% correct according to the Srd.

Another factor to remember when thinking about CR is that combat in 3rd edition is lethal. Scratch that. Combat in 3e is VERY lethal. Just about any melee monster of a given CR can kill or incapacitate any given equal leveled PC in a single round. It may not be highly likely, but, it is possible, and, over a long enough span, the odds always favour the DM because he makes more attacks. Even without a crit, an orc is capable of 15 points of damage - enough to drop just about any 1st level PC. With a crit, he's averaging about 28 points of damage which is enough to kill just about any PC up to 3rd level. Giants, trolls, and other Brute style critters can pump out a LOT of damage in a round to a single target.

CR doesn't assume a run of luck on the part of the DM. It assumes fairly average rolls from both sides. A couple of lucky die rolls and a standard encounter can get lethal very, very quickly.

Not that this really changes the CR of a creature so much, but, it does lead to some odd results where the party obliterates the +4 EL BBEG only to get their asses handed to them by a -1 EL group of mooks.

 

[Hussar]

A final thought that occurred later.

I find CR generally works for me. I do. Honestly. Stop laughing. Really.

Here's two examples from my game. A while back, in separate encounters, I ran gauntlet style encounters where the PC's were forced by circumstance to face several encounters back to back without any chance to rest. In the first one, the PC's needed to travel underwater and only had a single waterbreathing scroll and no one that could cast waterbreathing on their own (Favored Soul instead of a cleric). The PC's faced an EL-1, 2 EL=Par and one EL+1 encounter, one right after the other, with enough time to heal between each, but not enough to rest.

The fights went perfectly. It was exciting, and came down to a fairly nail biting finish with the PC's low on pretty much everything. Exactly as predicted by the EL/CR guidelines.

In the second one, the PC's faced 5 encounters, EL -2, EL -1, 2 EL=Par and 1 EL+3. A tough stretch, but, they had access to very high level clerical buffs beforehand from NPC's who were not involved in the actual combats. So, they got healed and buffed up between fights. I miscalculated the effects of the buffs actually and the encounters were far easier that I anticipated. Allowing 12th level PC's access to multiple 14th and 18th level clerics before fights just really skews the whole process. I could have bumped every encounter by about 3 EL and it would have been much better.

I chalk it up to a learning process.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Something the WLD reminded at least one of us of:

If you assume that you can calculate the EL of multiple low-CR foes to create an appropriate EL encounter for higher-level PCs, you will be sorely disappointed. Derro caves, I'm looking at you.

 

[WarlockLord]

Hey, thanks guys!

Although, why is that in the DMG and not the PH or MM? Cause I keep running into all the buffs with SR...which leads to another question: Why are buffs affected by SR?

 

[Hussar]

Something the WLD reminded at least one of us of:

If you assume that you can calculate the EL of multiple low-CR foes to create an appropriate EL encounter for higher-level PCs, you will be sorely disappointed. Derro caves, I'm looking at you.

Heh, true dat.

The EL guidelines specifically state that they break down when you try using large numbers of critters. And that's very true. If you are chucking large numbers of very low CR creatures at a high level party, it's a cakewalk. The low CR creatures simply don't have the resources to deal with high level parties. Sometimes that's fun, but, it shouldn't be the standard in your adventure.

Think of it in reverse - as I said before adding a PC adds about 3/4 of a level to the average party level. Does that mean the 20 5th level PC's should be able to take on an elder wyrm red dragon? Of course not. None of the PC's could hit it and the first breath weapon will smoke them. It works the other way as well. If your baddies are significantly weaker individually than the party, then, while they might be slightly more effective in large numbers, it just doesn't really pay off.

Warlocklord - I would say that buffs are affected by SR for the simple fact that they are spells. Adding in exceptions to effects is just a pain in the butt. My answer would be that buffs are affected by SR for simplicities sake.

 

[MerricB]

Hey, thanks guys!

Although, why is that in the DMG and not the PH or MM? Cause I keep running into all the buffs with SR...which leads to another question: Why are buffs affected by SR?

Buffs are affected because they represent magic directly working on the target. Thus, SR applies.

SR doesn't apply to created items or creatures (conjurations): the spell has created something that then affects you.

SR does apply to evocations because it's directly creating magical energy that works on you.

Don't ask me about the Orb of Force.

Cheers!

 

[blargney the second]

Merric, what about the Orb of Force?