How can Shriekers be justly assigned a CR of 1?

[MerakSpielman]

I'm putting together a cave complex and one of the side caverns has ten shriekers in it. There are no monsters nearby to be attracted by the noise, though there are some that will be warned by it. The players can more or less just march on in and chop up the mushrooms.

Since shriekers are CR 1, this works out to be an Encounter level 7.6 encounter, worth 500xp per character.

Why on earth are shriekers CR 1? They can't move or attack. Their shrieking doesn't cause deafness or have any real adverse effects.

It does not seem justifyable to have them be CR 1 due to the potential to attract nearby monsters. It's not a summon ability, after all, like a demon's summon ability, and doesn't need to get factored into the CR since a monster is not guarenteed to actually arrive, and if it did, the shriekers would probably all be dead by the time it arrived and defeating the monster will be no more difficult than encountering it in its lair - perhaps easier.

 

[Seravin]

<snip>
Why on earth are shriekers CR 1? They can't move or attack. Their shrieking doesn't cause deafness or have any real adverse effects.

It does not seem justifyable to have them be CR 1 due to the potential to attract nearby monsters. It's not a summon ability, after all, like a demon's summon ability, and doesn't need to get factored into the CR since a monster is not guarenteed to actually arrive, and if it did, the shriekers would probably all be dead by the time it arrived and defeating the monster will be no more difficult than encountering it in its lair - perhaps easier.

Well, if it doesn't attract monsters then the shrieker shouldn't be worth anything.

Smart monsters will use shriekers as early alarms though - and if that's the case the shrieker just changed the encounter from a bunch of unaware monsters to monsters who are now alert that trouble is on the way.
In that case, smart players that somehow bypass the shrieker should get something for their efforts.

 

[James McMurray]

Characters who trigger shriekers alert nearby foes, thus upping the EL of the nearby encounters, without upping the alerted creatures' CR. The CR of 1 for the shriekers themselves helps to ensure that the characters get more XP for the tougher fight that is about to happen.

If the characters instead manage to pass the shriekers without causing them to shriek, they should get the XP value because they did the smart thing and bypassed the encounter.

If the shriekers are just out in the middle of nowhere and there are no critters to alert, they shouldn't be worth a single XP, as they provide no challenge.

 

[Altalazar]

I think this goes to common sense - with any encounter, the circumstances really ultimately dictate what XP is earned, not just the CR level of a monster who happens to be part of it.

I'm sure there are other examples of where a creature of a certain CR level is actually worth much less due to circumstances - such as being asleep, or in a precarious position, or otherwise more vulnerable. For instance, a creature that is killed by water standing on a rowboat - fighting that creature there will be far easier than fighting it in the middle of a desert. For shriekers, being in an area with no other creatures is the equivalent on standing on a rather leaky rowboat.

 

[Murrdox]

I'm sure there are other examples of where a creature of a certain CR level is actually worth much less due to circumstances - such as being asleep, or in a precarious position, or otherwise more vulnerable.

I once had a mother Displacer Beast who was being held by a Drow Ranger in a large cage in his quarters. The mother was a more powerful than usual Displacer Beast, but I still lowered the CR of her by 2 because she had no way of getting out of the cage, and if my players were smart and patient enough, they could have arrowed her to death from a distance.

Of course, instead they spent 10 rounds hitting her with reach weapons through the cage, while the Displacer Beast beat on them similarly. I actually almost KILLED a player with that encounter... just because they were too impatient to NOT charge in, and they kept rolling unluckily on the concealment checks whenever they hit the displacer beast.

 

[Nail]

I think this goes to common sense - with any encounter, the circumstances really ultimately dictate what XP is earned,....

To some extent. But the CR should be unaffected by the circumstances of the encounter and by the PC's tactics, because they can be so varied.

How about this:

The PCs stumble upon the shriekers, and chop them up to bits. The PCs then leave the area, sure they have roused the local monsters. After a suitable period, the PCs return, and clean out the rest of the complex, assured that the local monsters are once again "unwarned".

Question: What is the CR (and XPs given) for the Shriekers?

(EDIT: Yes, I am aware that CR and EL are different.)

 

[MerakSpielman]

I don't know. I shouldn't give full XP for these things, since they're not really doing much to alert intelligent monsters (those few intelligent monsters in the complex are already aware the PCs are coming), but I'm wondering if I should give a few token xp. The PCs will think they've aroused the ire of nearby monsters. They will be extra-paranoid (they're always paranoid) for quite some time after the encounter. They will beat themselves over the head for being so stupid as to set off the shriekers in the first place. In other words, the ecounter will seem much more significant to them than it really is.

 

[Altalazar]

Yes, there is the "fog of war" to consider.

I'm sure as DM, if players managed to take out shriekers without them getting off a peep, I'd give them full XP for that - that would be quite a feat, monsters or no monsters.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

The Shriekers are really a living form of trap with nor real negative consequence under some circumstances. It is equally true that a trap with, say, Str damage poison may have no meaningful negative consequence if there is no expected combat in the next few days.

I would say that they do not deserve more experience for blindly stumbling into 10 Shriekers than a single lone Shrieker. They do deserve full experience for demonstrating some particular competence at "disarming" the lot of them before they scream.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Another way to view it is that you have set up a situation where their shriek is useless. They are no more a CR1 critter in that circumstance than an armless legless ogre is a CR2. (In other words if you want them to be a CR 1 don't go out of your way to make them CR0.) Put in a critter to react to their screams. Darkmantles shadowing the dimly flourescent ceilings awash with foxfire, the dull rumbling of a drum as the kobolds, orcs, or goblins prepare for battle. The sliding sound of a purple worm stirring from its slumber.

Oh yes, properly used they can indeed deserve that CR1, much like a trap that sets off an alarm bell but does no damage...

The Auld Grump