How to classify monster strength?

[YRUSirius]

Why is it a waste of time to give a noob DM advice on what challenge is okay and what kind of challenge is surely too much for a noob group of players/characters?

Just because a DM does not adjust the difficulty settings for his game when his players are experienced and can beat the game on medium difficulty settings?

If you want to adjust the difficulty settings you need a medium setting first. That's what I'm searching for the playtest monsters. What is a medium challenge for noob players. I can always adjust the difficulty to insane mode if I want to.

-YRUSirius

 

[am181d]

I seriously don't want a "challenge rating" system in D&D Next.

Here's why:

Challenge is arbitrary.

I'm ambivalent to the inclusion of a challenge rating system in DnDN.

Here's why:

I ignored the challenge rating system in 3e, and I'm perfectly happy to ignore a CR system in DnDN.

 

[P1NBACK]

What is a medium challenge for noob players.

The answer to this question is always going to be: it depends.

If I were writing the DMG, I would try to teach noobs how to learn their particular group's strengths and weaknesses and play to them rather than some arbitrary number system. If that means an "easing" period, where you use a number of small encounters with weaker monsters like kobolds to give players time to learn the game or something, fine. But, it's more important for a new DM to learn how to gauge their players' abilities than to try to shoehorn them into a challenge system.

But, hey, that's just my opinion.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I seriously don't want a "challenge rating" system in D&D Next.

I think some kind of challenge rating is very important. Obviously it can't be exact, but there needs to be something. You can't just show a novice DM a bunch of monsters and expect him to work out what's fair to throw at his players.

Ideally, I'd like each monster to have a level (analogous to character levels), and then you can put class levels on top if you want. So an owlbear is a 4th-level creature, but if you put two levels of Sorcerer on top of that, it's a 6th-level creature.

 

[dd.stevenson]

If only hitpoints and damage are scaling with level, then it should be pretty easy to gauge monster strength by just eyeballing those two variables. No?

 

[edhel]

The monsters in the D&D Next bestiary document have xp values. Has anyone calculated or playtested what amount of monsters of what xp values are 'appropriate' for a given 4 party adventuring group of a given level?

---

Anyone did some testing what might 'feel'... 'right'?

In my playtest game the characters met the goblin king of the Sunless Citadel and his 10 goblin guards. A couple of rounds later 7 goblin warriors joined the melee.

It was appropriate and bloody. The characters were victorious and 5 warriors routed.

If you want some sort of challenge rating for your encounters, you need to first define what you want out of the combat. The characters spend 25% of their resources (like in 3.x)? The fight will take three rounds? Five?

Personally I'll just have something at stake and keep making the combat interesting. The campaign world won't be level-appropriate.


EDIT: If you are trying to find the perfect difficulty for your and your group's tastes, try having reinforcements appear. It'll make the fights more dynamic. Try using random tables and roll for the number of creatures - it'll keep you as a DM on your toes.

It's also ok for the PCs to have one-sided fights once in a while. Go after an emotional impact (there's something at stake - other than life vs violent death) rather than try to devise and worry over some perfect balance in encounters.