I tried the 4 player standard, what a mess...

[kenobi65]

How did Faerie Fire work in 1e? (And was Entangle any different?)

If memory serves, 1E Faerie Fire basically gave you a bonus to-hit against the outlined creature (regardless of lighting conditions).

 

[Twowolves]

How did Faerie Fire work in 1e? (And was Entangle any different?)

Faerie Fire gave a flat +2 to hit the illuminated creature in anything less than full daylight.

Entangle was more like Web, except that it would only work where there was natural vegitation. It held the target in place better. Arrows and flaming oil did the rest.

 

[FireLance]

So its back to eyeballing the game and entertaining my friends! Thanks for all your input.

CR is not a substitute for eyeballing the game. Seriously. However, it is a great tool for quickly narrowing down what could be a reasonable challenge for a party. In addition, regardless of CR, a party could just be poorly equipped to face a particular monster (this is where DM judgement comes in) or just unlucky.

I personally feel that inexperienced DMs are better served by the CR system than being left on their own to guesstimate what creatures are appropriate for the party, and even experienced DMs can find it to be a time-saving tool.

 

[VirgilCaine]

They're a 1st-level party. A 1st-level mage might only have three spells.

A 1st level SORCEROR should have more than that. Also, a wizard PC with a merciful GM who lets them start with a little XP to use on scrolls...more than 3 spells.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Essentially we agree the CR system is broken and that what really works better is my GMing the way I always have and ignoring the rule

It is a pretty big jump from "the CR for the ogre is broken" to "the CR system is broken".

Sure it isn't the be-all and end-all, but it is a helpful general guide for quickly assessing relative threat levels!

 

[Plane Sailing]

Second they hid the rouge in some roots near the entrance and called it out, cast entagle its save was an 18 (all rolls were open as this was a test of the system) and fortunatly the rouge saved as well. It them charged out and dined on the PC's buffet style.

Are you sure this was right?

After all

Grasses, weeds, bushes, and even trees wrap, twist, and entwine about creatures in the area or those that enter the area, holding them fast and causing them to become entangled. The creature can break free and move half its normal speed by using a full-round action to make a DC 20 Strength check or a DC 20 Escape Artist check. A creature that succeeds on a Reflex save is not entangled but can still move at only half speed through the area. Each round on your turn, the plants once again attempt to entangle all creatures that have avoided or escaped entanglement.

Even if the Ogre saves, he can't charge through the entangled area, since you can only charge through unobstructed terrain - the entangle spell limits you to half movement. He can't even run because again that can't be used in difficult terrain. So perhaps the Ogre uses his move action to go 15ft through the entangle area, and then uses his standard action to move another 15ft... oops, he is still within the 40ft spread of the entangle spell, so next round he has to save again!

So the party basing their plan around the entangle spell should probably have got a shot at him in the round when he was first entangled, and possibly got a shot at him in the second round too - and he might have failed his second save against the entangle spell, allowing them to run him into more of a pincushion.

 

[JustinA]

I ran them in the Dungeon Classics Module #2 The Lost Vault of Tzathzar Rho. The first encounter in that module, which is specifically written for 1st level characters, is with an Orgre... CR 2 creature. According to the DMG 3.0 this is supposed to be a scaled encounter that 4 1st level players will have a hard time with, but can overcome. The party consisted of a Thief, a Ranger, a Diviner, and a Druid. They were annihilated. We ran the same encounter 3 times and they varied thier tactics but the end result was always the same, the gory death of the entire party and a modestly wounded Ogre.

Interesting. By contrast I ran this adventure for two 1st level characters (a barbarian and a rogue) and they handled the ogre quite easily (although they had to burn a potion of cure light wounds to pull it off): The design of the encounter took away the ogre's advantage of reach (since he talks to the PCs first they were already within 5 feet when he attacked); the barbarian got in a couple solid enraged hits with his greatsword; and the rogue got in a sneak attack and that was basically it.

Admittedly, I was worried going into it that this encounter was going to be a potential disaster: 1st level characters are fragile at the best of times and particularly susceptible to the vagaries of the dice, so sending them up against a CR = party level + 2 encounter is quite different from sending, say, an 8th level party up against a CR 10 challenge. Not to mention that I was dealing with a half-sized party.

the CR system claimed to be a guideline for balancing encounters, any DM, any players.

It claims no such thing, and it would pretty ridiculous if it did.

It's a guideline for a typical 4-member PC party in a typical combat situation employing decent tactics. The key words here are "guideline", "typical", "typical", and "decent". The further you go from a typical party, a typical situation, or decent tactics, the less accurate the CR will be.

And even if you do have a typical party, a typical situation, and decent tactics it's still a game. There's still a randomizer determining the outcome of every action. A challenge with a CR two levels higher than the party's average level is, according to the DMG, going to typically deplete 50% of the party's resources... Well, 50% of party resources can easily be two dead party members. And if you're having a bad night with the dice, it could be a lot worse.

 

[MerricB]

The dual-wielding ranger used a greatsword?

All first level rangers *should* use greatswords.

My own notes:
* You were running 4 lightly-armoured PCs. I'm not surprised they got trounced by the ogre. The CR system is built around Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard, with two PCs with good ACs. Ranger and Druid kill the good ACs.

* If you are using 3.0E, then the Wizard should have sleep prepared. It's basically a 60% chance of "we win" against the Ogre. (Wizard: DC 10+1 (spell level)+3 (16 Int)=14; Ogre Will save +1). Even in 3.5e, where sleep is weaker, I'd still say it's pretty good.

Ogres were under-CRed in 3.0E (they definitely should be 3!), but I've seen 1st level parties take them down before.

Cheers!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

In my experience, the CR system is fairly accurate as a way to estimate an ancounter, but no substitute for a bit of experience. This is especially true at low levels, where the combination of less-than-optimal tactics plus plain bad luck (which I think describes the original poster's case) can cause fairly wide swings in results.

Personally, I find that a four-person party versus an ogre is a great encounter to challenge a 1st level party in a climactic battle with t true risk of TPK (worthy to note that in the original 3.0 adventure path, an ogre wasn't introduced until the second module for 3rd level characters -- the ogre had henchmen; a classed bugbear was one of the major encounters for the 1st level adventure). Good tactics with average luck can win the day, or average tactics with good luck, but poor tactics with bad luck will end in disaster. I like to have the occasionaly encounter that puts fear into players (and PCs) so that they know there will be times they *should* run away.

I wouldn't recommend you let one bad encounter spoil you on the game as written, particularly where CR is "mostly guidelines."

 

[Stalker0]

Considering the wide range of feats, powers, spells, abilities, monster abilities, player choices, etc that go into it, I think the CR does a remarkable job. You are taking a tremendous amount of data and smashing it together into one little number, it can only be so accurate.

I agree that the ogre is a CR 3.

I also agree that you cannot melee giant types. Its the same way when you get to regular giants. If you melee them at an appropriate CR you will likely die. But slow them down and pepper them with spells and bows and you can take them down pretty easily.