Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Issues with the "NPCs" in the MM and HotDQ (SPOILERS!)
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 6405613" data-attributes="member: 5143"><p>Here's the rationale. In 5e, they said "Why are you using a monster's stat block in the first place? 99% of the time it is because the PCs are going to fight the creature/person in question. Now, what do we want in an interesting battle? We want the creature to put up a legitimate fight and be interesting to fight. We want them to survive long enough to not feel that they were just a speed bump. The only way to assure that is to build an enemy based on the strength of the party you expect them to fight. That number is CR."</p><p></p><p>CR is not the same thing as CR in 3e. In 3e, when you create monsters, you use a large formula to calculate the creature based on hit dice, stats, the monster type, and so on. Then at the end of the process, you look at the completed monster and say "I'm going to guess how powerful this monster is and assign it a CR." The problem is, that CR could be completely and totally wrong because it was mostly guessing. Also, the formula created such a wide range of monsters that you could end up with a creature that was essentially CR 4 against spellcasters while being CR 14 against fighters.</p><p></p><p>In 5e, you instead start with "How powerful should this monster be?" and work backwards. The rules are meant to give you a creature who matches the CR you want rather than the other way around. Due to a focus on constraining numbers, you end up with a monster who is much more accurately the power level of its CR. The change allows you to create monsters whose difficulty is much more predictable and have more fun combats.</p><p></p><p>The player creation rules aren't designed around that idea. A 10th level Fighter's stats don't really match up to the way monsters are made. Monsters are designed with lower damage and more hitpoints than PCs.</p><p></p><p>What pemerton above is getting at is that in the game world someone who attacks an NPC wizard and it takes them 2 hits(doing 9 damage total) to kill that wizard, the character in the game will have no idea if it had 9 hp because it rolled 2d8 or because it was 1d8+CON. The exact method you used to come up with those hitpoints don't matter to the characters in the game. They don't understand game mechanics and therefore it doesn't matter at all.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Majoru Oakheart, post: 6405613, member: 5143"] Here's the rationale. In 5e, they said "Why are you using a monster's stat block in the first place? 99% of the time it is because the PCs are going to fight the creature/person in question. Now, what do we want in an interesting battle? We want the creature to put up a legitimate fight and be interesting to fight. We want them to survive long enough to not feel that they were just a speed bump. The only way to assure that is to build an enemy based on the strength of the party you expect them to fight. That number is CR." CR is not the same thing as CR in 3e. In 3e, when you create monsters, you use a large formula to calculate the creature based on hit dice, stats, the monster type, and so on. Then at the end of the process, you look at the completed monster and say "I'm going to guess how powerful this monster is and assign it a CR." The problem is, that CR could be completely and totally wrong because it was mostly guessing. Also, the formula created such a wide range of monsters that you could end up with a creature that was essentially CR 4 against spellcasters while being CR 14 against fighters. In 5e, you instead start with "How powerful should this monster be?" and work backwards. The rules are meant to give you a creature who matches the CR you want rather than the other way around. Due to a focus on constraining numbers, you end up with a monster who is much more accurately the power level of its CR. The change allows you to create monsters whose difficulty is much more predictable and have more fun combats. The player creation rules aren't designed around that idea. A 10th level Fighter's stats don't really match up to the way monsters are made. Monsters are designed with lower damage and more hitpoints than PCs. What pemerton above is getting at is that in the game world someone who attacks an NPC wizard and it takes them 2 hits(doing 9 damage total) to kill that wizard, the character in the game will have no idea if it had 9 hp because it rolled 2d8 or because it was 1d8+CON. The exact method you used to come up with those hitpoints don't matter to the characters in the game. They don't understand game mechanics and therefore it doesn't matter at all. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Issues with the "NPCs" in the MM and HotDQ (SPOILERS!)
Top