Monte's Take on CR

[The Serge]

I don't remember if this has already been discussed, but I just found an interesting "essay" from Cook on CR

http://www.montecook.com/dmonly.html

As most of us know, there's been a lot of talk from DMs and would-be designers about CR and how effective it has been over the past few years of 3ed. Personally, I've always felt that the CRs for most Outsiders and Dragons were a little low (and WotC did agree that the Dragon CRs assumed the PCs were prepared to deal with the beast). But, I have historically been comfortable witih CRs for beings under 20 CR. Those over 20 are a different matter.

To date, I only know about one other variant CR that seems to have a pretty good handle and concept: Upper_Krusts. While he's taken a lot of criticism for it (both constructive and otherwise), I've come to admire and generally agree with his attempts.

I guess what I'm wondering is, do we really need to reevaluate CR or is Cook right? Or is there a middle ground? I think CR is one of the best things for D&D largely because it provides a guideline that never before existed to help DMs and designers determine what works and what does not work for a given party. But, is Cook right? Are we making too much of an issue over this whole concept?

 

[Apok]

I think that the CR system serves as a good guideline for DM's who aren't sure what they can reasonably throw at their players without either a) slaughtering them or b) giving them "freebie" xp with an encounter that isn't at all challenging.

However, I do think that it's important to understand that CR is not (and never was meant to be, IMO) the End All and Be All of rating a monster's difficulty. Alot of it depends on the situation; are the PC's prepared, does the monster have home-turf advantage, is it an ambush situation or do both parties see each other on an open field and go for blood. These are the kinds of things that can skew some peoples opinions about weather a creatures CR is accurate.

Another thing people have to come to terms with is the fact that just because two monsters share the same CR doesn't mean they are going to be equal in ability. As in everything, each CR has tiers. Some CR 5's are going to be more dangerous than other CR 5's. Other times, they might be challenging on different levels. Id est, one CR 5 creature might be weak physically but have some nasty spell-like abilities while another CR 5 creature might be a powerhouse with no unusual abilities. This is where the tactics part of it comes into play.

My feeling; they work as good guidelines, but take 'em with a grain of salt and don't believe them to be absolute. I, for one, am greatful of the CR system and am glad the designers included it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm with Apok.

The CR's are supposed to be a guideline, not a mathematical equasion (which I feel is a bit of a problem with many of the alternate systems). A challenge is not an absolute number, it's relative to the circumstances.

 

[Skade]

My initial view of CR was that it was equivalent to character level in some regards, and in a lot of ways, I wish it were. The eternal question of any game system is play balance, or "my character can beat up your character". the same applies to monsters. I hoped that CR would provide the same guidline as a level, so that a CR 5 was equal *roughly* to a 5th level character. This is not because I wanted a cookie cutter approach to the encounter, any of my players will tell you that isn't true. As it stands, there is no system for either classes or creatures to accuratly gauge it game impact , which I think is more apt than power or capability. I myself like fluid games, but with all the complaints about CRs maybe a mathematical equation should be produced.

I have not seen any of the alternate systems for this, but would like to.

 

[Crothian]

CRs are a nice guideling, but anything more then that and they will fail. CRs might be able to balance creatures to classes, but the biggest factor they cannot take in is the player. Players change everything. They can make a weak CR battle turn into a TPK, or a super tough challenge can be turned into a cake walk.

 

[Drawmack]

When I picked up 3e I had never DMed a game before. The CR system gave me a way to quickly evaluate monsters without running bunches of battle scenarios. It is an amazing tool when properly used. Monte hinted at something more important in his article. I have not been DMing all that long so I still rely pretty heavily on CRs but if the PCs are having a rough go I'll keep some of the baddies abilities off the table and if the PCs are having an easy go I'll beef them up a bit. Right there on the fly. As time goes on I am relying a bit less on CRs but they are still a helpful evaluation tool for rating the strength of a monster quickly.

 

[jdavis]

I think as a guideline they work pretty well, it seems that they are for new DM's not for people who have been doing this for long enough to know better. If you have been gaming for awhile you know what your party can and can't handle, and you also know when a old Black Dragon is just too much of a opponent. Dungeons were designed without CR for decades. They are just a basic ballpark figure for helping to build a adventure, they are not a rule mechanic that must be followed.

What a great article by Monte, I agree 100% with what he said.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Serge mate!

I don't remember if this has already been discussed, but I just found an interesting "essay" from Cook on CR

http://www.montecook.com/dmonly.html

Very interesting article...as a rule of thumb I have always found Monte to know exactly what hes talking about, especially when dealing with the mechanics of the game.

In this instance he is right, however he doesn't address the tangible problem of Challenge Ratings above 20 and the relative effect of Encounter Levels...which is where things really start to go 'pear shaped'.

As most of us know, there's been a lot of talk from DMs and would-be designers about CR and how effective it has been over the past few years of 3ed. Personally, I've always felt that the CRs for most Outsiders and Dragons were a little low (and WotC did agree that the Dragon CRs assumed the PCs were prepared to deal with the beast). But, I have historically been comfortable witih CRs for beings under 20 CR. Those over 20 are a different matter.

To date, I only know about one other variant CR that seems to have a pretty good handle and concept: Upper_Krusts. While he's taken a lot of criticism for it (both constructive and otherwise), I've come to admire and generally agree with his attempts.

I stumbled over the problem by accident. I was trying to design a method by which deities could 'create' servants or monsters, so initially I needed a way to break Challenge Rating down so that it could be determined from the ground up. The mantra I always stuck to was:

1 Class Level = 1 CR

However, when I came to analyse Encounter Levels I found glaring problems facing me; especially noticeable the higher in CR you ascend.

Remember EL is affected by (enemy) numbers.

So (where x is EL) 4x = x+4

eg. 4 EL 10 opponents = 1 EL 14 opponent.

What I found was that the higher (in CR) we ascend the less impact each individual increase in CR has upon EL.

eg. Of course a 20th-level party could defeat a 29th-level opponent! But adhering strictly to the rules they would have us believe they couldn't.

The solution I eventually arrived at was that:

Doubling the CR = EL +4

eg. CR 1 = EL 1; CR 2 = EL 5; CR 4 = EL 9 etc.

So doubling the CR has the same effect as increasing the number of opponents to four.

eg. 4 CR 10 opponents = 1 CR 20 opponent.

I guess what I'm wondering is, do we really need to reevaluate CR or is Cook right? Or is there a middle ground? I think CR is one of the best things for D&D largely because it provides a guideline that never before existed to help DMs and designers determine what works and what does not work for a given party. But, is Cook right? Are we making too much of an issue over this whole concept?

The main problem is our treatment of Encounter Levels not Challenge Ratings. Once you solve that everything falls into place.

The reason most people have not yet encountered such a problem is because they are still playing a non-epic game; whereby the CR/EL rules still (for the most part) function adequately.

However as Monte rightly states these figures are guidelines, you still have to be wary of situational modifiers.

 

[Destil]

Yeah, I abandon CR as anything more than a better XP system than the fixed XP per monster a long time ago. This article is exactly what I've been thinking of CR for a while now, though put into words better than I can. Clearly a party of 6 druids, 3 Cleirc/Fighters and a wizard and a bard are going to have VERY diffrent encounters with an iron golem. CR is handy for giving out XP, but beyond that it's not very useful. (Note that I don't really have any interest in epic).

Also, when people point out creatures like the renzormath and stats how this creature attacks from burrowing and gets a suprise round, they don't think to increase the EL, which is a big problem. Better situation from the bad guys = higher EL. The typical BADD style dragon fight will usualy be about +2 to +4 EL or more.

And some creatures are clearly a bit low. The dragon excuse is a cover up, I remmeber a while back one of the designeres mentioned that they put 6 level 20 iconics at 40th vs. a CR 20 black dragon and while they came out on top it was clearly more than 1/4th of their resources. This was fairly recently after the MM came out, and they mentioned that dragons were to low, most likely. However, look in the back of the first printing of the PH. The mature adult red dragon is listed as CR 13! (17 in the MM) The spellcasting is a little higher in the PH, but most of the basic stats are the same. Clearly, if dragons are too low now, the're at least getting better.