D&D 5E Ratslayers: 1st level encounter XP

[I'm A Banana]

I know it's a work-in-progress, but the XP values for a 1st-level encounter in the basic document seem...a little odd.

A CR 1 creature is worth 200 XP.

By the XP/encounter charts, this is more XP than you ever want to throw at a level 1 party in 1 encounter.

Like, a Quasit is beyond deadly.

You've gotta assemble encounters from CR < 1 creatures. But even then you gotta be careful -- the XP Multipliers kick in if you have more than 1 critter, so, like two zombies? That's one too tough.

5e is a system that supports "level 1 ratslaying" rather well in that 5 rats is a Deadly level 1 encounter.

Daaaaaaang.

It's really driving home the point that level 1 characters, though capable of powerful magic and remarkable feats of atheletic prowess...are still in a world where even an angry group of housecats can take you out. I mean, I live in NYC, I could totally imagine 5 gnarly subway rats who decided to team up against some guy on the subway platform with a delicious sandwich or something taking that guy *down.* Harder to imagine them doing it to four dudes...but eh.

I think I'm kind of a fan of it (a low-level character is not going to stand against armies), but going from 4e to this is a bit of a system shock. This is perhaps the first time that a D&D edition actually ramped down the power level of 1st-level characters.

But it's still really weird that a level 1 party cannot really fight a CR 1 creature.

 

[bording]

The Encounter Difficulty chart is a per character value.

Four 1st level characters makes 200 XP for a medium difficulty encounter.

 

[Li Shenron]

The Encounter Difficulty chart is a per character value.

Four 1st level characters makes 200 XP for a medium difficulty encounter.

I think it's this.

So a CR 1 creature is an appropriate match for a level-1 party, but "deadly" for a single CR 1 character. Although "deadly" doesn't mean you'll nearly certainly die. We don't know what is the relationship with PC level (i.e. what is the CR of an NPC built with PC rules). If such relationship was CR = PC level, then "deadly" would mean ~50% chance. In a vacuum, it doesn't sound very "deadly", but if you keep fighting opponents of this level of challenge, it is (4 such encounters give you theoretically more than 90% chance of death).