% resources of CR

[Lord Pendragon]

Here with only the SRD I can't recall...

An equal CR encounter is supposed to use up 25% of an equal level party's resources, correct?

What about a +1 CR encounter?

+2?

Thanks for any clarification. Trying to get some work done on the next few encounters while away from my books.

 

[Quinnman]

Couldn´t find the info in the DMG 3.5... - sorry...

The %-used though in an equal CR encounter is 20%

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Couldn´t find the info in the DMG 3.5... - sorry...

The %-used though in an equal CR encounter is 20%

Thank you for giving it a check, Quinnman.

20% you say. Hrm, then a +1 or +2 CR can't be overwhelming...

I was hoping someone would know off the top of their head, though it is the weekend, so the boards won't be getting as much traffic as a workday.

 

[shilsen]

Thank you for giving it a check, Quinnman.

20% you say. Hrm, then a +1 or +2 CR can't be overwhelming...

I'm pretty sure the "approximately 20% of resources" for a challenging encounter is the only explicitly spelled out estimation in the DMG. I'd guesstimate a +1 CR (or EL) encounter to use up about 30-35% of resources and a +2 encounter to use up 40-50%.

I believe (from posts on these boards, since I don't have it) that Grimm Tales has something called the Chi-Ro formula to calculate it as follows:

Chi: calculate "power" of enemies by adding the sum of their squares of their CR.

Ro: calculate "power" of party members by adding the sum of the squares of their levels

Chi / Ro gives the expected amount of party resources used up


So, for example:

Chi for a group of three CR 2 critters (EL 5) would be 3 x (2^2) = 12 and Ro for a party of four 4th lvl PCs would be 4 x (4^2) = 64

Which works out to 20% of resources used up for a 4th lvl party facing an EL 5 encounter

But throw the party against two CR 3 critters (still EL 5) and Chi becomes 18 and the % of resources used up is closer to 30%. And against one CR 5 critter it's nearly 40%. In short, it varies not just by the EL of the encounter but by the components that make up that EL.

Hope that helps.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Thanks Shilsen, that does help. I'm a tad to lazy to use the formula you provided, but your gut estimate on the resource expenditures of the + CRs helps me a lot. Thanks.