SKR's problem with certain high level encounters

[Bragg Battleaxe]

Save or die situations exist at the lowest levels of play as well as the highest. I am running the Adventure Path series and the party's barbarian has been failing Will saves for spells such as Sleep and Cause Fear since 1st level. These may not kill him, but they certainly take him out of the fight. At first level, when the party's tank is out of the fight, someone is probably going to die.

 

[Frosty]

Re: SKR's porblem

Shortly after 3e came out a bunch of us sat down and began to play. We wanted to test the system, and see its merits and its flaws. CR’s were one of the problems. I believe it stems from the problem there are too many variable in the problem to work well. Its not that I see CR’s as being incorrect, but being a poor choice to base the encounter, as a lone criteria. The GM must weigh in all of the PC’s special abilities and the monsters special abilities. For example, a Fire using monster might b a challenge if the party has little protection from fire, but easy for one heavily protected. In the end I eyeball it, and custom make each encounter for the party.

I tend to run long campaigns and have found the experience and treasure to be a problem. I believe Monte Cook once said the game mechanic was to have the party increase in level every three or four game sessions based on a six month campaign. Since I run multi year campaign I have to look differently at XP. I generally want them to go up every (1+level) game sessions. What I did was modified the first edition xp chart, lowering the rate at which the xp increases and then divide by the character level. Its kind of complicated, but gives them better xp for creatures with special abilities. They of coarse then get a good chunk of xp from role playing.

The problem with slowing down progression in this manner is that the standard treasure drop is too much. By level 7 you could have PC’s with way too much gear and money. So this too needs to be lowered. When you factor in these two changes it runs pretty well

Welcome to the EN-Boards vsper. I agree that the game can be run with a lot of rules disregarded or exchanged for other rules but I think that the level of ambition at WoTC is higher than so. I suspect WoTC wants D&D to be the Coke or the MacDonalds of role-playing games. If they are to succeed in this mission in the long term there is a certain need that all players run the game in the same way. At least it should be possible to run the game per the core rules. (Of course there is little to be done about the people who persist in adding rum to their Coke and by the same token many gamers will twink the game to their tastes.)

If D&D is going to an institution (again like MacDonalds and Coke) you need a set set of rules that are indisputable. I can't remember seeing the rule of zero anywhere in a d20 product. The rule zero is a remnant of an old perspective from the days when D&D was a "product of your imagination". It's no longer that. Now it's a product of WoTC, no more and no less. The DMG specifically warns you from making changes to the system. I can see why, as the rules are interconnected and carefully balanced.

People feel a need to share their hobby with other people, with people who they don't even game with. Therefore it is necessary to some extent that we all play by the same rules. If everybody creates there own custom set of rules we will soon have too little in common to bother with buying stuff with the same label (d20) or even visit this particular place on the web.

The up side of this is WoTC can produce beautifully rendered books and the downside is that your input is less.

 

[Staffan]

Re: Re: SKR's porblem

I can't remember seeing the rule of zero anywhere in a d20 product.

Player's Handbook, page 4:

0. CHECK WITH YOUR DUNGEON MASTER
Your Dungeon Master (DM) may have house rules or campain standards that vary from the standard rules.

Dungeon Master's Guide, page 11:

CHANGING THE RULES
Beyond simple adjudicating, sometimes you are going to want to change things. That's okay.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Re: Re: SKR's porblem

If they are to succeed in this mission in the long term there is a certain need that all players run the game in the same way.

With respect, I think you are 100% wrong here. 3e is the first time that everyone has been encouraged to tinker with the rules! it is there all through the core rule books (Steffan has pointed out the biggest examples).

I believe the goal of Monte Cook and others was to encourage people to tweak things for their own games (and to give advice about how, when and why to tweak stuff)

It was 1e that said "don't tamper with these rules! it will destroy your game and you will have NO FUN if you do!!!!". Very histrionic. 3e says "be aware of what your changes will do. Some things will have more impact than others" etc.

Cheers

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Re: Re: SKR's porblem

Welcome to the EN-Boards vsper. I agree that the game can be run with a lot of rules disregarded or exchanged for other rules but I think that the level of ambition at WoTC is higher than so. I suspect WoTC wants D&D to be the Coke or the MacDonalds of role-playing games. If they are to succeed in this mission in the long term there is a certain need that all players run the game in the same way. At least it should be possible to run the game per the core rules. (Of course there is little to be done about the people who persist in adding rum to their Coke and by the same token many gamers will twink the game to their tastes.)

If D&D is going to an institution (again like MacDonalds and Coke) you need a set set of rules that are indisputable. I can't remember seeing the rule of zero anywhere in a d20 product. The rule zero is a remnant of an old perspective from the days when D&D was a "product of your imagination". It's no longer that. Now it's a product of WoTC, no more and no less. The DMG specifically warns you from making changes to the system. I can see why, as the rules are interconnected and carefully balanced.

People feel a need to share their hobby with other people, with people who they don't even game with. Therefore it is necessary to some extent that we all play by the same rules. If everybody creates there own custom set of rules we will soon have too little in common to bother with buying stuff with the same label (d20) or even visit this particular place on the web.

The up side of this is WoTC can produce beautifully rendered books and the downside is that your input is less.

D&D is an institution, been that way for a long time. I don't know why everyone is so uptight about everyone playing the same rules? This isn't a competitive game that you will be battling against others in tournaments. I've never ran a game, or played in a game that wasn't houseruled, that includes every system we've ever run since 1984. For me 3e needs modification to get it to run as quick and smooth as I want it to.

 

[easterndiode]

?? As I posted above, there are several tactics that wizards and clerics can use against this thing. The fighter is gonna be in serious trouble if she goes against it without backup: most fighters aren't gonna make the will save necessary to prevent possession, and once they're possessed, they'll start attacking their allies. "I swing, I hit" is a very bad tactical approach to this critter.

I think it could lead to a cinematic fight and would force the PCs to use some tactics they've not given much thought to.

Yes, that's exactly the thing I like about these kinds of monsters. Some of the its numbers seem to indicate that it's overpowered for its CR, but it just forces the players to think and use tactics that they're not used to. It doesn't mean they're going to get wiped out just because the cleric can't go "Undead? Oh, I turn it." It just means they're going to have to do something new and hopefully exciting. Maybe they'll discover something about their character that they've overlooked, or maybe they'll get wasted. But that's part of the game too.

 

[Katerek]

WOW

I just finished ready all the posts for this thread! Good stuff.

I agree with several separate points stated previously that the CR system breaks down at higher levels, and I also have noted that it is in some way related to the fact that it was based on sub-optimally designed iconic characters, this is a good thing.

I run a game for around 8 folks, who apparently have nothing to do but game. Their characters are far from sub-optimal. Between the nine of us we have everything published practically for d20, much of it in spades. I know that well over half of the players have character progression spreadsheets that chart the upcoming levels, usually about twenty levels in advance.

All this said, the CR system hasn't given me any major problems, but of course I have had to tweak it. I am a math dork so I took a numerical approach.

I will not bore you with the why, I will just tell you the what.

For my party of eight players, their AVERAGE PARTY LEVEL is around 17.

When designing encounters, I use the CR charts as if they were a 19th level party. (add 2)

Then I double the amount of creatures required, UNLESS this would be more than 3 creatures per party member.

I have been doing this since they were about 15th level, and it has worked really well.

Whenever I want and extremely challenging encounter, I take half of the Average Party Level, add that back (17 + 8 in this instance) and then design an encounter that is challenging for that CR using Multiple Creatures.

Of course, the players in my game have super streamline characters and we munchkin like madmen, so this may not work for everyone.

BTW Seans point was a valid one, sometimes though it IS fun to throw a creature at the party that renders some of their 'pie' useless. The one thing I have seen is that oftentimes, the fighters are the least effective in combat. So I will deliberately jack up SR and other resistances just so that everyone at the table gets a chance to shine.

The other thing I do, which has been rewarding, is to throw the occasional cake walk encounter at the party. When they were all around 12th level or so, I had sixteen or seventeen standard Gnolls try to road-jack the party. Of course the party mopped up, but it was nice for them, because they were able to see that just because they had leveled, the rest of the world hadn't leveled along with them. It is a way to make those higher levels seem more special, especially if the next session or so you take ou tthe party thief with a simple disintigration field.

 

[domsalvia]

I'm digressing a little from the original meaning of this thread but what I have to say relates to follow ups to the original message so please go easy on me (I'm new )

Reading through these posts I've noticed quite a common theme. Lots of people are noticing that the challenge rating system breaks down at higher levels and are correctly (IMO) analysing the problem to be that as PCs grow in stature and ability it becomes much harder to build a system that can take into account all the variables and create a monster with the correct challenge rating. Also, people are asking how to make this (very general) system work. My question to these people is, where does the writer of the source material's responsibility for giving the monster a reasonable CR end and where does DM's responsibility to manage his game start?

Over to you guys...

Dom

P.S. thanks for listening to the newb.

 

[Sonofapreacherman]

The problem isn't the monster, it's the CR system

Howdy folks.

Putting the effigy aside, I think this thread generated far more interest when it began to reevaluate how "Challenge Ratings" work.

Monte Cook and Sean K. Reynolds both speak of the "iconic" characters (the statistics of the exampled characters from the Player's Handbook). They tell us that the Challenge Ratings of monsters are based on the "non-tweaked" (read: non-optimized) statistics of these iconic characters. Monte Cook even goes on to admit that when "optimized" characters *are* played by people, which clearly outshine the iconic characters, then Challenge Ratings become less effective, scaling down proportionately.

So then, as long as all CRs are based on those same iconics, you'll get a consistent baseline. If your group has optimized characters with all the feats from the splatbooks, the CR to party level won't be 1 = 1, but it will be consistent. 1 = 1.5 or whatever. That's the whole point of the system.

Since the iconics statistics are publicly available, there's no reason why every publisher can't adhere to this baseline if they want to (obviously, it's their choice).

First of all, you don't need the "splatbooks", as Monte puts it, to make characters that are more optimized than the iconic characters.

Second of all... I have to ask Monte a serious question.

Did you (and all the other designers) really think that player's "wouldn't" optimize their characters? I mean come on, I love role-playing and make a point of not *tweaking out* my characters, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit to being guilty of it now and then. And if I'm only "a little" guilty of optimizing my characters, then obviously some people are going to be much more guilty of it than me (the majority of people, I suspect, who play Dungeons and Dragons to become truly heroic characters worthy of the fantasy genre, rather than a realistic character in a fantasy book, as I tend to play).

If you're going to design a game system with maximum appeal and functionality, you have to design it with *everybody* in mind.

That said, rather than defending a system based on arbitrarily designed "iconic" characters, which makes the game designer's job infinitely easier, ignoring the potential complexity of different role-playing styles (tweaked-out versus non-tweaked characters), why not suck up their game designing pride and admit that the current Challenge Rating system lacks the same diversity that defines the rest of Dungeons and Dragons?

To explain, I strongly suspect that Monte Cook (and all the other designers) based the Challenge Rating system on a group of "iconic" characters to create a "point of reference" for themselves. That's great. I can even understand why they did it. By creating a point of reference for themselves they eliminated the random element of individual role-playing styles (tweaked-out versus non-tweaked characters), and made their job far more manageable.

The problem is, while they were busy creating a simple Challenge Rating system, based on "singular archetypes" (the iconic characters) they were diversifying the rest of 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons to account for diverse role-playing styles. These two approaches to game design are clearly incongruous with each other.

I think RyanD has the right idea.

By creating "Challenge Rating Factors" (a significant list of abilities with their appropriate Challenge Rating modifiers) you can create a Challenge Rating system that scales with "individual" parties (rather than just the "iconics"). This will involve more design work, but once that work is done, such a system will be a snap to implement.

Alternatively I even think Upper_Krust had some really good suggestions too.

To see Upper Krust's idea for yourself, use the link he provided (below) and download issue #6 of Asgard. The article is called "Challenging Challenge Ratings" on page 29.

http://www.d20reviews.com/Natural20/asgard.html

Here is Ryan S. Dancey's original post as well. It bears reading again if you overlooked it the first time.

Fundamentally, the problem with higher level D&D play is that the one-size-fits-all CR system doesn't work.

Example: A 20th level Commonor, a 20th level Wizard and the Terrasque are all the same CR. Which would you rather fight?

My suggestion: The CR system needs to be reworked from the ground up to provide "CR Factors". A "CR Factor" might be something like "Undead +2CR". Each monster would list all the "CR Factors" that apply to it. Common CR Factors might include a function based on hit dice, Flying, Incorporeality, various levels of spellcasting power, extraordinary equipment, etc.

Then the DM would use those CR factors to determine which were relevant to his or her gaming group. The Undead CR Factor is a much bigger deal if the party doesn't have any Clerics, for example. Using CR Factors, the DM can calculate the correct CR for an individual Party.

Something similar to this was tried by TSR in 2nd Edition near the end of the development cycle. By then, the factors used to calculate a monster's XP award consisted of several hundred discrete options - so many that it became virtually impossible to figure out a correct XP award without computerized assistance. The problem with the old 2E XP system of course was that the XP awards didn't change vs. character (or party) level.

The beauty of "CR Factors" is that while you could have a pretty long list of defined Factors, designers would just check them off when listing the CR Factors for any given opponent. The process could be reduced to a simple web form or excel spreadsheet macro.

Of course, the problem with this system is that it makes creating one-size-fits-all dungeon encounters for printed modules very difficult(*). Since no two parties will likely face any given encounter at the same CR, a designer would need to include explicit instructions for scaling the CR of each monster up or down as necessary to hit the target EL. (Or the EL target could be abandoned, and the DM could recalculate the "true" EL based on the "true" CRs of the opponents faced - allowing the EL/XP system to flex the reward up or down as the challenge level goes up or down).

Ryan

(*) Actually, it reveals something that DMs with higher level PCs already know - D&D's stock XP award system breaks down and stops being useful at about 10th level, and from that point onward requires constant hand-adjustment by the DM to keep the game running smoothly.

 

[Monte At Home]

"Did you (and all the other designers) really think that player's "wouldn't" optimize their characters?"

Of course we did. Please read my previous posts. The idea was to create a baseline. Not an average, an optimal point, or even a median. A baseline.