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<blockquote data-quote="RyanD" data-source="post: 331116" data-attributes="member: 3312">Re: Re: The problem isn't the monster, it's the CR systemI don't accept that as a suitable response.There's a technology out there waiting to be developed that will help DMs select challenges for their parties which are fun, require strategy and tactics, and reward the party for overcoming the challenge in an appropriately scaled way.The current CR/EL/XP system in 3E isn't it.&nbsp; That doesn't mean that such a system shouldn't be worked on - it just means that the system in the existing 3E rules stops being &quot;a system&quot; at about 10th level and instead becomes &quot;a guideline&quot;.&nbsp; Guidelines are fine, but one of the overall design objectives for 3E was, where possible, to provide a standardized system (a &quot;tool&quot; if you will) so that the game's consistency across multiple scenarios and even multiple DMs would be enhanced.The EL/XP system in 3E is good.&nbsp; It creates a sliding system for calculating the reward that takes into account both the quality of the party as well as the quality of the challenges.&nbsp; (Although I believe another &quot;system&quot; (as opposed to a guideline) is required to correctly calculate the true &quot;Party Level&quot; to make the EL/XP system work as designed, and to cope with situations where the party consists of PCs of highly variable level.)&nbsp; The problem is that the input to the EL calculations (the CRs of the monsters, and the tables that generate EL values for mutliple opponents) just doesn't work above a certain level of complexity.&nbsp; It's also a problem that CR values, in general, aren't derived from a system - they're derived from estimations and guesses - and the higher level the challenge (monster) is, it becomes increasingly less likely that those estimations and guesses will apply across a diverse universe of parties (in other words, the system becomes less valuable over time).It's an interesting design problem, and it would be a worthwhile effort to find long term, scalable solutions.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="RyanD, post: 331116, member: 3312"] [b]Re: Re: The problem isn't the monster, it's the CR system[/b] I don't accept that as a suitable response. There's a technology out there waiting to be developed that will help DMs select challenges for their parties which are fun, require strategy and tactics, and reward the party for overcoming the challenge in an appropriately scaled way. The current CR/EL/XP system in 3E isn't it. That doesn't mean that such a system shouldn't be worked on - it just means that the system in the existing 3E rules stops being "a system" at about 10th level and instead becomes "a guideline". Guidelines are fine, but one of the overall design objectives for 3E was, where possible, to provide a standardized system (a "tool" if you will) so that the game's consistency across multiple scenarios and even multiple DMs would be enhanced. The EL/XP system in 3E is good. It creates a sliding system for calculating the reward that takes into account both the quality of the party as well as the quality of the challenges. (Although I believe another "system" (as opposed to a guideline) is required to correctly calculate the true "Party Level" to make the EL/XP system work as designed, and to cope with situations where the party consists of PCs of highly variable level.) The problem is that the input to the EL calculations (the CRs of the monsters, and the tables that generate EL values for mutliple opponents) just doesn't work above a certain level of complexity. It's also a problem that CR values, in general, aren't derived from a system - they're derived from estimations and guesses - and the higher level the challenge (monster) is, it becomes increasingly less likely that those estimations and guesses will apply across a diverse universe of parties (in other words, the system becomes less valuable over time). It's an interesting design problem, and it would be a worthwhile effort to find long term, scalable solutions. [/QUOTE]

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