Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="RyanD" data-source="post: 331780" data-attributes="member: 3312">Re: Re: Re: Re: The problem isn't the monster, it's the CR systemMy opinion is that the design problem can be compared to a tree with many branches and subbranches.  [To restate: The design problem is that the inputs to the CR/EL/XP calculation break down above a certain average party character level and cease being useful to DMs in creating effective and fun challenges.]At low levels, there are only a few branches (powers, abilities, etc.) available.  Coming up with a "one size fits all" CR value for challenges is relatively easy at this point in the game; its even easier if you constrain the problem by saying "we're generating values based on an assumption that the party is 4 PCs; a Figher, Wizard, Cleric and Rogue."As game time progresses (and thus powers, abilities, etc. expand in number and complexity), the system of one-size-fits-all CRs becomes less and less valuable to the DM, and the DM has to spend more and more time "adjusting" each CR to fit the needs of the specific characters in the party.  However, since the CR values are not calculated according to any kind of system, there's no obvious or easy way for the DM to do that.  In a sense, the DM must become a game designer, deconstruct the creature into all its component parts, determine a relative weighting of those parts, then reconstruct a game-specific CR value.Obvious problems:  Most DMs aren't capable of doing that work (mostly due to lack of experience and mentoring, not due to intelligence or raw ability).  And the DM probably has a significantly impacted understanding of the scope of the powers and abilities possessed by the PCs - especially if that DM is dealing with "portable" PCs that are not organic and exclusively played in the DM's only campaign.  That impacted understanding will in turn translate into errors in the re-weighting process, so CRs will often turn out either too high (or far more commonly) too low.Now, factor in the effects of multiclassing and prestige classes, and you take a situation that is already fundamentally flawed (definition: less fun than it should be for a given amount of work), and the whole system degrades even further.So what we get in actual practice is a large community of DMs who "cheat" by simply adding HP to monsters after the fight begins, or fudging saves or other die rolls to keep the beasties in the fight longer, or any number of other variations, which (due to their ad hoc nature) often create more problems in the long run than they solve.  [ There's also a community of DMs who reach a point of diminishing returns as they try to play the game "by the book" who eventually give up and either cap the power level of their games arbitrarily, engage in serial restarts, or abandon the game due to frustrations at not being able to make it work as advertised - none of which does the player network any good long term! ]That's not exactly the argument I'm making.It would be more acurate to say that due to the simplistic nature of the CR system, as presented in the DMG, DMs are not given enough information to make informed, effective judgements on how to alter the CRs of challenges to best fit the party who will confront them.I'm all for simple systems - when those simple systems work most of the time.  And for D&D, the CR system works across a larger range of character level values than the old 2E system did.  But 3E also scales up much better than 2E ever did, and so the 3E CR system is being forced to operate past the point of its maximum utility.  And after that point, it gets less and less useful (and thus creates negative utility) at a rate proportional to how for the PCs levels are from that inflection point.I think that what can be done is that a sizable number of "best practices" in challenge design can be codified and then quantified on a per monster basis to enable DMs to reduce the level of "game design" we expect them to engage in, and increase the amount of "informed judgement" they can leverage to maximize the fun level in the game.Does that make any sense, or have I obfuscated myself past the point of coherence?</blockquote>

Verification