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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mortaneus" data-source="post: 332127" data-attributes="member: 485">Re: Up the ante...IMC, the PC's have one option available to them that makes defeating an epic creature possible.  I changed the Sure Strike enhancement from making the weapon an auto +5 for penetrating DR, to increasing the weapon's enhancement bonus by +2 for the purposes of penetrating DR.  That means a +5 (effective +7 for DR) weapon would cost 72kgp.  Well within the reach of a high, but not epic, level character.I think one of the central problems to the CR/EL system is that it doesn't account for the fact that, while a monster's CR accounts for having only one of them, the party usually consists of multiple combatants.The effective encounter level system doesn't work very well for accounting for this, either.  Consider, 12+ Adult Red dragons should consume 1/4 of a 20th level party's resources?  I think not.Multiple combatants on a side has a HUGE impact on it's effectiveness.  The average per/round damage output of a mid-to-high level party is so high that it can usually wipe out even a great wyrm in a couple of rounds of combat.  I think a better way of balancing the scales is to work on a tally system.  Each combatant adds a certain number to the value of their side.  The totals are added up, and compared, to see if it's an even fight, or if one side has an advantage over another.Off the top of my head, let's try this one.  PT (power tally) for a combatant equals (HD or Lvl)^2.  When figuring level, add together classes and HD that stack for effectiveness (for example, the troll w/ fighter levels).  The others are calculated as a seperate tally and added to the total for that combatant.  Example:Human Fighter 14 = 196Tarrasque (HD 48) = 2,304Troll Fighter 3/Druid 2 = (6+3)^2 + 2^2 = 81 + 4 = 85This means that a party of four 20th level characters (not weakened by multiclassing into non-additive classes), has four characters with PT 400 (20^2), for a total PT of 1600.  Still quite a bit less than the Tarrasque's 2304, meaning this is going probably be one heck of a nasty fight.This also gives you a decent figure of what multiclassing costs you.Monk 10 = 100 PTDruid 5/Ranger 5 = 25+25 = 50 PTOf course, this still requires some eyeballing.  For instance,Rogue 3/Wizard 5/Arcane Trickster 2 = (3+2)^2 + (5+2)^2 = 25+49 = 74Since the arcane trickster levels help both classes, I added it to both to determine the effective level of each.This is just an idea off the top of my head.  I'm sure it breaks if you poke it too hard, but it might be a good start.edit:  Another idea.  Since the base classes (ignoring quite a few discussions here) are relatively balanced, maybe you can figure CR from them.  Consider, since an encounter of a CR should use up 1/4 the resources of a party of 4, shouldn't it use up 100% of the resources of a single one of the party's characters, if encountered singly?Then, I think, a good judge of CR for a monster is to compare it to whatever class best matches it's capabilities, and figure out what level in power it would have compared to an average PC of that level.  For instance, fighting a troll is like fighting a barbarian (the closest class to it's capabilities) of lvl 5, making it CR 5.The tarrasque, being neigh indistructable, I would match with a monk (generally invulnerable against everything) of 25th level, giving you a better idea of it's CR.</blockquote>

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