Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="conor" data-source="post: 333408" data-attributes="member: 4795">I have always viewed the CR system as basically two parts.&nbsp; The first part is a &quot;system&quot;, that is the tables in the DMG that say that a CR &quot;X&quot; and a CR &quot;Y&quot; is an EL &quot;Z&quot;, and that say that an EL &quot;Z&quot; defeated by 4 characters of&nbsp; ECL N is worth so many EXPs.&nbsp; The second half is the &quot;guidelines&quot; in the PHB that a X th level Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, and Wizard make an EL X party, and the information in the MM that says that a particular monster has a particular CR.So, to agree and disagree with Sean, the &quot;system&quot; is not flawed, unless you take the &quot;guildlines&quot; as absolutes.&nbsp; First off, I don't know about most of the games out there, but not a single D20 game I have been in or ran has had 4 players, they almost all have 6, some have 8.&nbsp; So right there you have to rethink EL interaction with the party.&nbsp; Plus, my current game is uniquly talented at killing undead (they are Vampire hunters after all).&nbsp; This means they could carve up the effigy without too much trouble, but a behoilder would eat them for breakfast.&nbsp; To make a long story short, DMing is not just picking a random monster out of the MM that has a CR rating the same as your four member party.&nbsp; You start with a baseline estimate of what the party is worth, through a monster against them, fudge it based on how they play, then determine it's CR based on how the game went and how much you had to tweak it, then use the system to determine the EXP award.What it all comes down to is that as a GM your job is to make sure that everyone has fun both in combat, and feel good afterwards based on the rewards they received.&nbsp; No published system could get this right automatically becuase that's what a GM is for.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="conor, post: 333408, member: 4795"] I have always viewed the CR system as basically two parts. The first part is a "system", that is the tables in the DMG that say that a CR "X" and a CR "Y" is an EL "Z", and that say that an EL "Z" defeated by 4 characters of ECL N is worth so many EXPs. The second half is the "guidelines" in the PHB that a X th level Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, and Wizard make an EL X party, and the information in the MM that says that a particular monster has a particular CR. So, to agree and disagree with Sean, the "system" is not flawed, unless you take the "guildlines" as absolutes. First off, I don't know about most of the games out there, but not a single D20 game I have been in or ran has had 4 players, they almost all have 6, some have 8. So right there you have to rethink EL interaction with the party. Plus, my current game is uniquly talented at killing undead (they are Vampire hunters after all). This means they could carve up the effigy without too much trouble, but a behoilder would eat them for breakfast. To make a long story short, DMing is not just picking a random monster out of the MM that has a CR rating the same as your four member party. You start with a baseline estimate of what the party is worth, through a monster against them, fudge it based on how they play, then determine it's CR based on how the game went and how much you had to tweak it, then use the system to determine the EXP award. What it all comes down to is that as a GM your job is to make sure that everyone has fun both in combat, and feel good afterwards based on the rewards they received. No published system could get this right automatically becuase that's what a GM is for. [/QUOTE]

Verification