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<blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 8159365" data-attributes="member: 20323">I don't meant to press if you're gauging it intuitively, but could I ask how did you reach that CR 9 to 10 estimation?You don't come out and say this, but I'm going to ask: Are you implying that if it's hard to calculate a monster's offensive challenge – or if calculating its offensive challenge seems unclear or muddied – that is an indication of a design shortcoming that should be addressed?Going all out for Lavendeth would probably include fighting with lots of minions, upcasting hold person, forcible plane shifting, and potentially confusion.Taking your example of an upcast hold person, how would you decide what damage that is &quot;as good as&quot;? Correct me if I'm making a false assumption about what you mean, but wouldn't this mean dividing average Hit Points of a PC by 3, then multiplying by number of PCs (of which D&amp;D assumes 4)? Since we assume 3 rounds of combat, and putting a PC out of commission is 1/3rd of that combat. But doesn't that require an assumption about what level PCs are facing the monster... which makes its offensive CR a moving target that scales according to the party? Funny, when I'd originally written the monster, I put down CR 12 without having done any of the maths.I understand the &quot;it does not matter / no worries&quot; perspective. Given that is the majority of how you approach monsters, you may not wish to answer further – and I totally understand that – but would you be willing to elaborate on how your comparison process looked for my example monster Lavendeth? You said you compared her to the Archdruid with spells like firestorm and sunbeam, and Archmage with spells like cone of cold and globe of invulnerability. How do you compare Lavendeth to those?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Quickleaf, post: 8159365, member: 20323"] I don't meant to press if you're gauging it intuitively, but could I ask how did you reach that CR 9 to 10 estimation? You don't come out and say this, but I'm going to ask: Are you implying that if it's hard to calculate a monster's offensive challenge – or if calculating its offensive challenge seems unclear or muddied – that is an indication of a design shortcoming that should be addressed? Going all out for Lavendeth would probably include fighting with lots of minions, upcasting [I]hold person, [/I]forcible [I]plane shifting[/I], and potentially [I]confusion[/I]. Taking your example of an upcast [I]hold person[/I],[I] [/I]how would you decide what damage that is "as good as"? Correct me if I'm making a false assumption about what you mean, but wouldn't this mean dividing average Hit Points of a PC by 3, then multiplying by number of PCs (of which D&D assumes 4)? Since we assume 3 rounds of combat, and putting a PC out of commission is 1/3rd of that combat. But doesn't that require an assumption about what level PCs are facing the monster... which makes its offensive CR a moving target that scales according to the party? Funny, when I'd originally written the monster, I put down CR 12 without having done any of the maths. I understand the "it does not matter / no worries" perspective. Given that is the majority of how you approach monsters, you may not wish to answer further – and I totally understand that – but would you be willing to elaborate on how your comparison process looked for my example monster Lavendeth? You said you compared her to the Archdruid with spells like [I]firestorm [/I]and[I] sunbeam,[/I] and Archmage with spells like [I]cone of cold [/I]and[I] globe of invulnerability[/I]. How do you compare Lavendeth to those? [/QUOTE]

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