D&D 4E The 4e Pit Fiend Revisited

[Majoru Oakheart]

Which is different in 4e how (beyond a slight flattening of the power curve, 3e breaks past about +/- 4 CR, 4e, maybe +/- 6 levels)? A standard lvl 8 monster in 4e, supposed to have 3 companions when facing a lvl 8 party, would clock in at 3E CR 4. Funnily enough, when a lvl 1 party faced off against one (thread about it somehwere), the results were about what you would expect for a lvl 3 party against a CR 6. Shocker. 4e and 3e work out about the same.

In 4e, it is supposed to have four companions. The standard is 5 PCs against 5 monsters.

I think you're missing something. Most level 8 monsters against a level 1 party in 4e should kill them, big time. Their AC should be high enough so as to be able to be hit on a 17or higher by PCs at first level. They should have enough hitpoints to take a good 8 or 9 hits to kill. Which likely won't happen before the monster kills the PCs. They might get lucky and beat it.

A level 3 party against a CR 6 will win most of the time. Generally, to seriously threaten a party with death in 3e, you need to use a monster with a CR at least 4 greater than the level of the party.

What you'll find is because of the formula for 4e monsters, if you use just one monster that is really high level it will be extremely swingy. It only gets 1 attack per round while the PCs get 5. Although it has really high bonuses to hit and really high AC, luck favors the PCs. They get more rolls and therefore more chances to roll high. The monster doesn't do huge damage and only gets one attack per round. However, it is likely to hit every time. On average, it should win every time, but you'll see many more results where it loses due to luck.

You are confusing a presentation issue (3E's CR system is not clearly presented, people generally expect a CR X creature to behave as a CR X+2-4 one) with a mechanical one.

I'm not sure what you mean. Why would I expect a CR 12 creature to behave as a CR 12+2-4 creature? That's a CR 10. Unless you mean EL?

However, I understand the EL and CR system well. I help to edit adventures for Living Greyhawk in my position as Triad member of Ket. We have to use the guidelines on ELs handed down to us by WOTC all the time to create encounters.

Trust me, they ARE rules for encounter creation. In Living Greyhawk, we CAN'T create a 1st level adventure that has 6 1st level human fighters attack the group. According to the rules, that is EL 6 and will certainly kill a 1st level group without chance of them surviving.

The rules of 3e say that 4 level 1 monsters should be just as hard for a level 1 party as 1 CR 5 monster. Both encounters should use up just as many resources. Here's a hint. They are nowhere NEAR the same difficulty. Which is what you need to learn through experience. That the CR and EL rules don't work.

Add to this the fact that there is no way to actually predict how difficult a particular creature will be against your party(you can guess, but monsters surprise you). One CR 15 monster might have an AC of 34 while another has an AC of 12. One might have a Reflex Save of 6 while another one has 25.

In 4e, you can rest assured that nearly every 5th level monster is very close to the same power and you can be reasonably certain how much of a challenge it will be.

I guess my point is that 4e level system does exactly what it says. It says that a party of 1st level characters will have a fairly decent challenge against a group of 5 1st level monsters. And it works. It says that the same group of players can fight against a group of 5th level monsters and it'll be REALLY hard. And it's right. It says that same group can fight against 1 solo 1st level monster and it'll be about the same as 5 1st level monsters. And it's right.

It also says, if you want, you can use one 8th level normal monster as an encounter for 1st level characters, it'll probably be alright as a 1st level encounter, though it'll be swingy, boring and likely frustrating. This is because the monster will be almost impossible to hit, will hit nearly every time and since there is only one monster it'll use the same attack every round. It won't try to flank or assist its allies as it has none. So, strategy becomes: "I attack, all of you attack."

Meanwhile, 3e says that 1 CR 4 creature should be possible as a boss encounter against level 1 characters. It normally kills them. It says that 8 level 1 enemies should be just as hard for a level 3 group as one CR 7. The CR 7 will kill the party in all likelihood. The 1st level monsters will likely die quickly. It is just bad at predicting the difficulty of an encounter.

 

[pawsplay]

Meanwhile, 3e says that 1 CR 4 creature should be possible as a boss encounter against level 1 characters. It normally kills them. It says that 8 level 1 enemies should be just as hard for a level 3 group as one CR 7. The CR 7 will kill the party in all likelihood. The 1st level monsters will likely die quickly. It just is bad at predicting the difficulty of an encounter.

It's always possible to engage in deliberate bad encounter design. I am confident that eight wolves can take on a 1st level party and win, whereas a level 8 hobgoblin warrior is going to get massacred.

 

[hong]

It's always possible to engage in deliberate bad encounter design. I am confident that eight wolves can take on a 1st level party and win, whereas a level 8 hobgoblin warrior is going to get massacred.

This is not "deliberate bad encounter design" we're talking about. The fact that the CR/EL system fails is not at all obvious at first glance.

 

[pawsplay]

I predict 4e will do no better. 3e's encounter balancing system is not bad; it is also not perfect.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

It's always possible to engage in deliberate bad encounter design. I am confident that eight wolves can take on a 1st level party and win, whereas a level 8 hobgoblin warrior is going to get massacred.

Exactly. Because the EL/CR system doesn't work.

4e tells you not to use one level 8 monster against a party because the math isn't designed to work that way and you don't know what you're going to get if you try that.

3e just says "All of these work the same...use them all."

 

[pawsplay]

Exactly. Because the EL/CR system doesn't work.

It's worked for me. What it doesn't do is take the risk out of encounter design; it always possible to cobble together something where the CRs are supposedly right but the encounter goes wobbly for other reasons.

4e will not be different in this regard; the numbers will be closer, so hit/AC won't be a huge issue, but with exception-based design in action, you can't be sure at all what will happen. It won't take long for someone to cobble together 3rd level parties that can take down a pit fiend.

 

[Jack99]

4e will not be different in this regard; the numbers will be closer, so hit/AC won't be a huge issue, but with exception-based design in action, you can't be sure at all what will happen. It won't take long for someone to cobble together 3rd level parties that can take down a pit fiend.

I won't be holding my breath while waiting for that to happen..

 

[Kraydak]

In 4e, it is supposed to have four companions. The standard is 5 PCs against 5 monsters.

I think you're missing something. Most level 8 monsters against a level 1 party in 4e should kill them, big time. Their AC should be high enough so as to be able to be hit on a 17or higher by PCs at first level. They should have enough hitpoints to take a good 8 or 9 hits to kill. Which likely won't happen before the monster kills the PCs. They might get lucky and beat it.

Which isn't what playtests have found. Playtests have found that lvl 8 4e (standard) monsters are, in 3e terms, CR4ish, as one would expect.

A level 3 party against a CR 6 will win most of the time. Generally, to seriously threaten a party with death in 3e, you need to use a monster with a CR at least 4 greater than the level of the party.

What you'll find is because of the formula for 4e monsters, if you use just one monster that is really high level it will be extremely swingy. It only gets 1 attack per round while the PCs get 5. Although it has really high bonuses to hit and really high AC, luck favors the PCs. They get more rolls and therefore more chances to roll high. The monster doesn't do huge damage and only gets one attack per round. However, it is likely to hit every time. On average, it should win every time, but you'll see many more results where it loses due to luck.

4e, 3e, your statements holds for both.

I'm not sure what you mean. Why would I expect a CR 12 creature to behave as a CR 12+2-4 creature? That's a CR 10. Unless you mean EL?

However, I understand the EL and CR system well. I help to edit adventures for Living Greyhawk in my position as Triad member of Ket. We have to use the guidelines on ELs handed down to us by WOTC all the time to create encounters.

There have been many threads/complaints about PCs walking over monsters that boiled down to DMs thinking that CR X is a challenging encounter for a lvl X party. This is the result of bad presentation in the DMG, and is what I was referring to.

...

Meanwhile, 3e says that 1 CR 4 creature should be possible as a boss encounter against level 1 characters. It normally kills them. It says that 8 level 1 enemies should be just as hard for a level 3 group as one CR 7. The CR 7 will kill the party in all likelihood. The 1st level monsters will likely die quickly. It is just bad at predicting the difficulty of an encounter.

And 3e and 4e are, again the same: they warn you that the formulas for the difficulty of encounters break if the level range gets too big. 3e's range is smaller (3-4ish vs 5-6ish), due to a steeper power curve. You still haven't described a fundamental 3e/4e difference.

I personally expect one (negative) in that I expect 4e monsters to be very similar to each-other. That isn't due to 3e's CR/EL system vs. 4e's XP system though, but rather a result of the lack of PC nova-capacity, which causes problems if NPC power levels aren't tightly constrained. Constraint, of course, is most easily gained by restricting options. But that isn't relevant to the topic at hand.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Exactly, like all other EL 20 encounters. If you want it to be a serious challenge, you send a 16th level party against it, or you advance it to EL 22-24. If you want it to be a legendary encounter, make that 15th level and CR 25, respectively, and the PCs will need some powerful one-use or enemy-specific abilities to have a fighting chance.

Or run for such encounters. The fourth will be challenging. The rest will only be challenging in the sense that you hopefully didn't waste any precious resources.

Rambling on resource management and attrition:
[sblock]
But while the system "assumes" this progression, I think Wands of Cure Light Wounds basically negate most of the resource attrition. In a EL = PL encounter, the non-spellcasters can usually take on the opposition while the spellcasters stay in the back (sometimes shooting a crossbow or casting a low level spell to have some kind of alibi). Afterwards, the CLW Wand is used to replenish the only resource non-spellcasters can lose - their hit points. The CLW Wand is also a resource, but it is in a way cheaper then "normal" hp healing, and thus you never end up with 20 % resource expenditure.

The end result is that people tend to run higher EL fights. In these fights, the spellcasters need to expend a lot more resources, since the enemies must be hit hard (or at least their damage output must be compensated), or the party members will take actual losses. Basically, once you reach 25 % or more theoretical resource expenditure, you have to "spread out" the resource expenditure among the party members, or you'll lose one.
With "novaing" you can lose party members without having them killed - spellcasters primary resource are spells, not hit points, and with novaing, those are gone.
[/sblock]

So, what does this mean for the Pit Fiend? In 3E, the only way to use him as a Solo monster is by sending him against a 16th level party (of normal size). But there is a tiny problem. The RAW might tell us that this should be a powerful and challenging encounter, but it doesn'T work out that great, since the Pit Fiend doesn't have the #actions to compete with the PCs. End result is a very quick fight, in which either the Pit Fiend gets the drop on his foes and can use some of his major abilities against the PCs, or the PCs get the drop on him and can defeat him, possibly in the first round.

Which is different in 4e how (beyond a slight flattening of the power curve, 3e breaks past about +/- 4 CR, 4e, maybe +/- 6 levels)?

My guess (based on XP values and defense/attack values) currently is that it's approximately turning from +/-4 to +/-8. That is a significant change, in my view. Monsters stay viable a lot longer.

Also, +/-4 might be the theory in 3E, but I think if you go more then 2 points below you actually end up with monsters that only annoy, but don't contribute in any way (unless they have some special powers, like maybe area effects that deal damage even on a succesful save). Higher level monsters often suffer from the action economy problem, and while theoretically feasible, often lead to unsatisfactory experiences. I think trying to use multiple monsters around CR = PL +/-2 is the best choice. "Solo" monsters in 3E should be used sparingly. Dragons might really be the best for this, since they at least have the hit points and saves to survive a few rounds of concentrated player fire (and are under-CRed anyway )

Edit:
I think Majoru has generally the right idea, but I think a level 8 monster might still be in the realm of acceptable. it is a bit swingy, and might be frustrating, though. In one of the designer blogs, they had the party fight (together with some NPCs) fight a monster somewhat above that level, and they managed to survive, but he found out that the encounter was a little to frustrating, overall.

 

[Kraydak]

It's always possible to engage in deliberate bad encounter design. I am confident that eight wolves can take on a 1st level party and win, whereas a level 8 hobgoblin warrior is going to get massacred.

A lvl 8 goblin warrior will obliterate a lvl 1 3e party who don't land a save-or-die. Of course, most lvl 1 save-or-die effects are level capped at 4-6HD...