D&D 5E The Challenge Rating Goldilocks Thread- Too Hot, Too Cold, or Just Right?

[Oofta]

Sounds like you went easy on them. I buffed Strahd to CR 17 and wiped out a group of 6 level 10 PCS with him. He is an absolute beast in his castle, if you want him to be.

A big factor to the calculation is the DM. Some DMs are just better at tactics than others. Back when I played more public/living campaign stuff, I got to know which DMs I preferred because it would be more of a challenge even though they were all running the same mod.

 

[dave2008]

A big factor to the calculation is the DM. Some DMs are just better at tactics than others.

Same is true for the players. I am not the best with tactics, but my group is even worse. Correction, I'm not sure they even really try to be tactical, strategic, but not tactical.

 

[Wiseblood]

Sounds like you went easy on them. I buffed Strahd to CR 17 and wiped out a group of 6 level 10 PCS with him. He is an absolute beast in his castle, if you want him to be.

I was one of them. We unintentionally eliminated some threats because of the route we took.

Since the “campaign” was a one shot there was a series of events to take place based on the real world time passing but we got there too quick.

 

[Wiseblood]

A big factor to the calculation is the DM. Some DMs are just better at tactics than others. Back when I played more public/living campaign stuff, I got to know which DMs I preferred because it would be more of a challenge even though they were all running the same mod.

He was a new DM. I thought he did really well but I like high difficulty. The other players were getting upset that it was so hard.

That surprised me because when we were creating characters we were given the choice for difficulty and we picked Hard. We were supposed to be level 7 but read the wrong Strahd primer.

Would level 6 characters beat Strahd 1 out of 100 times or 1 out of 6 times? I don’t know.

CR is defunct because it is based on Incomplete information. It works poorly with plain stat monsters. With monsters that have special abilities it is a dumpster fire.

Bodak, Intellect Devourer, Vampire, Cyclops etc. are examples of how it fails.

 

[Oofta]

He was a new DM. I thought he did really well but I like high difficulty. The other players were getting upset that it was so hard.

That surprised me because when we were creating characters we were given the choice for difficulty and we picked Hard. We were supposed to be level 7 but read the wrong Strahd primer.

Would level 6 characters beat Strahd 1 out of 100 times or 1 out of 6 times? I don’t know.

CR is defunct because it is based on Incomplete information. It works poorly with plain stat monsters. With monsters that have special abilities it is a dumpster fire.

Bodak, Intellect Devourer, Vampire, Cyclops etc. are examples of how it fails.

DMing is a skill, it takes time. In addition, some DMs are either better at adjusting on the fly or don't want to do so. I probably would have just adjusted on the fly if I thought the group would enjoy the challenge.

As far as CR, there is no such thing as a perfect system. It depends far too much on what options are used, how stats were generated, how the scenario is laid out and probably a dozen other factors I'm leaving out.

I find it has been consistently useful with minor adjustments. YMMV.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don't rely on CR as anything other than a general indication of a creature's danger level. This is mostly in relation to other creatures, more than to PCs, though. So a CR 5 monster is generally more dangerous than a CR 3 monster, and so on.

I think that the confusion comes when comparing CR to Character Level. I honestly think they should have done something a little different with CR....maybe used letters instead of numbers (CR D instead of CR 4, etc.) because way too many people seem to think that CR and Character Level correlate.

 

[Oofta]

I don't rely on CR as anything other than a general indication of a creature's danger level. This is mostly in relation to other creatures, more than to PCs, though. So a CR 5 monster is generally more dangerous than a CR 3 monster, and so on.

I think that the confusion comes when comparing CR to Character Level. I honestly think they should have done something a little different with CR....maybe used letters instead of numbers (CR D instead of CR 4, etc.) because way too many people seem to think that CR and Character Level correlate.

They kind of do correlate, just not necessarily in the way most people think.

First, they seem to be based on a party of 4 newbies with no optional rules and a standard array. Which is fine, because that's where a lot of people start. I'd rather a new DM have CR appropriate to their group than one customized for my players because that's not possible.

But CR doesn't necessarily mean all that much about difficulty, it's more of a "You should be this level before facing this monster. If you're not, it's more likely that a PC will die." Which again, goes back to base assumptions.

That, and the MM was published before the DMG and I think later books fixed the math a bit.

 

[hawkeyefan]

They kind of do correlate, just not necessarily in the way most people think.

First, they seem to be based on a party of 4 newbies with no optional rules and a standard array. Which is fine, because that's where a lot of people start. I'd rather a new DM have CR appropriate to their group than one customized for my players because that's not possible.

But CR doesn't necessarily mean all that much about difficulty, it's more of a "You should be this level before facing this monster. If you're not, it's more likely that a PC will die." Which again, goes back to base assumptions.

That, and the MM was published before the DMG and I think later books fixed the math a bit.

I don't think I was as clear as I should have been...I was trying to be brief. I suppose what I meant is there's a way that they're meant to interact, but I don't think it's as directly as many seem to think.

 

[MNblockhead]

I've used it as a guideline, but not that I've run games for the same group for over four years, I find that my "gut feeling" does a better job than spending time calculating CR. 5e CR always resulted in overly easy combat. My players have played for decades and play a lot. Personally, planning combat around some abstracted challenge rating is unhelpful. Trying to make more challenging encounters that way makes for more boring encounters. Focusing on hit points, DPR, A/C and resistances is weak spice.

I now try to focus on more interesting behavior, more challenging environments, better use of the environment by the baddies, and playing more creatures as if they really want to live. I find it more interesting to figure out ways to make kobolds, goblins, and orcs (oh my!) become terrifying than coming up with some epic level bag of hit points and super powers.

 

[ad_hoc]

CR is defunct because it is based on Incomplete information. It works poorly with plain stat monsters. With monsters that have special abilities it is a dumpster fire.

And yet a lot of people use the 'dumpster fire' to great effect.

Perhaps it is not CR that is the problem, but your skill in using it.