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Thing I thought 4e did better: Monsters
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<blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6980722" data-attributes="member: 37579"><p>I much prefer CR. Because "level" gets used far, far too much in D&D: dungeon levels, spell levels, class levels, etc. </p><p>The difference is really party vs character. In 3e and 5e, a CR (or level) 1 creature is a reasonable challenge for a level 1 party. But some monsters are better in groups even at level 1 and it would be weird to have a "level 1/4" monster. Making CR 1/8 into level 1 just means level 1 parties are able to fight level 4 or 5 creatures, which is also odd. Since player level and monster level are such different scales, it makes sense to give them different names. </p><p></p><p>4e had experienced based encounter budgets too. Just like 5e. You figured out the level of the party and added their experience budget before deducting the xp values of the monsters to build an encounter. That was just as much math. Pretty much...</p><p>The difference is people quickly realised that the budget could be filled by one monster of the appropriate level per PC. So that was how encounters were designed. Five monsters, maybe swaping one out for an elite, and one out for four minions.</p><p>But this got tricky if the monsters you wanted to use were the wrong level. Really, it was typically easier to just adjust monsters to the right level than mix-and-match monsters to "spend" the experience budget like the rules suggested. (I never used monsters at the level they were in the book, because the party was never at the exact right level to fight monsters when the story dictated they should.)</p><p></p><p>Now, a dirty secret about 5e: you can do the <em>exact same thing as you did in 4e</em>. A monster with a CR 1/3rd the level of the PC is pretty much the right challenge for a one-on-one fight. So a party of five 3rd level adventures can face five CR 1 monsters. At 4th level you have a couple CR 2s and a couple CR 1s, but at 6th level, all the monsters become CR 2. Just eyeball it and you're good. </p><p></p><p>And there were oddities in 4e. The rules were not perfect, and you could make silly encounters while following the encounter building guidelines. IIRC, a level +5 elite was the same hp and experience as a level+0 solo. So that was the same "challenge". Except the elite would be much, much harder to hit, and would hit much more often. Ditto a level+5 standard monster in place of an elite. And having too many minions that were spread out could rip apart a party.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jester David, post: 6980722, member: 37579"] I much prefer CR. Because "level" gets used far, far too much in D&D: dungeon levels, spell levels, class levels, etc. The difference is really party vs character. In 3e and 5e, a CR (or level) 1 creature is a reasonable challenge for a level 1 party. But some monsters are better in groups even at level 1 and it would be weird to have a "level 1/4" monster. Making CR 1/8 into level 1 just means level 1 parties are able to fight level 4 or 5 creatures, which is also odd. Since player level and monster level are such different scales, it makes sense to give them different names. 4e had experienced based encounter budgets too. Just like 5e. You figured out the level of the party and added their experience budget before deducting the xp values of the monsters to build an encounter. That was just as much math. Pretty much... The difference is people quickly realised that the budget could be filled by one monster of the appropriate level per PC. So that was how encounters were designed. Five monsters, maybe swaping one out for an elite, and one out for four minions. But this got tricky if the monsters you wanted to use were the wrong level. Really, it was typically easier to just adjust monsters to the right level than mix-and-match monsters to "spend" the experience budget like the rules suggested. (I never used monsters at the level they were in the book, because the party was never at the exact right level to fight monsters when the story dictated they should.) Now, a dirty secret about 5e: you can do the [I]exact same thing as you did in 4e[/I]. A monster with a CR 1/3rd the level of the PC is pretty much the right challenge for a one-on-one fight. So a party of five 3rd level adventures can face five CR 1 monsters. At 4th level you have a couple CR 2s and a couple CR 1s, but at 6th level, all the monsters become CR 2. Just eyeball it and you're good. And there were oddities in 4e. The rules were not perfect, and you could make silly encounters while following the encounter building guidelines. IIRC, a level +5 elite was the same hp and experience as a level+0 solo. So that was the same "challenge". Except the elite would be much, much harder to hit, and would hit much more often. Ditto a level+5 standard monster in place of an elite. And having too many minions that were spread out could rip apart a party. [/QUOTE]
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