Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 9670554" data-attributes="member: 6677017">Quick Note: Ignore the blink dog in that chart. I don't know how I missed that is has that teleport + bite feature, which likely affects CR.I'm sticking with 2014. Once that's figured out, it shouldn't be too much trouble to see what they changed for 2024. I'm particularly interested in knowing how they are valuing the proficiency/expertise in initiative, since that's something I'll be using in my 2014 based game.You are very likely to be correct. But I think there is still room to interpret it differently--and we know that sometimes our widespread interpretations of designer intent have been mistaken.Instead of interpreting it as:"The monster may not feel like it's working as expected for its CR after playtesting. If that happens, just raise or lower the CR in the monster's statblock to what feels more accurate to you."Try on this interpretation:"The monster may not feel like it's working as expected for its CR after playtesting. If that happens, adjust the monsters stats, such as hit points and attacks, until it feels right for the CR the tool gives you. You may even decide you prefer the monster to be a higher or lower CR, and the tool will help you get the right stats for it either way."The reason I'm investigating the latter option, is because that fits the actual examples Mike and Jeremy have given us. Other than the dragons, I've never heard them actually say, "The tool tells us this monster I made is CR 3. That doesn't feel right to me, so I'm just changing that line to say 'CR 4'." Mike talked about tweaking what he was using for damage dice, and switching from a weapon attack to a spell attack to get the numbers he wanted, and kept checking things to see if the CR changed. Jeremy talked about incrementally adding a few hit points (probably 1 HD at a time) until the monster ended up the intended CR.Also, even if they do sometimes have to make judgment calls, it makes very little sense that they would feel a need to fudge the CR on these basic "bag of hit points" monsters. It makes a lot more sense to need to do that if you are adding a feature that is combat relevant but doesn't have a clear way to input it on the form. Like what does the banshees wail count as? But when we are dealing with monsters that are nothing but AC+Hit Points+Attack Bonus+Damage Output the formula ought to just work. I mean, with all the behind the scenes data and assumptions, it would almost take more skill to design one that doesn't work for that! It's basically a pure question of math with these basic critters.To move outside of the bounds of what they may or may not have done into the realm of what they probably should have done... Even when they are dealing with things that are harder to quantify they could have a set of guidelines--it doesn't have to be completely freeform. For example, when I get to the point that everything quantifiable has been, and I need a way to value other factors, I would probably create statistical values at each CR for "Average Defensive Feature", "Strong Defensive Feature", and "Very Strong Defensive Feature", distilled from the math of existing features that seem to fit those categories (as well as the offensive equivalents). Then if I'm creating a feature and there is no clear method of entering its stats in my own tool, I can check the box for it having a "Strong Defensive Feature" and that will do whatever that should do (probably treat its AC as 4 higher or something).Moving on again...After looking over those charts I posted again, it occurs to me that the lower CR creatures tend to be higher CR in the proposed formula than the MM, and the higher CR creatures tend to be lower. Now, there are really not many ways to get those results if we stick with the percentages. However, it occurred to me that if the percentage chance to hit in the Offensive CR is not consistent at 65%--if it varies by Offensive CR line, that might solve the issue, if I could derive the values. I'm still looking into that...and there are places where it helps, but I'm doubting it will actually solve the problem. Ponys and Veterans are particularly stubborn in refusing to play with the math.Ogres and Plesiosaurs, however, take the cake. They don't work for any hit chance I've tried (30%-95%). I also discovered the reason. Since actual hit chances never go above 95%, it sets a ceiling of how much attack bonus can matter for offensive CRs. If your average damage is 13 (like the ogre), you can't go above the CR 2 offensive line, no matter how high your attack bonus is, because chance to hit can't go beyond 95%, and 95% gives them an adjusted effective DPR of 19, while the threshold for CR 3 is 21. With that damage, the ogre would have to raise their Defensive CR 1/2 up to 1 to get the listed 2.</blockquote>

Verification