D&D 3E/3.5 v4: Challenge Ratings pdf (3.5 compatible)

[Wulf Ratbane]

Thats an interesting point, however are you saying a monster should possess less treasure depending on the circumstances surrounding its defeat - I am not so sure thats right.

It's right to an ordinary DM, but not to a namby-pamby player-coddler such as yourself.

To put it in perspective with an absurd example:

Party 1 fights a Red Dragon at full strength; the party is not aware that the fight is coming and the dragon is, and it has prepared itself in advance. It is a bitter fight, but the party is victorious.

Party 2 hears of a Red Dragon that is seriously wounded, prepare themselves for the fight, and catch it unawares. The party dispatch the dragon with very little difficulty and little danger to themselves.

Now, are you the sort of DM who believes that both groups deserve the same amount of treasure?

And for Anubis: Are you the sort of DM who believes that a Party with the standard array (10's and 11's) faces the same challenge as a Party of 4d6 godlings (15's and 16's in abundance)?

I don't understand what is so hard to grasp about making sure that the players are FAIRLY challenged and FAIRLY rewarded. The reward (both in XP and GP) should be commensurate to the risk. Self-evident, I would think.

Wulf

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

As for whether ability scores should "count," you'd want them to count pretty damn fast if the DM decided that every orc got 18 Str, 18 Dex, and 18 Con.

And let's make sure their shaman has 18 Wisdom while we're at it-- jack up his save DC's, more bonus spells, better Will save, and a host of other "feat-equivalent" benefits.

Again, I would think this would be self-evident...


Wulf

 

[Upper_Krust]

FINALLY . . . The ANUBIS has COME BACK to EN WORLD!

Glad to have you back mate!

No, it has not been a year. The actual amount of time is more like four months.

Okay maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part. Only joking.

Anyway, on to business.

Any chance we can boil this down to point by point facts...?

First off, I'll assume that most DMs like to stick reasonably close to the wealth by level. That said, a PC by v5 is CR 2 if standard point buy is used, and thus a party of four is EL 9 (CR 2+2+2+2=8 = EL 13; EL -4 for four people = EL 9). This means 13-1/3 EL 5 encounters are needed for this party to gain 1000 XP per person and reach Level 2.

Unfortunately, not only will such encounters likely prove far too difficult,

POINT 1:

Ability Scores are rated EQUALLY for PCs and Monsters alike - therefore its erroneous to say that such encounters will prove far too difficult.

Lets look at all the individual CR 2/EL 5 opponents:

Large Animated Object
Lantern Archon
Small Fire Elemental
Ethereal Marauder
Formian Worker
Krenshar
Lizardfolk
Locathah
Shocker Lizard
Grig
Nixie
Troglodyte
Camel
Riding Dog
Light Horse
Medium Shark
Large Viper

Any of those likely to (in your own words) 'prove far too difficult!? No of course not - they are all moderate encounters for the appropriate party.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Wulf mate!

It's right to an ordinary DM, but not to a namby-pamby player-coddler such as yourself.

LOL!

Actually its sounds to me like you are molly-coddling the players by developing (and changing) the world around the players rather than creating the world then allowing the PCs to experience it and live in it.

To put it in perspective with an absurd example:

Party 1 fights a Red Dragon at full strength; the party is not aware that the fight is coming and the dragon is, and it has prepared itself in advance. It is a bitter fight, but the party is victorious.

Party 2 hears of a Red Dragon that is seriously wounded, prepare themselves for the fight, and catch it unawares. The party dispatch the dragon with very little difficulty and little danger to themselves.

Now, are you the sort of DM who believes that both groups deserve the same amount of treasure?

Yes.

I am the sort of DM who lets the cards fall as they may.

But you can't set up such a black and white scenario without explaining a few things.

How did Party #2 hear that the Dragon was seriously wounded in the first place? Sounds like good investigating or part of a story.

Also if the DM just plumped down 'weakened Dragon' in the players laps without good reason then they deserve what they get.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya mate!

Upper_Krust, you are a genius!

You would have to ask sonofapreacherman about that*.

*In joke between me and him.

At 13.333 encounters per level and a 4 PC party, the total amount of treasure awarded is _exactly_ the recommended PC treasure for that level!

Very elegant design.

That bits easy.

Its this whole Treasure by EL thing thats giving me a headache, I am still not convinced which way is best.

One minor quibble- anyone who remembers their order of operations will misread the expression (90*CR+1*CR) +30 as being equivalent to (90*CR)+(1*CR)+30. What you want to say is something like 90*CR*(CR+1)+30.

Fair point.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Can you assign treasure based on the 4-person party for which something is a moderate challenge?

The level of the party can be plugged into 90*level*(level+1)+30 to get the standard value of an encounter of that level.

For example, if you have a first level party (standard point buy), their total CR is 8, making it EL 13, but then subtract 4 (4 members in the party) and the actual EL is 9. A moderate encounter for them is four less than their EL, so EL 5.

If a first level party is going to accumulate 2800 gp over 13.333 moderate encounters, each such encounter has to be worth 210 gp, so that's what an EL 5 is worth.

An EL 16 encounter is an appropriate encounter for an EL 20 party. For example 4 13th level characters (standard point buy) have a total CR of 56 or an EL of 24. Subtract 4 because the party has 4 members, and the LE is 20. Perfect!

The treasure for a moderate encounter for 13th level party of 4 is 16,410 gp. So that is what an EL 16 encounter should be worth.

And so on.

I'm sure that if I were clever I could make a spreadsheet that will calculate these values. But first, do you see anything wrong with this procedure?

[edit]
Ok. Calculating from the equations (instead of the charts) I get a slightly different set of values. But this is what the described method yields for expected treasure for an encounter of a given EL:

EL. . . . . Treasure (gp)
1. . . . . . 30
2. . . . . .50.25058026
3. . . . . . 82.72077939
4. . . . . . 133.1970865
5. . . . . . 210
6. . . . . . 325.0596018
7. . . . . . 495.4415588
8. . . . . . 745.5110554
9. . . . . .1110
10. . . . . 1638.352968
11. . . . . 2400.883118
12. . . . . 3497.489641
13. . . . . 5070
14. . . . . 7319.640996
15. . . . . 10531.76624
16. . . . . 15110.8494
17. . . . . 21630
18. . . . . 30901.02223
19. . . . . 44073.53247
20. . . . . 62775.17928
21. . . . . 89310
22. . . . . 126939.0054
23. . . . . 180277.0649
24. . . . . 255854.2805
25. . . . . 362910
26. . . . . 514515.8547
27. . . . .729164.1299
28. . . . .1033014.249
29. . . . .1463070
30. . . . .2071673.085
etc.

The gp value is given by the treasure formula with 2^((EL-1)/4) in place of the level.

 

[Sonofapreacherman]

Upper_Krust, you are a genius!

You would have to ask sonofapreacherman about that*.

*In joke between me and him.

In my own defense, Upper_Krust only beat me by 5 points on an IQ test. Those 5 points, however, pushed him into the genius circle.

*Sassen-frassen.*

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Can you assign treasure based on the 4-person party for which something is a moderate challenge?

For example, if you have a first level party (standard point buy), their total CR is 8, making it EL 13, but then subtract 4 (4 members in the party) and the actual EL is 9. A moderate encounter for them is four less than their EL, so EL 5.

...

If a first level party is going to accumulate 2800 gp over 13.333 moderate encounters, each such encounter has to be worth 210 gp, so that's what an EL 5 is worth.

...

And so on.

I'm sure that if I were clever I could make a spreadsheet that will calculate these values. But first, do you see anything wrong with this procedure?

This is the kernel of it.

There is a mathematical relationship between CR and EL.

There is a mathematical relationship between CR and Treasure.

It is a given that there is a mathematical relationship between EL and Treasure, but I am hoping someone else will go to the trouble of finding it. I put my days of higher mathematics behind me when I switched my major from Chemical Engineering to English.

EDIT: It seems to me that the easiest path to the equation we want is through the XP table, as it already goes to the trouble of converting CR to EL, dividing out by number of party members, factoring in the 13.3333333 encounter paradigm, etc.

It should be as simple as this: There is a number of gp that should be awarded per xp awarded.

Wulf

 

[Cheiromancer]

I put my days of higher mathematics behind me when I switched my major from Chemical Engineering to English.

Well, I did something similar (Mathematics to Theology), but luckily the math isn't that hard. The problem is that the formula is really, really, wonky.

This is the kernel of it.

There is a mathematical relationship between CR and EL.

There is a mathematical relationship between CR and Treasure.

EDIT: It seems to me that the easiest path to the equation we want is through the XP table, as it already goes to the trouble of converting CR to EL, dividing out by number of party members, factoring in the 13.3333333 encounter paradigm, etc.

It should be as simple as this: There is a number of gp that should be awarded per xp awarded.

Wulf

At first level a character needs 1000 xp to get to 2nd level. If he is to meet the wealth guidelines, he also needs to get 700 gp. That's 0.7 gp per xp.

At 10th level he needs 10 000 xp to get to 11th level. He also needs to pick up 33 100 gp. That's 3.31 gp per xp. The ratio keeps going up as his level increases.

The general formula for the ratio between gp and xp is as follows:

0.3*(level+1)+1/(10*level)

I think this is a little too weird, especially since EL is used when determining xp, not level. Though I suppose if you had a calculator and/or dropped the 1/(10*level) it might not be too bad.

 

[Anubis]

That's precisely what my system does. I base treasure around EL, period. UK's bases treasure around CR, which in his system does not determine XP. 1 CR 5 and 4 CR 1s are the same EL, but by his system, they give drastically different amounts of treasure while giving equal XP. By my system, the XP AND treasure is the same.

As for counting ability scores, it's PC ability scores that should not be counted, or rather ROLLED ability scores, rolled being the random 3-18 factor. Only racial modifiers should count. For monsters, count it all. To be honest, all this is simply far too huge a problem to ignore. Oh and standard array is 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, not three 10s and three 11s.

Since you used the all 18s example, I'll throw it right back in your faces. What if a party of four Level 1 PCs with all 18s faces a Gelatinous Cube, which is CR 3? They should be able to fight four or five before having to heal if you count ability scores. Sadly, I'm sorry to say that a Level 1 party would be hard-pressed to be able to defeat one much less four or five. The Gelatinous Cube would be an instant TPK in almost every circumstance. Ability scores simply don't have enough impact to give PCs that much of an advantage.

Don't count PC ability scores!