Why do people pretend CR makes sense?

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Well, with the latest book from WotC there have been player classes that have abilities that are powered off what the CR of an enemy is. So to known an accurate CR helps the game run smoother.

It also helps the DM to bump critter difficulty and not break those abilities.

 

[Fishbone]

I've seen far too many CRs that just make me go "Huh?" that if I DM another Dungeons and Dragons game I'll be raising and lowering CR like a fiend. The Rakshasa shouldn't be CR 10, there are plenty of cannon examples of creatures that cast near their CR with enough special abilities for them to be a CR 7 or 8, 1/3 of the MM II just makes me go "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot", NACLs are a huge joke, especially when you compare it to NPCs with the same amount of levels, etc. Compared to other systems its solid but I think it still requires a lot of DM tinkering. Its always been more of an art than a science

 

[WizarDru]

The question about divine ranks and CR (above) was a real question, though. What is the CR of a CR 3 creature that you give a DR 0 to? A DR 1? Etc. Is there a method of determining this somewhere?

No, DR is another measuring stick entirely. Granting even DR 0 to a creature can raidcally change it's CR depending on the base creature, so if you were to do so and actually intend to use it as an opponent to the PCs, you'd need to eyeball it. Since DR 0 is usually only conferred on 20 HD or greater Outsiders, it's usually less of an issue. The rules don't really expect you to grant a divine rank to a cat.

DR 0 grants immortality, maximum hp per die, doubled movement, 10/epic DR, a HOST of immunities to drains/mind-effects/polymorphs, an AC bonus from CHA bonus, all their attacks are considered aspected for bypassing DR, Energy Resistance 5, and Spell Resistance 32. Change that to DR1 and they get a ton more.

So add those abilities to some existing creatures and you could probably figure out it's power compared to some existing creatures...but the system itself wasn't designed to really do that.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

It's a guideline and an attempt to bring consistency to one of the key elements of D&D. It's not where it should be yet, but look how long it took us to get to the current core D20 mechanic and get rid of our charts to figure out if Gutboy hit the orc with his axe.

Its ok as a guideline, I just dont think it should impact mechanics since its shaky. The knight's challenge could have easily been re-written to use something else, and the truenamer mechanics were screwed up to begin with. I'm not saying get rid of it, just dont have player abilities incorporate it.

 

[mmu1]

So your question actually is something more akin to: "why do some people try and minmax monsters within the existing CR system when they're the DMs and don't have to make the numbers add up correctly?

Not really. Or at least, "min-max" is not the word I'd choose to describe it.

I'm talking about the sort of mental disconnect that allows people to, on one hand, list all the new abilities their creation is going to have - extra points of BAB, hit dice, saves, spells, whatever... even going as far sometimes as directly comparing them to PCs or monsters of established CR and pointing out how they're better - and then to triumphantly say "Oh, but their CR is actually two points lower!"

I can understand (and agree with, even) someone who thinks that proving you can use the rules to show that 2+2=3 is a great mental exercise, but I don't undertand someone doing the same and then acting like 2 and 2 really did equal three.

 

[WizarDru]

I'm talking about the sort of mental disconnect that allows people to, on one hand, list all the new abilities their creation is going to have - extra points of BAB, hit dice, saves, spells, whatever... even going as far sometimes as directly comparing them to PCs or monsters of established CR and pointing out how they're better - and then to triumphantly say "Oh, but their CR is actually two points lower!"

I've never really run into this, but that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the CR system, but with someone finding ways to try and loophole their way through it. Just like with character multiclassing, some combinations are going to be more or less successful at making a creature more powerful. The half-fiend template, for example, completely breaks down after a certain number of hit dice.

If your point is that the CR system has holes and flaws, I'm totally in agreement. But just like many other aspects of D&D and RPGs in general, they are few and far between enough to not detract from it's utilty for me. And like all things involved with such a huge mental exercise as D&D, a DM is needed to help keep things on track.

Of course, it also stands to reason that these creatures may be optimized for one group, but a sititng duck for another. I know in one of my recent games, the undead fell into one of two categories: road-kill for the cleric or totally unturnable. There was no in-between. So even the CR/EL system has to be tempered for individual groups by that group's DM. Now if that DM is a jerk, there's not much the CR system could do either way.

 

[Storm Raven]

That's not an accurate accessment of the 1e/2e systems. 1e, at least, was as accurate as CR IMHO.

Given that most of the 1e system basically boiled down to "make a guess", I'm hard-pressed to see where you are coming from on this. You had a chart in the DMG. It gave experience by HD, and then extra per hit point. And then told the DM to make a guess based on the "significant" extraordinary abilities the monster had and add some more.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Given that most of the 1e system basically boiled down to "make a guess", I'm hard-pressed to see where you are coming from on this. You had a chart in the DMG. It gave experience by HD, and then extra per hit point. And then told the DM to make a guess based on the "significant" extraordinary abilities the monster had and add some more.

Go back and re-read the section. It tells you XP per HD, how to add XP for special and extraordinary abilities, gives a clear enough idea of what qualifies as each that a person of normal intelligence can easily determine what type of XP bonus goes with what type of ability (including any ability you might make up), etc. The resultant XP total is then cross-referenced to determine monster level.

The biggest differences with CR are (1) the system is not as clearly defined (under the DMG system the monster level of any creature can be determined quite easily; not so with CR -- it requires more guesswork to determine the CR of a new monster than it does to determine a new monster's monster level in 1e) and (2) the CR system uses "monster level" to determine XP rather than the other way around.

It seems to me as though the designers took the 1e system, gussied it up, and then called it something new. There are a lot of improvements in 3.X. CR isn't one of them....more a re-packaging than a new product.

RC

 

[Kormydigar]

Go back and look. The measuring stick was HD + special abilities, with different special abilities being given different weights to determine XP. The level of a monster was determined by its XP. This is very, very close to the CR system IMHO.

Lets not forget three very important differences.
1) In 1E the xp calculated for a given creature was stable- it didn't matter what level of character defeated it ( I like that)

2) The level of XP (Challenge) was not dependent on how many PCs were in the party. You got a flat xp for the creature and just increased the numbers of monsters if there was a large party.

3) The XP for combat was not nearly as important as it is in 3E. In 1E the majority of XP came from treasure.

I think the last point is probably the most important. In 1 E we sometimes planned elaborate schemes to steal treasure from monsters without having to fight all the time. The combat XP was so trivial compared to treasure. Does anyone else remember the days of sneaking a peek at the critter's lair to see if it had treasure before deciding to fight?

 

[Scribble]

3) The XP for combat was not nearly as important as it is in 3E. In 1E the majority of XP came from treasure.

I think the last point is probably the most important. In 1 E we sometimes planned elaborate schemes to steal treasure from monsters without having to fight all the time. The combat XP was so trivial compared to treasure. Does anyone else remember the days of sneaking a peek at the critter's lair to see if it had treasure before deciding to fight?

But the XP you get in 3e is based on overcoming the challenge. Which doesn't have to mean killing the monster. Just getting it's treasure without fighting is perfectly worthy if the goal was to get the treasure in the first place...