Why do people pretend CR makes sense?

[Arashi Ravenblade]

CR, EL, ECL and LA are some of the most understandable rules in the game. some of the very first rules i picked up on when it came to 3e.

I just dont see how things like this can a be a problem. If you dont like CR, then oh well use something else. But what it does it does well and thats keep the players from nagging you about Xp. It provides a sense or an illusion at least that they are getting their fair share of Xp.
Its at heck of a lot better than the DM just handing out xp when they think you deserve it.

 

[Megatron]

i never used CR's i put whatever encounter i felt belong at that particular place in the campaign, wether it be a single goblin or a massive dragon swarm.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

What would you prefer? HD was used in turning mechanics, and god knows how many house rules have been used on turning. HD as a measuring stick doesn't work. CR is the basic measuring stick of a PC, NPC, AND monster...making it the most logical choice for abilities when discerning power levels.

BAB, Will Save, HD would work fine IMO for the knight's challenge. As far as truenaming, scrap the CR use altogether and make the DC's work like the Perfected Map Lexicon.

 

[ruleslawyer]

The main question in your "pop quiz" is askable in either system:

(1) You are DMing 4 7th level PCs. You want too give them 2 separate combats today -- something not too taxing but not a complete walkover either. How much XP worth of monster do you throw at them?

Your second question could be asked using either CR or Monster Levels with exactly the same result:

(2) You are DMing 4 7th level PCs. You want too give them 2 separate combats today -- something not too taxing but not a complete walkover either. How much CR worth of monster do you throw at them?

(2) You are DMing 4 7th level PCs. You want too give them 2 separate combats today -- something not too taxing but not a complete walkover either. How many Monster Levels worth of monster do you throw at them?

You are mistaking presentation for content.

RC

Er, what?

Your thesis regarding the ease of calculating appropriate encounters in 1e is severely damaged by the fact that you failed to even *answer* the question posed by Ridley's Cohort.

Monster Levels, incidentally, are the WRONG answer. Are you proposing that an archdevil is an appropriate encounter for a group of 10th (er, X-) level 1e adventurers? Or that a demilich is appropriate for 9th-level adventurers?

 

[Tzarevitch]

That's pretty easy to figure out. You just add XP for the abilities the monster effectively used in play.

Come to think of it, if CR worked that way it would work better. The zillion magical abilities a demon *could* use don't affect play. The ones they *do* use are what makes them dangerous.

Pretty much what I was going to say.

Tzarevitch

 

[Thanee]

CR works fine. No need to pretend anything.

It's not scientifically perfect and accurate, but who needs that, anyways?

And if some CR does seem too high or too low, then you just add/subtract one or a few. Problem solved.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Gargoyle]

Sadly true. It justed shouldn't be an art. It should be simple and easily understood by any gamer regardless of their experience. So should the LA/ECL rules. I've always felt that this is where the game fails its audience the worse...

I don't mind a bit of "resource management" when designing an NPC encounter or a PC. But the CR/EL/LA/ECL rules just suck... far, far too complicated and subject to so many variables...

D&D is an evolving game, and I think it will get better in this regard in the long run. But I expect it will get worse first. There will certainly be even more variables introduced before there are refinements to CR, etc. It does put a burden on the DM to understand the nuances of the system. But it's not a horrible system. It just takes more time than I would prefer.

 

[Umbran]

It's not scientifically perfect and accurate, but who needs that, anyways?

More to the point, a scientifically perfect and accurate measure cannot exist, because a large portion of "difficulty" is set by player decisions, which cannot be quantified. Due to the neature of the game, encounter difficulty can only be estimated on a broad, general basis, rather than clearly calcluated on a detailed encounter-by-encounter basis.

The only question is then how useful a tool is the estimator that we've been given.

 

[MerricB]

To get full XP from an encounter, a group of 6 AD&D (1E) PCs were required to fight opponents as follows:

1st level PCs: 12 kobolds or 6 orcs or 3 skeletons or 3 zombies or 1 ogre + 1 orc
2nd level PCs: 2 ogres + 2 orcs or 12 orcs or 6 skeletons or 6 gnolls or 2 bugbears + 2 orcs or 1 hill giant + 1 orc
3rd level PCs: 3 bugbears + 3 orcs or 18 orcs or 3 ogres + 3 orcs...

A lone chimera gives full XP only to a party of six 1st level PCs.

You begin to get the picture.

The calculation for a monster's potential threat is its Hit Dice (as base) plus 1 if it has any hit point modifier (An ogre with 4+1 HD gets the modifier), plus 1 for each special ability and plus 1 for each extraordinary special ability. This is balanced against the sum of the party's levels.

Thus, 6 3rd level PCs must be challenged by 18 effective HD worth of foes.

Like, a Hill Giant and 7 orcs. (A Hill Giant is HD 8+1, with two extraordinary abilities, for a total calculation of 11 effective HD).

Is it any wonder we never used this system? (You can find it on page 84 of the DMG).

Cheers!

 

[Tzarevitch]

No, actually, I don't. Especially since I didn't give xp for treasure, back in the day. I do recall the phrase "them orcs ain't gonna kill themselves!", though.



I'd disagree pretty strongly on that one. The CR system, while uneven, is far superior to the old 'get a feel for it' style of the AD&D, IMHO. WotC actually applied some degree of mathematical rigor to the system, which you can't really say for the original system. The original system was more of a result of guesswork, while the CR system is reverse-engineerable (see Upper Krust's revised version of the CR system, for example). You can't reverse-engineer the math on the designer's gut feeling. This isn't to say that the AD&D was unbearably bad...just that the new system is much more than just a slap of paint on an exisiting system.

Are you serious? The only difference between CR and the old straight xp system is how many levels of guesstimation and math are required and how big the numbers are. Remember BOTH systems boil down to a straight guess on what value to apply to various abilities or flaws that a creature possesses. That is all. It is not a science, it is a guess.

The CR system takes these values and wraps them into single or double digit numbers that it referrs to as a CR rating, then more math is involved converting the CR number to xp.The old system just used straight values in dozens to tens-of-thousands of xp which is then given out as a straight reward. In both cases the underlying numbers used are pure guesswork.

Lets not pretend that either of these are some sort of science. I personally prefer the old system simply because it was faster to calculate and easier to adjust. I need a spreadsheet to calculate xp under the new one and adjust it quickly based on what I think the PCs really SHOULD get. Utimately, both of them are really only as accurate as the underlying guess as to the value of the subject creature's abilities.

The CR system's advantage is that is provides some base to compare power levels. The issue comes in whether or not you consider it to be an accurate base in the first place. If you don't accept the CR calculations to be accurate then no amount of EL calculation based on them is worth a hill of beans to you. For those people, the CR system is more flawed than the original.

In my experience, the CR system is not too bad with creatures with minimal special abilities. It does a terrible job with creatures with lots of special abilities. It also is better with low CR creatures and low level PCs than it is with high level PCs and opponents.

Tzarevitch