5E is smoking crack rocks with these Challenge Ratings

Insomniac · Post by **Insomniac** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 4:35 pm

Since humanoids are basically divorced from PCs, they're just being willy nilly with CRs and yanking CRs straight out of their buttcheeks.

I'll give you some good examples...

Somebody with 18 Wisdom and no negative stats that casts as a 5th level Cleric and has 8d8+8 HD is considered a CR 2. 7d8+28 HP casters at 6th level are CR 3. What is going on here? A 7th level Eldritch Knight is CR 3!

What does a character gotta kill to get some XP? Talk about stingy! You'd have to get in 10 or 15 underCRd fights before you level. Is that the point, or is the math just this shitty?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 4:50 pm

Well, the earlier editions of D&D had some pretty crack-ass CR assignments as well. However, 5E D&D's worship of bounded accuracy, contempt for PC/NPC transparency, and explicit rejection of level-based benchmarks has caused the problem to metatisize into... well, this.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 5:07 pm

CR doesn't really mean anything in 5th edition. Encounter budgeting is supposed to be done by XP budget, so the CRs are simply vestigial. A CR 3 monster might be worth lots of XP and be intended as a solo or very few XP and intended as a horde offering. If the "CR 3" label means anything, it's that it's intended to be encountered from level 3, not that it is in any way substitutable for a level 3 character or even another CR3 monster.

Now that being said, why are there still monsters with a CR less than 1? I can't answer that. Seems like cargo cult game design, to be honest. Players of 3rd edition expect basic Orc warriors to be CR 1/2, so that's what they get - and the fact that there is absolutely no meaning to having a CR less than 1 is just sort of left on the ground as an easter egg for angry math nerds to figure out.

Also needing to be said is that the XP budgets are also completely insane.

-Username17

Amalie Gaston · Post by **Amalie Gaston** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 5:10 pm

Where did you find these statblocks? Looking at the NPCs from the basic rules, the CR 2 priest with 5th level casting has 5d8+5 HD and only 16 Wisdom.

Insomniac · Post by **Insomniac** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 5:28 pm

Amalie Gaston wrote:Where did you find these statblocks? Looking at the NPCs from the basic rules, the CR 2 priest with 5th level casting has 5d8+5 HD and only 16 Wisdom.

From their module Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

Deathfork · Post by **Deathfork** » Wed Aug 20, 2014 6:59 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:CR doesn't really mean anything in 5th edition. Encounter budgeting is supposed to be done by XP budget, so the CRs are simply vestigial. A CR 3 monster might be worth lots of XP and be intended as a solo or very few XP and intended as a horde offering. If the "CR 3" label means anything, it's that it's intended to be encountered from level 3, not that it is in any way substitutable for a level 3 character or even another CR3 monster.

They have a meaning. Just one. The challenge of the monster means that its supposed to be a difficult but surmountable challenge for a 4 person party of the same level. Beyond that, it's a total crap shoot. The XP by CR is fixed so all CR 3 monsters are worth 700 XP. No matter if they're intended to be solo, horde, whatever. The Red Dragon legendary monster is worth 18k XP, same as the default CR 17.

FrankTrollman wrote: Now that being said, why are there still monsters with a CR less than 1? I can't answer that. Seems like cargo cult game design, to be honest. Players of 3rd edition expect basic Orc warriors to be CR 1/2, so that's what they get - and the fact that there is absolutely no meaning to having a CR less than 1 is just sort of left on the ground as an easter egg for angry math nerds to figure out.

The only reason there are monster with fractional CR is so that you can fight more than one monster at level one. 4 CR 1/4th monsters is supposed to be the a fore mentioned surmountable challenge for 4 1st level adventurers. Of course they could have just called that CR 1. But, I'm not a professional designer, so what do I know.

Deathfork · Post by **Deathfork** » Thu Aug 21, 2014 12:08 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Well, the earlier editions of D&D had some pretty crack-ass CR assignments as well. However, 5E D&D's worship of bounded accuracy, contempt for PC/NPC transparency, and explicit rejection of level-based benchmarks has caused the problem to metatisize into... well, this.

The only (as far as I can tell) level based benchmark is proficiency. For NPCs it's based on their CR not HD. HP continues to befuddle me. It seems like it works out to be, in most cases, expected damage dealt by an adventurer of this level x6-8. I think the idea is that a monster of the same CR as the level of the party should live long enough to get in 1-3 turns. Even though save-or-suck spells can completely end the encounter before the monster gets to go, assuming you read the monster manual and memorize the saves that have a 30-40% better chance of working.

Trying to understand the completely puzzling decisions behind much of this game is an exercise in mental gymnastics with a caulking gun. Maybe the DMG will be the director's commentary for this shit and we'll finally be able to put all the bad ideas into a context in which they make a shred of sense.

Though, I think the context might be: "We were really sick of people talking about Pathfinder all the time."

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sat Aug 23, 2014 3:17 am

Then they shouldn't have made 4e edition, burned their magazines or given up after only a couple years. WotC put far more work into the commercial success of Pathfinder than Paizo ever did. But then, all they had to do was paste a layer of house rules randomly into a 3.5 document. Well, and do some decent art, which is where most of Paizo's budget apparently went.

But yes, 5e CR exists for two reasons:
a) 'must be this level to encounter,' which... yeah, they completely ignore from day 1. (Starter adventure bugbear can be 3 or 4 'encounters' in).

but mostly:
b) monsters' proficiency bonus, at the same rate as character levels, with anything <1 counting as 1.

Keep in mind this is completely divorced from size (which does directly affect hit dice), type, role, or function, but only whatever the final CR number turns out to be, so it is utterly artificial and disconnected from anything in the game. And stats are equally divorced, so you end up with 4 hit dice giant frogs, 4 hit point giant centipedes (1 hit die) and flying kobolds (with 3 hit dice but a negative con mod) all at CR 1/4, and +2 prof (but +3, +4 or +5 to hit, because stats)

Now obviously flight and poison that can drop a level 1 character in a single hit are being factored in somehow. But then giant frog also grapples and can swallow Small people, which inflicts blinded, restrained* and auto-damage, so fuck all.
*note that half of both these rules do the exact same thing (disadvantage on the victim's attacks, and advantage on attacks against the victim)

Fractional CR is for groups, but like a lot of CR ratings, just relying exclusively on that is a fucking mistake. Some of those little fuckers are capable of multiple attacks each or have the hobgoblin ganking abilities. Which means they hit way above their weight class, and even shit like hobgoblins is hard to drop in a single hit for a lot of characters. While you have to optimize 5e characters so they're functional, this isn't easy to do at level 1, because you've got fuck all for choices at this stage, and don't even have the signature class abilities yet!