Why does D&D need CR? Why not use ECL all the time?

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Why does D&D need CR? Why not use ECL all the time?

Post by OgreBattle »

For me it's easier to think of assigning monster power ratings by just saying what level PC they'd be an even match for. So that's what ECL covers.

What I don't get is why the challenge rating system was promoted above that. For me it's easier to grasp "Ogres are ECL3" than to say "Ogres are CR_, which means a party of dudes at level _ have an OK time fighting an ogre"

*I'm talking about the INTENT of ECL and CR, and not the problems they have in implementation
Last edited by OgreBattle on Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Why does D&D need CR? Why not use ECL all the time?

Post by ishy »

OgreBattle wrote:For me it's easier to think of assigning monster power ratings by just saying what level PC they'd be an even match for. So that's what ECL covers.
No, that is CR.
Last edited by ishy on Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Kaelik »

The basic distinction can make sense, in that theoretically something could have a challenge level to PCs of X, but be stronger or weaker when played as a PC, which is ECL.

In practice, ECL is just an arbitrary punishment to people who want to play monsters as PCs.
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Re: Why does D&D need CR? Why not use ECL all the time?

Post by OgreBattle »

ishy wrote:
OgreBattle wrote:For me it's easier to think of assigning monster power ratings by just saying what level PC they'd be an even match for. So that's what ECL covers.
No, that is CR.
Ah whoops. Had a brain fart then.
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Post by deaddmwalking »

CR = Challenge Rating

A creature of CR x is an 'appropriate challenge' for 4 'standard' PCs of level x

ECL = Effective Character Level

A creature with an ECL usually has 'special abilities' that make them a more powerful PC (in theory) than they are as a monster opponent. For example, being able to turn ethereal makes you a more difficult opponent when the PCs fight you, but that same ability in the hands of a PC gives them abilities to bypass many challenges that a low- or mid-level party would normally struggle with.

EL = Encounter Level

This is what I think you meant to talk about. Essentially, EL is derived from CR and is used when fighting multiple opponents. An ogre is CR 3. Two ogres are CR 3 (each). They have an EL of 5 (every time you double the number of creatures you add +2 to the EL).

EL is arguably more important than CR because if you're fighting only a single creature EL = CR. If you're fighting multiple creatures, the EL is higher than the highest CR by some amount.

If you were considering an encounter with 8 ogres against a 4th level party, you might think the encounter wouldn't be too hard - the PCs are a higher CR than each Ogre. But if 2 ogres is EL 5; 4 ogres is EL 7 and 8 ogres is EL 9, that would be the EL at Party Level +5 which is likley to be Deadly. While the individual creatures may not be too tough, EL is intended to better guage the threat that they pose in gropus.
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Post by Username17 »

One thing the 4th edition design team got a fair amount of flak for, but which they were actually right about, was the declaration that CR measured something that honestly wasn't important. CR measures the level at which a single trap or monster makes an adequate speed bump encounter for a party of adventurers. But very few traps or monsters should be expected to be encountered alone, meaning that CR measures a special case which probably shouldn't ever come up.

4e's "Monster Level," that told you what level of party you were ideally supposed to put the monster into the encounter for, was a better idea all around. Unfortunately, they then proceeded to shit that bed by trying to create "XP budgets" for encounters. Under no circumstances should I be asked to add up twelve three digit numbers to design an encounter. That is not a thing that should ever happen. Also, the game was crap, but that's another issue altogether.

ECL measures something that is actually important - the effective character level a monster would be if they were statted and equipped as a PC. That is a number that is actually important and you would like to use, the problem of course being that the equations used to generate this number by 3rd edition are so pants-on-head terrible that they cannot be used. Seriously, they want you to add the hit dice without reference to the abilities to the abilities and the end result concludes that a 10th level Paladin should be a 15th level character. It's just fucking dumb. But the concept of ECL is a number that would be actually useful to have if it was calculated correctly.

So in recap:
  • CR is a dumb number that is for the most part calculated fairly well in 3rd edition D&D.
  • ECL would be a great number to have if it weren't calculated so badly in 3rd edition to make it absolutely worthless in practice.
  • Monster Level of 4th edition is a fairly useful number that is kind of OK at low levels.
  • XP budget is fucking worthless and needs to be shot in the face.
5th edition uses XP budget, whcih means it has already lost the plot. On top of that, it uses something it calls CR, but seems to be more similar in concept to 4th edition's monster level. Except the numbers it outputs are also so insane that they might as well be ECL or picked off a dart board.

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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

So how would you do Monster Levels, then? Personally, I'm thinking of a scheme where there is a range of levels where the monster is expected to appear and how many monsters it counts as. Let's call if an Encounter Budget. Your Encounter Budget for monsters for an average encounter is something like, oh, 9 for a 3-PC party, 12 for four, 16 for five, 21 for six, and 27 for seven. For a 1st-level party, each 1st-level elf warrior is worth 3 points, 2 points at second level, 1 point at third level, 1/3rd of a point at fourth level, etc. Then you could have modifiers to adjust for the tactical situation. For example, if the elves ambush from a safe ranged position when most of the party doesn't have extra attacks, each elf warrior is a flat extra point. If at least half of the points expended in the monster budget reflect mobs that can benefit from the Elven Pack Tactics racial feature, that's a flat +3 points to the encounter budget.

The reason you do it like that is to account for monsters that don't scale smoothly over a given challenge rating. Bruiser mobs with no special attacks go obsolete faster than other mobs, while mezzer or leader mobs go obsolete more slowly.
Last edited by Lago PARANOIA on Wed Oct 15, 2014 1:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Post by nockermensch »

What Lago said. If CR is useless because monsters should rarely be encountered alone, then the game needs some mechanic to build encounters that are easy, average or hard.
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Post by NineInchNall »

I suspect that the list of synergistic tactics and abilities would be rather long and unwieldy. You'd need to list all the different abilities that make melee bruisers more effective as well as those for archers and mages, which would be a huge fucking list. At that point you're only even dealing with first order tactical synergies. You'd also have to consider second order things, where monster A is only meh with monster B, B is only meh with monster C, and C is only meh with A, but A-B-C is an invincible collective.
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Post by Username17 »

The base idea that 4e had, where a basic encounter was five monsters, an elite counted for two, a solo counted for five, and a minion was half a monster, was a pretty good idea. It's just every part of actually implementing that which was fucked.

For starters, they made Elites and Solos boring as shit, which made them unusable.
Secondly, minions were a god damn joke, and even at 4:1 they were still a joke. And basically the game needed minions that weren't such fucking garbage before it could even try this sort of thing.
Thirdly, the game needs a system for putting together monsters of different levels, and 4e's plan of getting you to add up XP values that could run into 3 and 4 digits for each monster was fucking bullshit.

So really what you need is something like the following:
  • A basic encounter is X monsters of the same level as the players.
  • Elite monsters are considered M monsters of their level. Boss monsters are N monsters of their level. Minion monsters are Y monsters of their level.
  • A Monster that is P levels lower is considered half as many monsters. A monster that is P levels higher is considered twice as many monsters.
  • An encounter is easy if it has less than X monster equivalents in it. It is very hard if it has Q or more monster equivalents.
Fill in the variables for whatever you want your game to be like. I think the basic 4e idea of X being 5, M being 2, and N being 5 was probably fine. I think the basic 3e idea of P being 2 was probably fine as well.

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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

This is changing the subject slightly, but was 3E D&D's basic assumption that characters doubled in power every two levels sound? It sort of holds up well for the first eight levels, even with fighter classes, but things got wobbly pretty fast; mostly because not all of your stats increased at the same proportional rate. For example, I think a full spellcaster that went from level 4 to 5 or 8 to level 9 more than doubled in power, while the jump from 6 to 7 isn't as huge. And of course at level 9+ spellcasters really started to get tricks that way more than doubled their power from the previous level.

Unless you very, very carefully ration statistical increases, I just don't think it's an assumption that holds for long in d20. I mean, you still need to do that anyway no matter what system you use, but it goes from very difficult to Herculean if you're not using a system where exponential or quadratic increases are baked into the cake.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Post by deaddmwalking »

In 3.x they addressed that at least to a degree. If your Character Level were sufficiently high, you wouldn't get any XP for a low-CR challenge, no matter how many of them they killed.

Similarly you didn't XP for monsters that were so difficult for your level that the system assumed the GM went too easy or you otherwise 'cheated' the system.

In a 3.x context, I don't know that it was truly satisfying because even high level fighters didn't have an effective way of dealing with large numbers of 'mooks', even at 1 hit point each. Even Cleave with a Reach Weapon would limit you to what was physically next to you allowing you only a single 5-foot-step - charging through a horde like it wasn't there wasn't really an option (because you can't occupy another creature's space).

But in general, I think it makes sense as a guiding principle.
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

If we're doing a quick and dirty hack of 3.5E (as opposed to using Tome) I don't see the harm in having three rules where:

[*] You get an extra 5' step per round, which can be used no matter what you do during a round as long as you can otherwise move, per 3 points of BAB you have.
[*] You get an extra 5' of reach in both directions (eventually closing the polearm donut hole) per 3 points of BAB you have.
[*] If you declare a melee attack or attack of opportunity against someone or something with 4 or fewer BAB against you for the first time in a round, that attack doesn't count against your limit of attacks in a round. The DM will reveal this to you after you make the attack.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Post by mean_liar »

I really liked 4e's budgeting for encounters. The game itself was bad, but GM-prep via the budgeting system was awesome.

That said, I implemented it utilizing a spreadsheet of every monster. It listed creature types and subtypes, as well as combat role (and obviously XP worth). I could filter the list to generate sublists of only certain kinds of creatures that thematically fit the session in question, and... so on.

Having used it and found my prep time for 4e being a third of what I needed for 3e, I'm of the opinion that tools like that ought to be de rigueur for modern RPG design. If the only hurdle is adding up numbers, there's an easy solution to that.

...

On the larger question, I think that "what constitutes an appropriate opponent for one PC" is a great measure. Frank extends it to a group encounter that I'd prefer backed into a per-PC measure, but there isn't much disagreement there, as the "average encounter" assumes some number of PCs which may not fit every table... which is why I like the accounting of 4e.
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

mean_liar wrote: Frank extends it to a group encounter that I'd prefer backed into a per-PC measure, but there isn't much disagreement there, as the "average encounter" assumes some number of PCs which may not fit every table...
Fixing the monster budget to a per-PC ratio instead of group size will almost certainly make the game easier than you intended to. PC Party size is one of those rare instances where, in terms of asskicking, the marginal utility of each additional PC is greater the more PCs you add. 6 orcs is harder for a three-PC party than 12 orcs are for a six-PC party IOW.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
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Post by Username17 »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
mean_liar wrote: Frank extends it to a group encounter that I'd prefer backed into a per-PC measure, but there isn't much disagreement there, as the "average encounter" assumes some number of PCs which may not fit every table...
Fixing the monster budget to a per-PC ratio instead of group size will almost certainly make the game easier than you intended to. PC Party size is one of those rare instances where, in terms of asskicking, the marginal utility of each additional PC is greater the more PCs you add. 6 orcs is harder for a three-PC party than 12 orcs are for a six-PC party IOW.
This is importantly true. An "appropriate encounter" is one where the PCs are expected to win, albeit spend some resources in the process. If you just multiply the number of characters and monsters by the same number, the raw lead of the player characters is likewise multiplied. If One PC versus 3 Orcs is a good encounter, six PCs versus 18 Orcs is going to be a yawn fest. Team Player enjoyed a narrow lead in One PC vs. 3 Orcs, in the 6 PCs versus 18 Orcs you have six times a narrow lead, which is a boring stomping.

4e's attempt to linearly scale things up is one of the major reasons the game was so laughably easy at almost all levels of play.

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Post by ACOS »

Lago PARANOIA wrote: Fixing the monster budget to a per-PC ratio instead of group size will almost certainly make the game easier than you intended to. PC Party size is one of those rare instances where, in terms of asskicking, the marginal utility of each additional PC is greater the more PCs you add. 6 orcs is harder for a three-PC party than 12 orcs are for a six-PC party IOW.
As I seem to recall, the XP section of 3.5 DMG addresses this very thing; however, only in a vague sort of way. For some reason, the number "8" is stuck in my head (and for other than the "+/-8" level difference).
But whatever.

What I am about to say might be better suited for the "mechanics I hate" thread; but since it was brought up here, I'll discuss it here:
XP budgets.
The very concept doesn't make any sense to me. So I guess that the idea is that you want the PCs to gain 'x' # of xp in a given adventure, so that they are 'y' level at the end of it. WTF kind of stupid b.s. is that? Sure, if you're designing a published module that is supposed to fit in to a larger published adventure path campaign, I can see the need for that. But telling DMs to use the xp budget for their own games seems like they want everybody to run canned module styled games ... and I don't think that I've ever done that in the 20 years that I've been running games. Am I doing it wrong? The whole thing just seems very contrived; and not at all appropriate for games that have any level of sandbox going on.

If I'm missing something important, please enlighten me.
Last edited by ACOS on Wed Oct 15, 2014 9:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by hamstertamer »

ACOS wrote:
Lago PARANOIA wrote: Fixing the monster budget to a per-PC ratio instead of group size will almost certainly make the game easier than you intended to. PC Party size is one of those rare instances where, in terms of asskicking, the marginal utility of each additional PC is greater the more PCs you add. 6 orcs is harder for a three-PC party than 12 orcs are for a six-PC party IOW.
As I seem to recall, the XP section of 3.5 DMG addresses this very thing; however, only in a vague sort of way. For some reason, the number "8" is stuck in my head (and for other than the "+/-8" level difference).
But whatever.

What I am about to say might be better suited for the "mechanics I hate" thread; but since it was brought up here, I'll discuss it here:
XP budgets.
The very concept doesn't make any sense to me. So I guess that the idea is that you want the PCs to gain 'x' # of xp in a given adventure, so that they are 'y' level at the end of it. WTF kind of stupid b.s. is that? Sure, if you're designing a published module that is supposed to fit in to a larger published adventure path campaign, I can see the need for that. But telling DMs to use the xp budget for their own games seems like they want everybody to run canned module styled games ... and I don't think that I've ever done that in the 20 years that I've been running games. Am I doing it wrong? The whole thing just seems very contrived; and not at all appropriate for games that have any level of sandbox going on.

If I'm missing something important, please enlighten me.
The important part you missed was that the guidelines for xp budgets was for people who wanted to use them. Those that didn't want them or didn't need them didn't use them because they were enlightened enough to understand this was really just xp budget theory, but regardless the DM also explains different ways to award xp for those that wanted. So if you were using the xp budget guidelines as hard coded rules that must be followed then you were very dumb. The DM's Guide even explicitly gives you optional ways to award xp on pages 167 -168. It also tells you can adjust the xp awards anyway you want. In other words, as the DM do it as you like but here are some suggestions that might suit you. Awarding xp in D&D is an art not a science.
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Post by ishy »

ACOS wrote:XP budgets.
The very concept doesn't make any sense to me. So I guess that the idea is that you want the PCs to gain 'x' # of xp in a given adventure, so that they are 'y' level at the end of it.
...
If I'm missing something important, please enlighten me.
The idea is that an appropriate encounter is worth Y XP, thus you should build an encounter worth Y XP.
FrankTrollman wrote:This is importantly true. An "appropriate encounter" is one where the PCs are expected to win, albeit spend some resources in the process. If you just multiply the number of characters and monsters by the same number, the raw lead of the player characters is likewise multiplied. If One PC versus 3 Orcs is a good encounter, six PCs versus 18 Orcs is going to be a yawn fest. Team Player enjoyed a narrow lead in One PC vs. 3 Orcs, in the 6 PCs versus 18 Orcs you have six times a narrow lead, which is a boring stomping.

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It depends on the monsters in question. If they are archers who can focus fire, or creatures with nasty save effects (more chance of rolling that nat 1), then the creatures can focus fire something down even though they are not a threat to the party as a whole.
Area effects are obviously more useful on both sides.
And since PCs tend to diversify, conditional abilities are more likely to matter.
Last edited by ishy on Wed Oct 15, 2014 10:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by ACOS »

@hamstertamer:
Well, that certainly makes sense. I must admit that I never could really get in to the 4e, so my knowledge is spotty at best. I've just heard/seen so many 4e MCs rant about how important xp budgets are; and it's always just left me shaking my head.
And yes, it very much is an art.

ishy wrote:The idea is that an appropriate encounter is worth Y XP, thus you should build an encounter worth Y XP.
This is what I take issue with.
An appropriate encounter, in terms of challenge, is one which provides the intended level of challenge. Sure, back in 2e, you could kind of look at the xp of a creature as an approximate measure; but that was sketchy at best, and before the advent of anything resembling a CR-type system.
Who cares how many xp a thing is worth? XP is something that just happens to happen when you overcome a challenge or otherwise achieve a goal.
The PCs explore the world, encounter some stuff, and accumulate however many xp they accumulate, and then level-up accordingly - as they level-up, MC adjusts accordingly.
FWIW.
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Post by OgreBattle »

This is how I envision it in my head.

A "Level" is a measure of power that applies to both PC's and Monsters. Equal level characters are expected to be close to an even match.

"Minion" monsters would be a few levels lower than PC's
"Elite" monsters would be around equal levels to PC's
"Boss" monsters would be higher level

'A character doubles in power every 2 levels' so a Lvl5 guy would be an even match for two Lvl3 monsters and four lvl1 minions.
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Post by tussock »

Monster level (AKA, CR) and PC level should be on different tracks, like spell level and PC level are. 10th level Balrog, Solar, and Tarrasque types at the top. 1st level Kobold suicide squads and Giant Fire Beetles at the bottom.

Then if your 9th level Wizard drops a 4th level spell on a 6th level monster, no one fucking argues that you just broke the game in some way, because they're not pretending to be that well "balanced" in the first place. You can just go and fight some higher (or lower) level monsters than the designers intended and no one even cares.


Encounter level is something about an area, not a fight. The 10th level monsters are found in the most dangerous parts of the game world: so if you go there, you fight them, and if you avoid those places, you don't fight them. You determine how many Ogres there are by looking at the Ogre entry and rolling the dice for their number appearing. They don't exist in the starting areas, so that's fine.

Player-controlled difficulty in response to emergent game structures. It's awesome.


Effective Character Level should be handled by multiclassing. Like an 8th level Fighter becoming a spellcaster in some way that doesn't suck, your Ogre can become a spellcaster in the same way that doesn't suck. With overlapping instead of stacking multiclass (or subjobs, or fast-track PClasses, or a few other schemes) the cost of becoming a spellcaster useful for a 9th level party is roughly the same as building a 9th level Wizard no matter what you used to do for a living, the old investments just make it easier to earn the needed XP. We don't care if you started as an Ogre or if you drop one spell on becoming an Ogre each day, it just doesn't matter.

What level party you can join, as a basic Ogre, I don't think the game should care. Early in the edition cycle it's going to be much higher than the end of the edition cycle anyway. Humans get better much quicker than Ogres through every edition. Include a table of suggestions from playtesters in the DMG, perhaps.

Thusly, a minion is a monster that appears in large numbers and is usually "weak" (for it's level) to compensate and easy to DM.
Regular monsters rarely outnumber the PCs, and have relatively soft attacks.
An Elite monster appears in small numbers and must be constructed to compensate for getting swarmed by the PCs and their henchfolk. Partially by hitting hard.
A Boss monster is "strong" for the level it most commonly appears at, but appears alone to compensate. None of it's abilities should be obvious player-killers. High level bosses can be stupid and unfair, because high level PCs are stupid and unfair.
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Post by Foxwarrior »

Okay, the part where you intentionally choose to have Level mean even more contradictory things is confusing, Tussock, but aside from that, I think what you're saying is that DMs don't get the freedom to build their own encounters, and are restricted to only using the random group rolls provided in the book?


OgreBattle: The RNG is a delicate thing, you'd need some sort of... "bounded accuracy"... to make that result in something other than a flurry of misses.
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Post by K »

Getting a fixed power level out level, CR, or ECL is still a matter of standardizing monster abilities like they were PC abilities.

For example, the rules for natural armor stacking with regular armor make a number of monsters unsuitable for any kind of graduated power system because they can go right off the range with some non-magic plate and a shield.

That's just one tiny example. The number of truly profound clusterfucks that happen when you use an eyeballed power level is pretty impressive before you even get to problems of altering those power models with things like one-shot magic items making single encounters more powerful, out-of-combat power like Animate Dead making monster power very context dependent, or advancing a few levels of some PC class.

Ideally, you'd sit down and rewrite all the monsters using some kind of flexible class system for monsters where abilities like Energy Drain or incorporeality are balanced against PC abilities and multiclassing between monster and PC is pretty easy. This means that a number of iconic monsters will have to stop being glass cannons, some things get more powers while others get less, and certain abilities might not make the cut in their current form.

Monsters are such a big part of the game that it's basically a rewrite of the entire game since fiddling with the monster power levels affects PC power levels.
ishy
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Post by ishy »

ACOS wrote:
ishy wrote:The idea is that an appropriate encounter is worth Y XP, thus you should build an encounter worth Y XP.
This is what I take issue with.
An appropriate encounter, in terms of challenge, is one which provides the intended level of challenge. Sure, back in 2e, you could kind of look at the xp of a creature as an approximate measure; but that was sketchy at best, and before the advent of anything resembling a CR-type system.
Who cares how many xp a thing is worth? XP is something that just happens to happen when you overcome a challenge or otherwise achieve a goal.
The PCs explore the world, encounter some stuff, and accumulate however many xp they accumulate, and then level-up accordingly - as they level-up, MC adjusts accordingly.
FWIW.
My bad, I thought we were talking about 4th edition.
In 4th edition experience points are not just for "when you overcome a challenge or otherwise achieve a goal" or when PCs level up, they also have a different function, the XP budget.

In 4th you sum the XP values for everything in an encounter to judge the difficulty of the encounter.
Now whether that works or whether that is a good idea is something you can debate and yes, this is not how 2nd edition does things.
Gary Gygax wrote:The player’s path to role-playing mastery begins with a thorough understanding of the rules of the game
Bigode wrote:I wouldn't normally make that blanket of a suggestion, but you seem to deserve it: scroll through the entire forum, read anything that looks interesting in term of design experience, then come back.
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