I don't understand how XP gets assigned to monsters. For example, compare the Cambion to the Cloaker
Cambion HP105 AC19 PB3 STR +4/7 DEX +4/4 CON +3/6 INT +2/5 WIS +1/1 CHA +3/5 Cloaker HP 91 AC14 PB3 STR +3/3 DEX +2/2 CON +1/1 INT +1/1 WIS +2/2 CHA -2/-2
The Cambion is clearly more formidable. Next compare the other properties:
The cloaker gets most of its CR from the Attach trait, as if it successfully attaches you pretty much need to pull it off before trying to deal with it. It's probably overvalued (attach has pretty low reliability and isn't that hard to deal with).
Yes, the "Attach" feature isn't worth 1800XP all by itself.
What is the most significant properties in figuring XP? I'd say AC & HP. What would also be significant? Flying, Resistances, Immunities, Ability Scores, and Proficiency Bonus,
Also worthy of note is Quantity of spells the monster can cast, and spell attack bonus. Additionally, Melee attacks, toHit bonus and a damage breakdown by distance.
And lastly does the monster have any Bonus Actions or Reactions. Roll all that together. Here is what I have surmised:
Bandit Deceiver XP=2784, Banshee XP=1247, Cambion XP=3129, Cloaker XP=1745 Does this look reasonable?
I chose Bandit Deceiver as being the most average in all the MM. The average humanoid in the MM is AC16 and has 104HP.
Cloakers suffocate their target, which is very scary. Plus it can cast Mirror Image as a bonus action. And its multiattack is one attach and two tails, which is 29 average damage.
My players would throw a light spell on it -- giving it disadvantage to hit, then they would get their strongest fighter to pull the cloaker off. Save STR DC14 would be easy for any fighter. Failing that, a cheap Sleep spell would be the cloaker's doom.
I ran this online tool Old CR Calculator and it assigned 1100XP to a cloaker's stat block. That's lower than my wag of 1745. But there is no way to gauge special abilities like "suffocate". So the cloaker is just too subjective for me to run. Too bad, I have a real nice mini for it. Maybe I'll design a new monster for use with my cloaker mini. =8^)
My players would throw a light spell on it -- giving it disadvantage to hit, then they would get their strongest fighter to pull the cloaker off. Save STR DC14 would be easy for any fighter. Failing that, a cheap Sleep spell would be the cloaker's doom.
I ran this online tool Old CR Calculator and it assigned 1100XP to a cloaker's stat block. That's lower than my wag of 1745. But there is no way to gauge special abilities like "suffocate". So the cloaker is just too subjective for me to run. Too bad, I have a real nice mini for it. Maybe I'll design a new monster for use with my cloaker mini. =8^)
Thanks for the insights!
If you do an assessment on this level of depth of the Monster Manual, you will discover that WOTC designers don't follow their own math or logic when it comes to monster CR's and XP rewards, it is by very definition of the term "a broken system".
This however, is not really a new problem with monsters and their XP rewards, it has existed in every edition since 1st, its too subjective of a concept to be based on math or stats. Far too many dynamic things affect how difficult a monster is to fight (which is the point of the CR system, to give you a difficulty category). For example player skill, class combinations, resource readiness, spell choices, terrain and a whole lot more.
In short how difficult a fight actually is, vs. how difficult the monster is to fight based on its CR rating, quite literally have nothing to do with each other at all, not mathematically and not realistically.
The best approach I have found is that you use the CR rating to get a very general understanding of its strength, aka, what level its appropriate for, rough idea of how hard you think your making the fight, how many etc... but then the reward itself (how much XP you actualy give for the fight) is based on how difficult the fight actually was for the players. Aka, the same fight, would have different reward, based on circumstances.
So for example if the fight turned out to be easy, the reward would be perhaps only 25% of the listing, or if a fight turned out to be crazy difficult, far worse than the CR suggested, you might give 150% of the reward.
So don't base it on math, base it on how challenging it actually turned out to be and then give a percentage of XP based on the result.
So if your choker ends up being too easy, give only 50% of the XP... for example.
its not a perfect science but you get the idea. You end up with far more equitable rewards and players will usually "feel it" more than you do. Meaning that when they get in a super tough fight, that really bloodied them, their default assumption will be "ok that should be worth a big reward" and if a fight turns out to be easy they will assume "yeah we don't expect much"... Which coincides with the % system, so it will sort of line up with the expectations of players.
CR is based on an average of offensive CR and defensive CR and then adjusted based on playtesting*
Offensive CR is based on average damage per round, to hit bonus, and saving throw DC
Defensive CR is based on hit points and AC
*This is the most important part that people are very quick to overlook, assuming CR is purely mathematical. They will then crunch the numbers on existing monsters and then claim WotC "did it wrong" or "don't use their own system", ignoring the fact that the most important part is adjusting the CR heuristically based on playtesting.
My players would throw a light spell on it -- giving it disadvantage to hit, then they would get their strongest fighter to pull the cloaker off. Save STR DC14 would be easy for any fighter. Failing that, a cheap Sleep spell would be the cloaker's doom.
I ran this online tool Old CR Calculator and it assigned 1100XP to a cloaker's stat block. That's lower than my wag of 1745. But there is no way to gauge special abilities like "suffocate". So the cloaker is just too subjective for me to run. Too bad, I have a real nice mini for it. Maybe I'll design a new monster for use with my cloaker mini. =8^)
Thanks for the insights!
Maybe you could run a test battle with a cloaker against a level 6-8 party? Then you should be able to determine about how difficult it is and be able to run it in future campaigns.
Thank you Davyd. I was unaware that it had been play tested.
Now you have me wondering what I am doing wrong that my table (having four level 6-7 PCs) took out a Mummy Lord and his bodyguard (a Death Knight Aspirant), 12 Dread Warriors, 6 Mummies, 6 Spawn of Kyuss, a Banshee and a Flameskull in one 4-hour session having only 1 short rest. Oh - and the game day before they all ate a full meal of the stuff that the mummy lord feeds prisioners (laced with the most powerful poison in my World of Mystara) -- and they all saved DC17. CR play tested? Not in my game store. Not using my Min-Maxers. Our Druid summons either a Water Elemental or an Earth Elemental and fights with them by his side while he shape shifts into an Ankylosaurus and picks-up temporary hit points in the process. His PC alone would destroy a cloaker in two rounds. An a cleric can turn undead now regardless of the undead's CR. That was play tested?
You know what? Amazon is selling d20s that have the numbers 1,2,3 replaced with 20,19,18. They call them "Initiative Dice". I hope my players are not cheating. They never fumble. Do I need to make a dice check before play begins? WTF world are we living in where game store players need to cheat at DnD? Jeezus! I feel sick.
OSR4Ever -- you are spot on! I can see that a DM needs to assign XP based on the difficulty "after the encounter" and not beforehand. I'm thinking that this is the way I need to referee my table. Excellent advice. Thank you sir!
*This is the most important part that people are very quick to overlook, assuming CR is purely mathematical. They will then crunch the numbers on existing monsters and then claim WotC "did it wrong" or "don't use their own system", ignoring the fact that the most important part is adjusting the CR heuristically based on playtesting.
Claiming that WotC doesn't use the system published in the 2014 DMG is not ignoring anything, as the 2014 DMG doesn't mention any such adjustment process. However, I really have doubts about the idea that CR is modified by playtesting, because most complaints about the CR system aren't that they don't match the formula, it's that some monster performs dramatically above or below its nominal CR. Also, there's such variance in PC groups that it's hard to really test.
The intended design of monsters in 2014 was that the xp value of a monster indicated likely resource consumption if encountered by itself, where 'resource consumption' mostly meant total damage done. As total damage done is equal to (dpr) * (survival time in rounds), you would expect to see xp value roughly map to (dpr)*(hp)*(some constant), and in fact it largely does. Multiple monsters got an effective xp adjustment because adding two monsters doesn't just increase total dpr, it increases survival time. 2024 monster design is broadly similar, though the multiple monsters xp adjustment and the entire idea of a daily budget went away.
My players would throw a light spell on it -- giving it disadvantage to hit, then they would get their strongest fighter to pull the cloaker off.
The ‘24 light cantrip can no longer target creatures. Only objects.
“You touch one Large or smaller object that isn’t being worn or carried by someone else.”
It’s a huge nerf actually. You even kind of need to use it out of combat, as you can’t really cast it on the fighter’s sword or shield anymore unless they put it down first.
The ‘24 light cantrip can no longer target creatures. Only objects.
It didn't target creatures in 2014 either, it's just that you could target objects held by other creatures, with a Dexterity save if unwilling. However, the cloaker doesn't have any long ranged attacks, so you don't need to target the creature, just carrying around a light source will do the job.
Xalthu -- So they would lay 4 sling bullets (per spell caster) on the ground, light them up and throw them down the hallway lighting it up like an airport runway. Light lasts an hour so they pick them up and toss them ahead and they explore the dungeon. Monster having disadvantage in light would be at a constant disadvantage. How would you deal with that?
I think that OSR4Ever is onto something. The more clever a group is, the fewer XP they get. That's not an intuitive way to achieve balance and consistency, but it would work to Level-Up the challenge in proportion to the level of play.
I think that OSR4Ever is onto something. The more clever a group is, the fewer XP they get. That's not an intuitive way to achieve balance and consistency, but it would work to Level-Up the challenge in proportion to the level of play.
This is a punishment mechanism that penalizes intelligent, strategic play and is completely counter to any good reward model. XP is a reward for overcoming challenges that represents a growth in skill gained from the lessons learned in overcoming that challenge. TBH the amount of XP rewarded should be completely agnostic from how they overcame the challenge, because the XP is based on the challenge itself.
I think that OSR4Ever is onto something. The more clever a group is, the fewer XP they get. That's not an intuitive way to achieve balance and consistency, but it would work to Level-Up the challenge in proportion to the level of play.
If you're going to do something like that, you might as well just discard experience points and use milestone leveling. I mean, my method of encounter building, which is probably typical for milestone leveling, is "from prior experience DMing for these characters, I know what they handled easily and what gave them trouble, so I'll set the encounter to something I think will challenge them". This means a group of players who are more tactically adept will wind up with harder encounters, but since gaining levels isn't tied to experience, that doesn't actually make any difference in how fast they level up.
Davyd -- I'm not running a tournament. I'm providing entertainment. What's so great about clever min-maxers achieving 5th level in only 10 sessions verses 15 sessions? Wouldn't it be great that a campaign designed to achieve level 5 in 15 sessions actually took 15 sessions? I'm not seeing the "punishment mechanism" as having any negative effects.
Davyd -- I'm not running a tournament. I'm providing entertainment. What's so great about clever min-maxers achieving 5th level in only 10 sessions verses 15 sessions? Wouldn't it be great that a campaign designed to achieve level 5 in 15 sessions actually took 15 sessions? I'm not seeing the "punishment mechanism" as having any negative effects.
I have no idea what you're talking about, what do you mean "running a tournament"? Using clever and intelligent strategies isn't "min-maxing", it's roleplaying. The characters wouldn't be survive very long if they were stupid, so the the players playing them intelligently is leaning into the narrative of the game.
If you want your campaign to achieve level X by session Y, just use milestone/story based levelling.
Overall this is giving "DM vs player" vibes, which imo isn't as good look for the game.
Xalthu -- So they would lay 4 sling bullets (per spell caster) on the ground, light them up and throw them down the hallway lighting it up like an airport runway. Light lasts an hour so they pick them up and toss them ahead and they explore the dungeon. Monster having disadvantage in light would be at a constant disadvantage. How would you deal with that?
I think that OSR4Ever is onto something. The more clever a group is, the fewer XP they get. That's not an intuitive way to achieve balance and consistency, but it would work to Level-Up the challenge in proportion to the level of play.
I’d say good for them, and that they’d never surprise anything.
And echoing what davyd said. It seems like a real backwards move to punish them for being clever. What does that leave? They can only ever run in blindly and start swinging their swords if they want full xp?
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I don't understand how XP gets assigned to monsters. For example, compare the Cambion to the Cloaker
Cambion HP105 AC19 PB3 STR +4/7 DEX +4/4 CON +3/6 INT +2/5 WIS +1/1 CHA +3/5
Cloaker HP 91 AC14 PB3 STR +3/3 DEX +2/2 CON +1/1 INT +1/1 WIS +2/2 CHA -2/-2
The Cambion is clearly more formidable. Next compare the other properties:
Cambion Fly=50ft Stealth +7 PP=14 Languages=3 Spells=6 SaveDC14 toHit+7
Cloaker Fly=40ft Stealth +5 PP=12 Languages=2 Spells=2 SaveDC13 toHit+6
The Cambion has better Stealth, Speed, Perception, Spells and toHit bonus. Next consider damage at distance:
Cambion Damage at 120ft/60ft/30ft/10ft/5ft= 13x2/13x2/13x2/13x2/15x2
Cloaker Damage at 120ft/60ft/30ft/10ft/5ft= 00x0/00x0/00x0/08x2/08x2 or 13
And lastly consider defenses:
Cambion Immunities=1, Resistances=4, Plane Shift to Escape, No Disadvantages
Cloaker Immunities=1, Resistances=0, Frighten Foes DC13, Disadvantage in Sunlight
How can a cloaker be worth 3900XP when the more formidable Cambion is only worth 1800XP?
The cloaker gets most of its CR from the Attach trait, as if it successfully attaches you pretty much need to pull it off before trying to deal with it. It's probably overvalued (attach has pretty low reliability and isn't that hard to deal with).
Yes, the "Attach" feature isn't worth 1800XP all by itself.
What is the most significant properties in figuring XP? I'd say AC & HP. What would also be significant? Flying, Resistances, Immunities, Ability Scores, and Proficiency Bonus,
Also worthy of note is Quantity of spells the monster can cast, and spell attack bonus. Additionally, Melee attacks, toHit bonus and a damage breakdown by distance.
And lastly does the monster have any Bonus Actions or Reactions. Roll all that together. Here is what I have surmised:
Bandit Deceiver XP=2784, Banshee XP=1247, Cambion XP=3129, Cloaker XP=1745 Does this look reasonable?
I chose Bandit Deceiver as being the most average in all the MM. The average humanoid in the MM is AC16 and has 104HP.
In the 2014 DMG, under features when creating a monster, they list
While I think this overstates its value, at least at the accuracy it has, it does seem to be where the number comes from.
I suggest https://www.blogofholding.com/?p=8593
Cloakers suffocate their target, which is very scary. Plus it can cast Mirror Image as a bonus action. And its multiattack is one attach and two tails, which is 29 average damage.
My players would throw a light spell on it -- giving it disadvantage to hit, then they would get their strongest fighter to pull the cloaker off. Save STR DC14 would be easy for any fighter. Failing that, a cheap Sleep spell would be the cloaker's doom.
I ran this online tool Old CR Calculator and it assigned 1100XP to a cloaker's stat block. That's lower than my wag of 1745. But there is no way to gauge special abilities like "suffocate". So the cloaker is just too subjective for me to run. Too bad, I have a real nice mini for it. Maybe I'll design a new monster for use with my cloaker mini. =8^)
Thanks for the insights!
If you do an assessment on this level of depth of the Monster Manual, you will discover that WOTC designers don't follow their own math or logic when it comes to monster CR's and XP rewards, it is by very definition of the term "a broken system".
This however, is not really a new problem with monsters and their XP rewards, it has existed in every edition since 1st, its too subjective of a concept to be based on math or stats. Far too many dynamic things affect how difficult a monster is to fight (which is the point of the CR system, to give you a difficulty category). For example player skill, class combinations, resource readiness, spell choices, terrain and a whole lot more.
In short how difficult a fight actually is, vs. how difficult the monster is to fight based on its CR rating, quite literally have nothing to do with each other at all, not mathematically and not realistically.
The best approach I have found is that you use the CR rating to get a very general understanding of its strength, aka, what level its appropriate for, rough idea of how hard you think your making the fight, how many etc... but then the reward itself (how much XP you actualy give for the fight) is based on how difficult the fight actually was for the players. Aka, the same fight, would have different reward, based on circumstances.
So for example if the fight turned out to be easy, the reward would be perhaps only 25% of the listing, or if a fight turned out to be crazy difficult, far worse than the CR suggested, you might give 150% of the reward.
So don't base it on math, base it on how challenging it actually turned out to be and then give a percentage of XP based on the result.
So if your choker ends up being too easy, give only 50% of the XP... for example.
its not a perfect science but you get the idea. You end up with far more equitable rewards and players will usually "feel it" more than you do. Meaning that when they get in a super tough fight, that really bloodied them, their default assumption will be "ok that should be worth a big reward" and if a fight turns out to be easy they will assume "yeah we don't expect much"... Which coincides with the % system, so it will sort of line up with the expectations of players.
XP is based on CR
CR is based on an average of offensive CR and defensive CR and then adjusted based on playtesting*
Offensive CR is based on average damage per round, to hit bonus, and saving throw DC
Defensive CR is based on hit points and AC
*This is the most important part that people are very quick to overlook, assuming CR is purely mathematical. They will then crunch the numbers on existing monsters and then claim WotC "did it wrong" or "don't use their own system", ignoring the fact that the most important part is adjusting the CR heuristically based on playtesting.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Maybe you could run a test battle with a cloaker against a level 6-8 party? Then you should be able to determine about how difficult it is and be able to run it in future campaigns.
Thank you Davyd. I was unaware that it had been play tested.
Now you have me wondering what I am doing wrong that my table (having four level 6-7 PCs) took out a Mummy Lord and his bodyguard (a Death Knight Aspirant), 12 Dread Warriors, 6 Mummies, 6 Spawn of Kyuss, a Banshee and a Flameskull in one 4-hour session having only 1 short rest. Oh - and the game day before they all ate a full meal of the stuff that the mummy lord feeds prisioners (laced with the most powerful poison in my World of Mystara) -- and they all saved DC17. CR play tested? Not in my game store. Not using my Min-Maxers. Our Druid summons either a Water Elemental or an Earth Elemental and fights with them by his side while he shape shifts into an Ankylosaurus and picks-up temporary hit points in the process. His PC alone would destroy a cloaker in two rounds. An a cleric can turn undead now regardless of the undead's CR. That was play tested?
You know what? Amazon is selling d20s that have the numbers 1,2,3 replaced with 20,19,18. They call them "Initiative Dice". I hope my players are not cheating. They never fumble. Do I need to make a dice check before play begins? WTF world are we living in where game store players need to cheat at DnD? Jeezus! I feel sick.
OSR4Ever -- you are spot on! I can see that a DM needs to assign XP based on the difficulty "after the encounter" and not beforehand. I'm thinking that this is the way I need to referee my table. Excellent advice. Thank you sir!
Claiming that WotC doesn't use the system published in the 2014 DMG is not ignoring anything, as the 2014 DMG doesn't mention any such adjustment process. However, I really have doubts about the idea that CR is modified by playtesting, because most complaints about the CR system aren't that they don't match the formula, it's that some monster performs dramatically above or below its nominal CR. Also, there's such variance in PC groups that it's hard to really test.
The intended design of monsters in 2014 was that the xp value of a monster indicated likely resource consumption if encountered by itself, where 'resource consumption' mostly meant total damage done. As total damage done is equal to (dpr) * (survival time in rounds), you would expect to see xp value roughly map to (dpr)*(hp)*(some constant), and in fact it largely does. Multiple monsters got an effective xp adjustment because adding two monsters doesn't just increase total dpr, it increases survival time. 2024 monster design is broadly similar, though the multiple monsters xp adjustment and the entire idea of a daily budget went away.
The ‘24 light cantrip can no longer target creatures. Only objects.
“You touch one Large or smaller object that isn’t being worn or carried by someone else.”
It’s a huge nerf actually. You even kind of need to use it out of combat, as you can’t really cast it on the fighter’s sword or shield anymore unless they put it down first.
It didn't target creatures in 2014 either, it's just that you could target objects held by other creatures, with a Dexterity save if unwilling. However, the cloaker doesn't have any long ranged attacks, so you don't need to target the creature, just carrying around a light source will do the job.
Xalthu -- So they would lay 4 sling bullets (per spell caster) on the ground, light them up and throw them down the hallway lighting it up like an airport runway. Light lasts an hour so they pick them up and toss them ahead and they explore the dungeon. Monster having disadvantage in light would be at a constant disadvantage. How would you deal with that?
I think that OSR4Ever is onto something. The more clever a group is, the fewer XP they get. That's not an intuitive way to achieve balance and consistency, but it would work to Level-Up the challenge in proportion to the level of play.
This is a punishment mechanism that penalizes intelligent, strategic play and is completely counter to any good reward model. XP is a reward for overcoming challenges that represents a growth in skill gained from the lessons learned in overcoming that challenge. TBH the amount of XP rewarded should be completely agnostic from how they overcame the challenge, because the XP is based on the challenge itself.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
If you're going to do something like that, you might as well just discard experience points and use milestone leveling. I mean, my method of encounter building, which is probably typical for milestone leveling, is "from prior experience DMing for these characters, I know what they handled easily and what gave them trouble, so I'll set the encounter to something I think will challenge them". This means a group of players who are more tactically adept will wind up with harder encounters, but since gaining levels isn't tied to experience, that doesn't actually make any difference in how fast they level up.
Davyd -- I'm not running a tournament. I'm providing entertainment. What's so great about clever min-maxers achieving 5th level in only 10 sessions verses 15 sessions? Wouldn't it be great that a campaign designed to achieve level 5 in 15 sessions actually took 15 sessions? I'm not seeing the "punishment mechanism" as having any negative effects.
I have no idea what you're talking about, what do you mean "running a tournament"? Using clever and intelligent strategies isn't "min-maxing", it's roleplaying. The characters wouldn't be survive very long if they were stupid, so the the players playing them intelligently is leaning into the narrative of the game.
If you want your campaign to achieve level X by session Y, just use milestone/story based levelling.
Overall this is giving "DM vs player" vibes, which imo isn't as good look for the game.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
I’d say good for them, and that they’d never surprise anything.
And echoing what davyd said. It seems like a real backwards move to punish them for being clever. What does that leave? They can only ever run in blindly and start swinging their swords if they want full xp?