With the coming changes I think that 2 changes would be a great benefit to DMS and players alike.
The first change would be to make Cr be a one on one comparison so a Cr 20 is ideal for level 20s and so on.
The second would be to add major advantage and major disadvantage. It would make you roll the dice 3 times instead of twice and then taking the lowest/highest. DMS could really punish players and if a player has two things that would give them disadvantage/advantage would give them major advantage/disadvantage.
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If your eyes tell you what your seeing how do you know there not lying?
Your second idea is almost a dice pool, and utilises the key mentalities behind pools. While I think it's a good mechanic for several reasons... I think you'll there'll be a fair amount of resistance to it.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I also wonder how it work with say Elven Accuracy which grants a bonus die on advantage would it still go up by 1
Well doesn’t EA just allow you to reroll one of the die? It’s not an additional die, although kind of ends up the same thing in the end. So it should work just fine
Challenge rating is supposed to be a one-to-one system. A CR 20 monster is supposed to be an appropriate fight for a party of four level 20s. The problem with CR is not the numbering system - it is how that number is calculated.
As things presently stand, CR is based on an incorrect assumption of how players play the game - it assumes players are fighting 6-8 combat encounters in a single adventuring day, which often does not happen. Additionally, even within that mythical adventuring day, the balance is off - low CR monsters can easily wipe a party while high CR monsters do not seem well balanced against the range of options at a higher level party’s disposal.
Fortunately, they said they would be rebalancing monsters in the revised 5e, updating their stat blocks so their power level more appropriately matches their CR. Not sure how effective that will be, but it is at least a known problem Wizards is trying to address.
Super Advantage and Disadvantage is a problem for two reasons. First, Advantage is already very easy to obtain, which exacerbates the CR balance issues (Monster AC design presumes you are attacking normally). Three dice exacerbates this issue. Additionally, since advantage is typically easier to obtain than disadvantage, the symmetry of super disadvantage does not quite result in balance. The second problem us that each additional die you add drastically increases the chance of critical hits. That already can result in very big swings in combat, but gets drastically worse once you start adding effects increasing the critical hit range.
Crunching the numbers, super advantage and disadvantage are ideas that have gameplay problems and exacerbate existing issues with challenge rating. Not exactly a great idea for the game’s health.
CR used to be what an average party of 4 could expect in an average encounter. For example, a CR 5 used to be a level appropriate challenge for four 5th level characters.
5e got rid of that system. Personally I think they should bring it back. I also think that they should have balanced everything for PvP, because 5e is the most unbalanced version of D&D thus far when comparing PC to PC (or NPC). There's going to be a lot of crying when 5e24 comes out and players with all these new weapon masteries and abilities run into an enemy party of NPCs and the DM uses all those same things against them. Certain classes are simply no match for others in the game's current state.
But back to the topic at hand, I agree that the current formula for figuring out appropriate encounters is completely messed up. I miss 3.5's version which was ' a CR 10 is an appropriate encounter for a group of four 10th level characters'.
As for Advantage/Disadvantage - there is a way for DMs to do what you're asking without going to 3 dice. Simply give one side advantage, and the other side disadvantage.
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Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
The central conceit of 5e changed. It was designed for 6-8 encounters a day, and that's how the CR system operates. The problem is that the concept changed from being a dungeon crawler to being closer to an actual roleplaying game. It became more about story than how many bad guys you can chew your way through. One of the knock-on effects of that is that combat is used differently - you're not spending an evening fighting through 6-8 encounters. Instead, you're fighting much fewer but individually harder fights. I think that is a better direction for the game, but it does bust the CR system.I'm a little disappointed that they didn't redo the CR system this time around, but hopefully they'll replace it with one that's more suitable for how the game is actually played.
Of course, D&D is particularly hard to create a useful one. A Remorhaz is fun but merely annoying against a large group while positively lethal against two or possibly three adventurers. It doesn't scale in the same manner as Goblins do, so coming up with a simple but reasonably accurate system is inherently difficult.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
4e's difficulty system was amazing for encounter building and I'm convinced they reverted to CR solely for nostalgia's sake. Monsters had levels just like PCs, and a standard level 10 monster was a decent challenge for one level 10 PC. Elite monsters were worth two standards, solos were worth four, and four minions equalled one standard.
So for a level 10 party of four, you could have:
4 standard level 10s
2 elite level 10s
1 solo level 10
16 minions level 10
equivalent combinations of elite/standard/minion
Or you could do the same thing we do with CR and kind of ballpark difficulty with lower/higher level monsters, although it was fairly simple to level monsters up/down as well.
They didn't really do solos well (same action economy issues 5e has), but no edition really has.
Challenge rating is supposed to be a one-to-one system. A CR 20 monster is supposed to be an appropriate fight for a party of four level 20s. The problem with CR is not the numbering system - it is how that number is calculated.
As things presently stand, CR is based on an incorrect assumption of how players play the game - it assumes players are fighting 6-8 combat encounters in a single adventuring day, which often does not happen.
That's not actually the core problem with CR -- if you change from "one CR X per four level X PCs" to "one CR X per two level X PCs" you wind up at two encounters per day, which is completely normal. The problem with that is that two CR 1s vs a level 1 party is a really hard fight, and two CR 20s vs a level 20 party... is not.
I gather now the problem with the major advantage/disadvantage. However Cr 1/8 to Cr 30 is confusing to follow and also as a new dm when I try to make a new encounter or one shot ect. I have to very carefully look over the stat blocks and try to compare it to the ideal level that my players will be for this. Overall the current system I find is very difficult to manage and not very new player friendly.
Encounter building in current rules is a mess, and hard to clean up without breaking backwards compatibility. I expect the new DMG will have a simpler budgeting system, possibly inspired by the system in XGTE.
I'm finding that experience with various creatures and numbers of creatures challenging my players gives me better insight into what they can and can't handle than using the CR system. Although I do use it as a starting point. Any system like CR, while a good idea for newer DM's, is bound to be only kinda-vague-general-guidelines that have far more exceptions than accurate rules.
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With the coming changes I think that 2 changes would be a great benefit to DMS and players alike.
The first change would be to make Cr be a one on one comparison so a Cr 20 is ideal for level 20s and so on.
The second would be to add major advantage and major disadvantage. It would make you roll the dice 3 times instead of twice and then taking the lowest/highest. DMS could really punish players and if a player has two things that would give them disadvantage/advantage would give them major advantage/disadvantage.
If your eyes tell you what your seeing how do you know there not lying?
Your second idea is almost a dice pool, and utilises the key mentalities behind pools. While I think it's a good mechanic for several reasons... I think you'll there'll be a fair amount of resistance to it.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I also wonder how it work with say Elven Accuracy which grants a bonus die on advantage would it still go up by 1
Well doesn’t EA just allow you to reroll one of the die? It’s not an additional die, although kind of ends up the same thing in the end. So it should work just fine
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Challenge rating is supposed to be a one-to-one system. A CR 20 monster is supposed to be an appropriate fight for a party of four level 20s. The problem with CR is not the numbering system - it is how that number is calculated.
As things presently stand, CR is based on an incorrect assumption of how players play the game - it assumes players are fighting 6-8 combat encounters in a single adventuring day, which often does not happen. Additionally, even within that mythical adventuring day, the balance is off - low CR monsters can easily wipe a party while high CR monsters do not seem well balanced against the range of options at a higher level party’s disposal.
Fortunately, they said they would be rebalancing monsters in the revised 5e, updating their stat blocks so their power level more appropriately matches their CR. Not sure how effective that will be, but it is at least a known problem Wizards is trying to address.
Super Advantage and Disadvantage is a problem for two reasons. First, Advantage is already very easy to obtain, which exacerbates the CR balance issues (Monster AC design presumes you are attacking normally). Three dice exacerbates this issue. Additionally, since advantage is typically easier to obtain than disadvantage, the symmetry of super disadvantage does not quite result in balance. The second problem us that each additional die you add drastically increases the chance of critical hits. That already can result in very big swings in combat, but gets drastically worse once you start adding effects increasing the critical hit range.
Crunching the numbers, super advantage and disadvantage are ideas that have gameplay problems and exacerbate existing issues with challenge rating. Not exactly a great idea for the game’s health.
CR used to be what an average party of 4 could expect in an average encounter. For example, a CR 5 used to be a level appropriate challenge for four 5th level characters.
5e got rid of that system. Personally I think they should bring it back. I also think that they should have balanced everything for PvP, because 5e is the most unbalanced version of D&D thus far when comparing PC to PC (or NPC). There's going to be a lot of crying when 5e24 comes out and players with all these new weapon masteries and abilities run into an enemy party of NPCs and the DM uses all those same things against them. Certain classes are simply no match for others in the game's current state.
But back to the topic at hand, I agree that the current formula for figuring out appropriate encounters is completely messed up. I miss 3.5's version which was ' a CR 10 is an appropriate encounter for a group of four 10th level characters'.
As for Advantage/Disadvantage - there is a way for DMs to do what you're asking without going to 3 dice. Simply give one side advantage, and the other side disadvantage.
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
The central conceit of 5e changed. It was designed for 6-8 encounters a day, and that's how the CR system operates. The problem is that the concept changed from being a dungeon crawler to being closer to an actual roleplaying game. It became more about story than how many bad guys you can chew your way through. One of the knock-on effects of that is that combat is used differently - you're not spending an evening fighting through 6-8 encounters. Instead, you're fighting much fewer but individually harder fights. I think that is a better direction for the game, but it does bust the CR system.I'm a little disappointed that they didn't redo the CR system this time around, but hopefully they'll replace it with one that's more suitable for how the game is actually played.
Of course, D&D is particularly hard to create a useful one. A Remorhaz is fun but merely annoying against a large group while positively lethal against two or possibly three adventurers. It doesn't scale in the same manner as Goblins do, so coming up with a simple but reasonably accurate system is inherently difficult.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
4e's difficulty system was amazing for encounter building and I'm convinced they reverted to CR solely for nostalgia's sake. Monsters had levels just like PCs, and a standard level 10 monster was a decent challenge for one level 10 PC. Elite monsters were worth two standards, solos were worth four, and four minions equalled one standard.
So for a level 10 party of four, you could have:
Or you could do the same thing we do with CR and kind of ballpark difficulty with lower/higher level monsters, although it was fairly simple to level monsters up/down as well.
They didn't really do solos well (same action economy issues 5e has), but no edition really has.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
That's not actually the core problem with CR -- if you change from "one CR X per four level X PCs" to "one CR X per two level X PCs" you wind up at two encounters per day, which is completely normal. The problem with that is that two CR 1s vs a level 1 party is a really hard fight, and two CR 20s vs a level 20 party... is not.
I gather now the problem with the major advantage/disadvantage. However Cr 1/8 to Cr 30 is confusing to follow and also as a new dm when I try to make a new encounter or one shot ect. I have to very carefully look over the stat blocks and try to compare it to the ideal level that my players will be for this. Overall the current system I find is very difficult to manage and not very new player friendly.
If your eyes tell you what your seeing how do you know there not lying?
Encounter building in current rules is a mess, and hard to clean up without breaking backwards compatibility. I expect the new DMG will have a simpler budgeting system, possibly inspired by the system in XGTE.
I'm finding that experience with various creatures and numbers of creatures challenging my players gives me better insight into what they can and can't handle than using the CR system. Although I do use it as a starting point. Any system like CR, while a good idea for newer DM's, is bound to be only kinda-vague-general-guidelines that have far more exceptions than accurate rules.