Challange Ratings

[stormwell55]

I'm just a tad confused concerning CRs for the NPC base classes listed in the DMG, in theory a CR 10 Human Warrior would be a lvl 20 Human Warrior with at least four attacks for which the first two are pretty much auto-hit against lvl 10 players. :eek:

This was bit of an issue in a game I've recently ran where a squad of 6 lvl 20 Human Warriors damn well near wiped the floor with the party who was supposed to take 'em down. Though it did force the players to get smart quick and use tactics to survive (admittedly the DM being generous with healing potions also helped ;) ), though feedback was good. The players enjoyed getting their butts kicked.

So yeah any help to clear things up would be useful.

[MindForge]

I believe that NPC CR's are calculated using (NPC Class x level) -1. So a 20th level NPC Warrior would have a CR of 19. An NPC Warrior level 1 would still be a CR of 1 though (they have a minimum of 1).

An NPC Warrior of 11 has a CR of 10.

The above example is if the race is a human or other standard race with no CR modifier.

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Monsters add their CR to class level. A monster with a CR of 4 and 4 class levels has a CR of 8.

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I prefer to use CR as a guideline, not a rule. In the example you posted you put CR 19's against CR 10's. The players never had a chance. A good place to start is this. Get the characters average level (total character levels / number of characters) and then go with this number. 4 characters at level 10 should not be fighting things that are too tough.

Here is my general rule of thumb. Never pit the players against something 4 levels higher than the average character level.

If I had 4 level 10 characters, I would begin by writing four 10's as my enemies. Then If I increase one of the creatures by 1 level I reduce another one by 1-2 depending on the power of the increased enemy. SO I might have a 12, 10, 10 and a 8 to fight the characters with.

I might make a CR 4 creature with 8 character levels for the first big bad. Then create support with the other three. Here is something else I do to increase the strength of the enemies. If I want to increase the number I would lower the level of a creature by 2 and add one identical enemy.

So I have a 12 big bad.
A 10th level right hand guy
Normally I would have another 10 but I will drop it down and make two of them - so instead of another 10 - I'll make 2 dark knight types that are level 8.
Then I will make another 8 - or maybe drop two levels and add 2 more fodder or archer types. So, I will make 2 level 6 ranged attackers.

This system works well for me and maintains balance - it creates a boundary for me and if I want to I can make a whole slew of enemies for a good fodder fight. If I went with 4 10's I could drop each by 2 and make 8 level 8 enemies which would be a good fight.

Keep in mind that these fights are primary battles usually for less risky fights I remove one of the primary numbers (10) and create the group using 3 10's not 4.

I hope this helps.

[CountFalchiezVander]

To expand further on this, pending on what you intend to build, you may want to modify the CR anyways. If you pick certain feats, prestege classes, and races the compliment them, such as stacking bonuses and the like, you may want to add to the representing how potent the encounter can quickly become. Of course, this is coming from someone who will abuse the feral template until they remove it from the game entirely.

[Sunfist]

Sorry for my mini-rant, but, in my opinion, when d20 3.0 first dropped, and we were all learning, CR was pretty great.

But as we learned, got better, players got smarter, 3.5 came out, 6 billion supplement books were published, etc. the value of CR just slowly went down lower and lower.

[MindForge]

CR is a good guideline. If you want to break it, you can. You just have to use it as a guideline.

The best way to keep players on their toes is not through judging CR though. Create templates that have crazy changes and powers like;

Steelborn (NPC Power, +1 CR): This power grants fast heal 1/- for 3 rounds after steel touches the flesh. Also, steel and other metal objects have no effect. Magical wood weapons deal 50% more damage.

Really fast changes like this can really tip the balance of an encounter and I just use my CR change as a note so that if I wanted to stack a couple of my 'house powers' I can. and still keep it within a challenge but not a stomping.

Also, you know your group (usually) and that is probably the best tool you have. Don't throw an even CR group of Undead at a group with 3 clerics. You need to add a little power to the undead group. Challenge Ratings are good because when used as a general guideline they let you quickly assess the strength of your creature and compare it quickly to the group. It is just a tool to aid your encounter decisions.

[stormwell55]

That would explain alot, means the party would have gotten ALOT more xp and levelled from the first fight.

The section on CRs wasn't clear enough in the DMG and so I can see where I went wrong, I'll regen the bad guys then...though I've got tough buggers to throw at 'em later. ;)

[dragonfire]

According the DMG 3.5, An NPC with a PC class has a CR equal to the NPC's level. Example, An 8th level sorcerer is an 8th level encounter. As a rule of thumb, doubling the number of foes adds 2 to the Encounter Level. Therefore, two 8th level fighter arean EL 10 encounter. There is more to this, info can be found in the DMG 3.5 page 37

[MindForge]

Yup, and an NPC with NPC classes has a CR equal it its level minus one, I believe. Been a long time since I actually opened the DMG though.

[xaotik1]

Seems off to me. A single level 10 npc shouldn't challenge an entire party of lv 9 characters. The cr of a creature is supposed to represent a challenge for an equally leveled party. IE a lv 10 party should be challenged by a cr 10 creature all by itself. Death should be a possibility, though not guaranteed by any means.

I've always hated the CR system. It is entirely too fluid to suit my needs. I almost never rely on it to be even remotely accurate. A rough guideline for me is to add up all the character levels and match it in HD using npc/monsters. A 4th level party of 4 should face a good challenge when forced to confront 16hd worth of creatures. An even battle. No creature should be more than 2-3hd stronger than the party members, though that is just a guideline. I typically stick with one creature above their level, a lieutenant just under their level, and a number of smaller creatures to fill out the ranks.

[Niko_Kaze]

I seem to remember that most things have a Challenge rating AFTER splatbooks of LVL (or HD) - 3. This is a little confusing for many DM's because they assume a Challenge rating is per character (i.e. a character of level equal to the challenge rating should win). This is not true, the challenge rating is for 4 PC's of that level and should take 20% of the parties resources (spells, hp, uses per day) to defeat. This means that the fifth such encounter should start resulting in PC deaths. Also as the PC's gain levels they should face more lower challenge rating encounter as there should be fewer things of their level (statistics of the world, if most everything is under 10th level as normal). This also makes sense from the design/DM point of view because there are more instant kill powers at higher level and you don't want PC death to be an everyday thing normally.