On Thu, 1 Feb 2007, Mary K. Kuhner wrote:
> In article <Pine.LNX.4.61.0702010834240.14326@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> Gary Johnson <zzjohnsg@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>> 1. Any creature of CR X should defeat a character of level X - the rule
>> of thumb for CR is that it's a 4-on-1 fight in favour of the PCs, so
>> you add 4 to the EL if it's a 1-on-1 fight. In other words, the leonal
>> may be an appropriate 1-on-1 fight for a single 16th level character,
>> because the EL for the leonal is then 12 (for CR) + 4 = 16.
>
> I think you are mistaken.
I'll try to clarify my logic, then. A creature of CR X is supposed to be
an "appropriate combat" (using up approximately 25% of resources) for 4
PCs of level X, because 4 PCs of level X have an EL of X+4, just as 4
creatures of CR X have an EL of X+4.
As such, your side's EL should be 4 greater than the EL of the other side
to have an "appropriate combat" that uses roughly the right amount of your
side's resources. When you have fewer (or more) PCs than the "magic
number" of 4, your side's EL changes, and as a result the EL of a single
opponent stops being the same as the creature's CR. For example, if you
have 3 10th level PCs in your party, a CR 10 opponent is effectively EL
11; if you have 2 PCs, a CR 10 opponent is effectively EL 12; if you have
1 PC, a CR 10 opponent is effectively EL 14. In part, the increase in
effective EL represents factors like the party's reduced capacity to
absorb individual bad luck - losing one PC has a much bigger impact on
team resources when there's only two PCs than when there's four PCs, for
example. It also represents the increased likelihood that the party won't
have access to a useful ability, spell, or skill, and will thus have to
do things "the hard way".
Conversely, when you have more than 4 PCs, the EL notionally goes below
the CR, because a larger group is more likely to have someone with the
right tool for the job, is more able to absorb the impact of having one or
two PCs taken out of the equation for the combat, and so on. However, this
is generally a much riskier approach for a DM to take when preparing
encounters because of the way character power in D&D goes up in large
increments. For example, having access to spells of a particular level can
make a huge difference to how easy or hard an encounter is, so it can
mattter a lot whether the wizard or cleric PC is 6th or 7th character
level.
Now, CR and EL are all rubbery numbers anyway, because EL is an
approximate measure of likely challenge/risk/resource consumption,
assuming average die rolls, similar tactical skill, and so on. As I think
the 3.5 DMG says somewhere, it's recommended that the DM always eyeball
what the opponent does compared to what the PCs do to work out if the EL
accurately represents the desired level of challenge (which the leonal
clearly didn't for your party). CR and EL are supposed to be reliable
proxies for most groups in most situations, but there's lots of potential
for corner cases and other exceptions.
To give an example from the MM of an exception, the hezrou is a CR 11
demon. In theory, that makes it a good "boss" encounter for a party of 4
8th level characters, because the EL is 3 above the average party level
(APL+3) - challenging, but not overwhelming. However, one of the hezrou's
spell-like abilities is blasphemy (no save, SR only) at caster level 13,
so if it gets to use the ability the hezrou paralyses the 8th level
characters for 1 to 10 minutes - more than enough time to coup de grace
everyone. :-(
> The rules are very clear that a PC-class character of level X is a
> creature with CRX. A 6th level human fighter or cleric is CR6 (this is
> completely consistent throughout _SCAP_ and _Worms_, for example). Your
> argument would make a single 6th level PC-class character a CR2, and I
> have never seen one labelled that way.
That's because the scenarios are written for a group of 4 PCs, not a solo
PC - scenarios written for a solo PC should/would lower the CR of the
creatures encountered so that the EL is still appropriate. To put that
another way, my argument is that a scenario written for a 6th level solo
PC would include a CR 2 opponent and call the EL something around 6.
The caveat ("something around") is because IME CRs and ELs seem to be less
reliable when the CR is (a) significantly lower than the EL and (b) a
low-level character. For example, 4 2nd level fighters are an EL 6
encounter, but I'm confident they wouldn't use 25% of the resources of
most 4 person 6th level party, and depending on the PC may not use 25% of
the resources of a single 6th level character. A 6th level wizard could
drop them all with one fireball, while a 6th level fighter could drop them
all with power attack and great cleave. My experience of playing solo
scenarios is that the big risk to the solo PC is the "save or go down"
effects - which means a 3rd level cleric with hold person is much more
dangerous to most 7th level character than a 3rd level rogue.
> My experience is that a PC party which is not driven onto its weaknesses
> in some way can readily beat CR=party level, and is desperately
> threatened by CR=party level + 4.
<nods> That's similar to my experience, and probably to most D&D players'
experience. EL+4 is the "fifty-fifty" point of the EL spectrum, where the
odds that your side will win are just as good as the odds your side will
lose.
> The rest of your post--I'm not basing my statement that the creature is
> mis-CR'ed on the outcome of the fight. Obviously it could have gone
> differently; high level combat is chancy and circumstantial. But you
> can look at the AC, hp, spell-like abilities and so forth and see that
> the good outsiders are not built on the same scale as other creatures of
> their CR.
Sorry, Mary, but I'm honestly not convinced that's always the case when
comparing the good outsiders with the evil outsiders. For example, the
glabrezu and the ice devil are both CR 13 and seem roughly similar to the
CR 12 leonal and the CR 14 astral deva in terms of attack, AC, and
versatility. My impression is the major "cheese" for the good outsiders is
the "cast spells like a cleric" abilities of the top-enders (planetars,
solars, trumpet archons, titans), which gives them tremendous versatility
when compared to the top-end evil outsiders (mariliths, balors, pit
fiends). The low and mid range good outsiders don't seem to me
particularly out of balance with comparable evil outsiders - but YMMV.
> I'm fairly content with the explanation for that which was proposed a
> few posts back. Saddened--I think it's an unnecessary flaw in the
> system--but at least it makes sense.
<nods> It makes sense to me as well.
Cheers,
Gary Johnson
--
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