Re: mechanics of surprise

On Wed, 7 Mar 2007, Mary K. Kuhner wrote:
> Rating difficulty seems to be excruciatingly hard; the published
> material can't do it consistently at all.  (Just hit two nasty examples
> of this, back to back, and it may have killed the campaign.)

Oh, absolutely.  But from what I understand 3.5 does a better, though 
still not perfect, job of it. The d20 Grim Tales Creature Creation system 
(which you can buy as just that chapter and PDF for about $8 from 
www.rpgnow.com) has gotten a lot of good reviews for estimating relative 
power ratings.  I think it uses a slightly different scale but is 
convertable to CR.  I have a copy that I've never used but it looks pretty

good.  It's a bit of work to use, but it might be worth a look for you if 
you plan on using d20/D&D for more things.  It might also help you confirm
your suspicions about bad CRs.

> And the way that difficulty scales with numbers also depends
> critically on the kind of opponent, as my GM found out with the
> harpies.... (Eight harpies at once will beat nearly anything
> that is not completely immune to them, including parties who
> find one or two totally unthreatening.  This is not at all true
> for orcs.)

That problably becomes a big issue with anything that requires saves.
Demand enough saving throws and most of the party will fail one or
more.

John Morrow