CR/EL System View

[el-remmen]

I have never bothered to figure out an EL - and would not even know where to begin (nor care to).

I use monster CRs as a guideline to determine the difficulty of an encounter.

 

[jollyninja]

I don't even use XP, My PC's level by achieving plot points and character goals.

 

[Mark CMG]

Strictly in design, more art than science in application at the table.

 

[helium3]

the DMs who play the strange game of exploiting the (crappy to begin with) CR design guildelines to make custom monsters overpowered for their CR

It's odd. I've found that a half-way competent group of adventurers can usually beat the snot out of any monster of the appropriate EL using the CR guidelines. Unless of course the entire party consists of warlock/bard type multi-class characters.

Thus, advancing some monsters with the intent of making them more difficult than they should be is critical if you want to keep your combat encounters fresh and challenging.

I think the CR system is just fine and have had zero problems with following it to the letter.

 

[mmu1]

It's odd. I've found that a half-way competent group of adventurers can usually beat the snot out of any monster of the appropriate EL using the CR guidelines. Unless of course the entire party consists of warlock/bard type multi-class characters.

Thus, advancing some monsters with the intent of making them more difficult than they should be is critical if you want to keep your combat encounters fresh and challenging.

I think the CR system is just fine and have had zero problems with following it to the letter.

What do you mean by "appropriate EL using the CR guidelines"? Appropriate for what kind of encounter - easy, standard, challenging, deadly? Encounters with an EL equal to or slightly higher than the average party level are supposed to be relatively easy, that's part of the design... For challenging encounters, you're supposed to use ELs 2-3 points higher than the party level.

Also, if you're modifying monsters to make them "more difficult than they should be", how is that "following it to the letter"? You're actually contradicting yourself...

 

[Bad Paper]

Considering how much I fudge the rules and rolls in combat, the strictness of the system is a welcome relief.

 

[Arnwyn]

I have never bothered to figure out an EL - and would not even know where to begin (nor care to).

I use monster CRs as a guideline to determine the difficulty of an encounter.

Well, you're doing it correctly regardless!

EL is just the result of combining multiple CRs (though I know you said you didn't care!).

 

[MerricB]

Although it's more a guideline than a strict rule, I think it's one of the most useful things in 3e D&D. Sure, you can break it, but the values are very, very close to true most of the time.

Cheers!

 

[jdrakeh]

The DMG itself does not present the CR/EL system as something someone would "have to adhere to" in a strict rules sense. There are no hard rules with the CR/EL system, just suggestions.

Yep. That said, there's a very common bit of hyperbole along the lines of "The EL for a given encounter must be exactly equal to the TPL!" that shows up on the forums. I see this come up a lot when people complain about there being "too much balance" in D&D 3x. Usually it's prefaced with a statement like "I want to throw a CR 30 Dragon up against my Level 1 party, and the rules say I can't do that!" -- when the rules don't say that at all.

Granted, the rules do clue in players that such an encounter is totally unfair and that the DM in question is being a total by deliberately setting up an encounter that the PCs in question have about a .001% chance of surviving, but that's not really a rules issue. "I want to rape my party royally, but the rules make it hard for me to do that and disown any responsibility for being an !" is a Viking Hat DM issue.

 

[mmu1]

Although it's more a guideline than a strict rule, I think it's one of the most useful things in 3e D&D. Sure, you can break it, but the values are very, very close to true most of the time.

Cheers!

Was there ever anything made by WotC that you actually didn't like without question? (Sorry, sorry... But, man, it seems like your response to any criticism of something D&D related is "What are you talking about? It's perfect!" It's enough to start believing Jack Chick isn't a complete lunatic. )

The CRs are more often wrong than not. They're wrong for all PC and NPC characters (either that, or they're wrong for everything else, since character and monster CRs don't match up), they're wrong for nearly all dragons, they're clearly wrong when you compare monsters from the original Monster Manual to ones from MM2 or MM3 that supposedly have the same CR, and once you get to CRs higher than 20, they might as well be pulled out of a hat. And that's just the really big obvious ones (without even getting into side stuff like Monsters of Faerun), many of the other ones are far less egregious, but still off.