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WarKitty
2010-04-12, 10:45 AM
What would be the challenge rating for a pc/dmpc of, say, level 12. I'm trying to decide what level NPC to put my party of 5 level 7 adventurers against. The challenges are supposed to be:

(1) 2 fighters at the entrance. This should be a fairly easy fight.
(2) Various clerics patrolling the maze, encountered singly. Should be also fairly easy but not complete pushovers.
(3) A thaumatergist with his summoned planar ally. This is the boss monster.

pffh
2010-04-12, 10:48 AM
ECL = CR

So a level 12 would be a CR 12.

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-12, 10:48 AM
What would be the challenge rating for a pc/dmpc of, say, level 12. I'm trying to decide what level NPC to put my party of 5 level 7 adventurers against. The challenges are supposed to be:

(1) 2 fighters at the entrance. This should be a fairly easy fight.
(2) Various clerics patrolling the maze, encountered singly. Should be also fairly easy but not complete pushovers.
(3) A thaumatergist with his summoned planar ally. This is the boss monster.

An ECL 12 character is CR 12, typically, barring races that have a different CR than LA (half dragon, for instance).

Serpentine
2010-04-12, 10:49 AM
I recommend this resource (http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20encountercalculator.htm).
From it, your (I think) example of 1 12lvl NPC vs. 5 x 7lvl characters is EL 12, Overpowering difficulty (note that this is assuming that a 12th level character is CR 12, which I suspect it isn't actually). 1 lvl 8 = Very Difficult, but 1 lvl 7 = Easy, unfortunately.

WarKitty
2010-04-12, 10:54 AM
I recommend this resource (http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20encountercalculator.htm).
From it, your (I think) example of 1 12lvl NPC vs. 5 x 7lvl characters is EL 12, Overpowering difficulty (note that this is assuming that a 12th level character is CR 12, which I suspect it isn't actually). 1 lvl 8 = Very Difficult, but 1 lvl 7 = Easy, unfortunately.

Yeah that's what I was using...it's not giving me results that make sense though. 2 lvl 7 NPC's is a very difficult encounter, and it goes up to overpowering at level 10, when I know that a well-rounded party can wipe the floor with 2 fighters of an equivalent level, especially once the casters get involved.

*scratches head*

PhoenixRivers
2010-04-12, 10:56 AM
Yeah that's what I was using...it's not giving me results that make sense though. 2 lvl 7 NPC's is a very difficult encounter, and it goes up to overpowering at level 10, when I know that a well-rounded party can wipe the floor with 2 fighters of an equivalent level, especially once the casters get involved.

*scratches head*

Emphasis mine, for why this isn't a surprise.

BRC
2010-04-12, 11:05 AM
Yeah that's what I was using...it's not giving me results that make sense though. 2 lvl 7 NPC's is a very difficult encounter, and it goes up to overpowering at level 10, when I know that a well-rounded party can wipe the floor with 2 fighters of an equivalent level, especially once the casters get involved.

*scratches head*
That's because the CR system was designed by a mad monk named Filgreius who gazed into the face of insanity itself, breaking his mind and causing him to think in eight and a half dimensions. At this point, he said
"Hey, I have an idea for determining encounter difficulties."


But really, the CR system is not based around a fair fight. A fair fight is 4 CR 4's vs 4 ECL 4's. A "Balanced" encounter is 1 CR4 vs 4 ECL 4's.

The CR system is based around an encounter the PC's will find challenging and spend resources on without much chance of actually losing.

TheCountAlucard
2010-04-12, 11:05 AM
Emphasis mine, for why this isn't a surprise.Nah, it's quite literally because the encounter calculator has no middle ground between "easy" and "very difficult," since it's based off the Dungeon Master's Guide, which doesn't have it either.

Zeta Kai
2010-04-12, 11:17 AM
But really, the CR system is not based around a fair fight. A fair fight is 4 CR 4's vs 4 ECL 4's. A "Balanced" encounter is 1 CR4 vs 4 ECL 4's.

The CR system is based around an encounter the PC's will find challenging and spend resources on without much chance of actually losing.

Actually, it is based on a fair fight. A creature with a CR of X versus another creature with the same CR has a 50% chance of winning. That's fair. The CR system is balanced so that a party of 4 characters facing off against another party of 4 characters with the same individual ECLs has a 50% chance of winning a fight, using 100% of their resources. Of course, that would be one tough fight, & just as likely as not to end in a TPK, so you usually just end up fighting just one such creature at a time, which would eat up just 25% of the resources of such a party.

That's the CR system in a nutshell. The problem, of course, is that this system assumes that all character classes are created equal. This isn't even true for a blaster-wizard versus a sword-&-board fighter of equal level, so when the casters start casting intelligently (IE using battlefield control tactics), then your fighters are "fairly" screwed.

WarKitty
2010-04-12, 11:26 AM
Anyways...advice would be greatly appreciated! The fighters will fight to the death; the clerics will attempt to beat the party up a bit, chuck up some roadblocks, and teleport out.

BRC
2010-04-12, 11:26 AM
Actually, it is based on a fair fight. A creature with a CR of X versus another creature with the same CR has a 50% chance of winning. That's fair. The CR system is balanced so that a party of 4 characters facing off against another party of 4 characters with the same individual ECLs has a 50% chance of winning a fight, using 100% of their resources. Of course, that would be one tough fight, & just as likely as not to end in a TPK, so you usually just end up fighting just one such creature at a time, which would eat up just 25% of the resources of such a party.

That's the CR system in a nutshell. The problem, of course, is that this system assumes that all character classes are created equal. This isn't even true for a blaster-wizard versus a sword-&-board fighter of equal level, so when the casters start casting intelligently (IE using battlefield control tactics), then your fighters are "fairly" screwed.
But the terms used don't call 4 CR 4's vs 4 ECL 4's a balanced encounter, but as a "Very Difficult" encounter. This is because the system isn't designed for battles where there is a 50% chance of either side winning, it's designed for encounters where the PC's will win having expended some resources.

RagnaroksChosen
2010-04-12, 12:09 PM
I always thought a cr 4 for a fair fight would require 4 ecl 4 PC's for a "balanced fight"

Eldariel
2010-04-12, 01:22 PM
I always thought a cr 4 for a fair fight would require 4 ecl 4 PC's for a "balanced fight"

Don't think, Mech Warrior, find out.

RagnaroksChosen
2010-04-12, 01:24 PM
Don't think, Mech Warrior, find out.

O i know when i run its not like that. I'm just saying that i thought the theory was that a cr 4 encounter should be an even fight for 4 ECL 4 characters.

I know that in practice that doesn't work.

Superglucose
2010-04-12, 01:35 PM
Nah, it's quite literally because the encounter calculator has no middle ground between "easy" and "very difficult," since it's based off the Dungeon Master's Guide, which doesn't have it either.
No. It's quite literally because the fundamental assumption behind the very concept of "CR = PC class levels" is that all PC classes are build equally. Would you rather face off against a 20th monk or a 20th wizard? A 13 wizard can take on a 20th fighter and win pretty much of the time (was extensively tested on these boards), despite the fact that this is "party level 9 vs CR 20 encounter: unbeatable."

A party of 13 wizard, 13 cleric, 13 druid, and 13 bard is much better than a party of 13 fighter, 13 monk, 13 paladin, 13 rogue. Yet both of them accrue the same experience when killing a party of 4 ECL 9 characters (which is a CR 13 encounter). But I submit that 9 wizard, 9 cleric, 9 druid, and 9 bard is an overpowering encounter for the fighter/monk/paladin/rogue party.

Then you get fun things like Planetars, which are basically 17th level clerics on steroids but are CR 16.

CR system is wacked and that's before we even discuss that damn crab.

Noodles2375
2010-04-12, 01:38 PM
I always thought a cr 4 for a fair fight would require 4 ecl 4 PC's for a "balanced fight"

No, the encounter level/CR system is balanced with respect to: 4 ECl PC's should be able to take on about 4 CR/EL 4 encounters every day. It isn't based on "what is a fair fight?" but rather "what is a fight that will force the PC's to commit 15-30% of their daily resources to overcome?"

Your mileage will, of course, vary. Highly optimized PC's, poorly played monsters, ridiculous casters on one team but not the other can all skew the appropriateness of an encounter so that the team no longer uses an appropriate number of resources.