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DonEsteban
2010-09-03, 07:40 AM
Hi playgrounders,

are there any lists of creatures whose CR rating is commonly regarded either too high or too low? Or creatures who can be considerably stronger or weaker based on other circumstances such as terrain?


Edit: Here's an ongoing list of creatures mentioned. I didn't verify...

Under-CRed:
Just about anything (MM2)
Aboleth (MM)
Adamantine Horror (MM2)
Allip (MM)
Beholder (MM)
Catoblepas (MM2)
Clockwork Horror (MM2)
Dire Ape (MM)
Many dire wolves (MM)
Dracotaur? (MM3)
Drowned (MM3)
Dragons (MM et al.)
Elemental Weird (MM2)
Fleshraker (MM3)
Forest Sloth (MM2)
Hobgoblin Warsoul (MM5)
Ibrandlin (MoF)
Immoth (MM2)
Low-level swarms (MM et al.)
That damned crab (Web (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20040221a))
Orc (MM)
Planetar (and other good outsiders, MM)
Remorhaz (MM)
Vorr? (FF)

Over-CRed:
Azer (MM)
Grick (MM)
Mephits (MM)
Ogre Mage? (MM)
Treant (MM)

hamishspence
2010-09-03, 08:26 AM
The Adamantine Horror in MM2 is famously overpowered for its CR.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-03, 08:38 AM
Obviously, there's that damned crab.

A generic MM Orc is under CRed. It's 1/2 cr, yet is better than many CR 1s.

Very low level swarms might be under CRed, on the basis that they're harder than usual for parties to deal with early on. This goes away quickly, though.

Likewise, Dire Ape is kind of a blender for melee types at CR2. Not horrible, but probably could be boosted to 3 legitimately.

jiriku
2010-09-03, 09:14 AM
Hobgoblin Warsoul from MMV is my personal favorite. At CR 8 it casts as a 9th-level wizard, has 10 monstrous humanoid hit dice, +20 in racial ability bonuses AND the elite array, plus useful spell-like abilities and built-in minions. This is so much better than a CR 8 8th-level wizard that it's kind of silly.

jmbrown
2010-09-03, 09:26 AM
Step 1: Crack open MM2
Step 2: Point to any page
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!

Clockwork Horror? A CR9 creature who can cast disintegrate, implosion (level 9 spell), and disjunction (another level 9 spell), save DC 15+ spell level AT WILL.

Seriously, who sat down and said "Yes, this is a decent challenge for a party of 9th level characters!" The supreme munchkin players among munchkins?

Really, any creature in MM2. Catoblepas? A CR6 huge monster that fire a save or die death ray every 1-4 rounds.

ExtravagantEvil
2010-09-03, 09:28 AM
Isn't aboleth also apart of this agregation?

Eldariel
2010-09-03, 09:56 AM
Yeah, That Damn Crab (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20040221a) is the posterchild; you aren't beating it without either an extremely überoptimized party, or characters specifically built to beat it (or luck in having said characters in normal game).

Fleshraker [MM3] is pretty bad (also broken animal companion/wildshape form for Druids who weren't good enough) & just about every Dragon, Beholder and good Outsider is either par de course or insanely overpowered, depending on whether you consider all the other monsters over-CRd or not.

hamishspence
2010-09-03, 10:22 AM
Step 1: Crack open MM2
Step 2: Point to any page
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!

Clockwork Horror? A CR9 creature who can cast disintegrate, implosion (level 9 spell), and disjunction (another level 9 spell), save DC 15+ spell level AT WILL.

Seriously, who sat down and said "Yes, this is a decent challenge for a party of 9th level characters!" The supreme munchkin players among munchkins?

I mentioned this:

The Adamantine Horror in MM2 is famously overpowered for its CR.

The other Clockwork Horrors aren't so bad.

Another source for unbalanced monsters: Monsters of Faerun. The Ibrandlin- a Gargantuan wingless dragon, has a very low CR (something like CR ?)

Milskidasith
2010-09-03, 10:26 AM
Revived Fossil Baboon is pretty OP for CR 1; DR 10/adamantine, a decent AC, decent damage (multiple natural attacks with damage bonuses), and 28 HP. Besides being stupidly vulnerable to turning, it's pretty much unbeatable for a level 1 party.

Zore
2010-09-03, 10:41 AM
Allips are pretty bad, CR 3 they are incorporeal and have a decent flight speed and can drain wisdom with touch attacks. Most parties shouldn't have extraordinary trouble with it, but they do have an Int of 11 which means a lot of popping in and out of the environment. A few good rolls can cripple a low level party, especially since the melee'rs are going to be having significant trouble hitting it even with magical weapons.

Eldariel
2010-09-03, 10:53 AM
Allips are pretty bad, CR 3 they are incorporeal and have a decent flight speed and can drain wisdom with touch attacks. Most parties shouldn't have extraordinary trouble with it, but they do have an Int of 11 which means a lot of popping in and out of the environment. A few good rolls can cripple a low level party, especially since the melee'rs are going to be having significant trouble hitting it even with magical weapons.

Uhm, "most parties wouldn't have trouble with it"? It's a supposedly alright challenge for level 1 party; you'll have a hard time finding a level 1 party that could deal with it at all. Turning it is a fool's errand and Wisdom Drain tends to disable the (typically low Touch AC) Divine Caster real fast. And it sorta heals with each hit and has 26 HP. And that's without even accounting for its Babble which means the guy who could deal the damage is likely disabled.

They don't kill particularly fast but they're extremely durable (hard to hit, hard to damage, "regenerates" damage and turning is useless as it just runs through walls then until it wears off; and that's against an effective 6 HD monster), hard to affect and have a reliable, hard-to-resist attack.


Lesser evil, but still insanely tough monster for its CR, is Shadow. Incorporeals in general hurt but Allip, having Intelligence, is particularly obnoxious attacking from within walls, Babbling and just wreaking havoc.

DonEsteban
2010-09-03, 12:27 PM
Thanks for your advice. So it seems nobody has compiled a well-thought-out "Dungeon Masters Beware!" list so far.

I'll file that incredible crab under "typo"! :smallwink: It got corrected in Stormwrack, too...

I think I remember someone mentioning Ogre Mage in this category...

Zaydos
2010-09-03, 12:39 PM
Thanks for your advice. So it seems nobody has compiled a well-thought-out "Dungeon Masters Beware!" list so far.

I'll file that incredible crab under "typo"! :smallwink: It got corrected in Stormwrack, too...

I think I remember someone mentioning Ogre Mage in this category...

Well ogre mage is one of the few creatures I've killed a PC with... but that had more to do with the character being woefully under-optimized and rushing into a melee with several enemies at once (that and a max damage critical hit). I haven't really found them all that powerful.

Saph
2010-09-03, 12:40 PM
I think I remember someone mentioning Ogre Mage in this category...

Ogre Mage is in the "over-CRed" category. It has some handy abilities, but it's far too fragile for CR 8.

Our 9th-level party fought one in our Seven Kingdoms campaign. The ogre mage got a surprise round on us and hit us with its most powerful AoE attack from behind. It died before it got to take another action.

Ernir
2010-09-03, 12:42 PM
Fleshrakers (MM3) are CR 2. They are not extraordinarily tough to kill, but with something that has four natural attacks (three of them poisonous), the hide skill to get a surprise round most of the time, and a special attack that gives them a full attack + rend + trip + grapple on every charge, you better be damn quick about it if you don't want the dino to live up to its name.

Douglas
2010-09-03, 12:49 PM
The Immoth from MM2 is horrendously under-CRed. It is strictly more powerful by a substantial margin than a normal level 12 Sorcerer (which would have a well-deserved CR 12), yet its CR is 9.

Optimator
2010-09-03, 01:49 PM
I remember Dracotaurs (sp?) being pretty damned dangerous for their CR.

Mystic Muse
2010-09-03, 01:59 PM
There's a monster in the MM2 I believe called the Linnorm. CR 13 and casts as a 17th level cleric. Not sure if this is as bad as it seems to me but that sounds like inappropriate CR.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-03, 02:02 PM
Generally speaking, any monster with offensive SLAs or casting well in excess of their character level is inappropriately CRed.

I'd agree on the Linnorm

Flickerdart
2010-09-03, 02:03 PM
Elemental Weirds are CR12 and have 18th level Sorcerer spellcasting. Yep.

Volthawk
2010-09-03, 02:03 PM
There's a monster in the MM2 I believe called the Linnorm. CR 13 and casts as a 17th level cleric. Not sure if this is as bad as it seems to me but that sounds like inappropriate CR.

Um, the Linnorms I see are CR 20, 25 and 28.

Mystic Muse
2010-09-03, 02:04 PM
Um, the Linnorms I see are CR 20, 25 and 28.

Huh. Maybe I was thinking of Hit dice?

Volthawk
2010-09-03, 02:05 PM
Huh. Maybe I was thinking of Hit dice?

Yeah. Gray Linnorms have 13HD.

Mystic Muse
2010-09-03, 02:06 PM
Yeah. Gray Linnorms have 13HD.

Ah. Never mind then.

Cuaqchi
2010-09-03, 02:10 PM
Away from my books but Remorhaz can be really nasty. Swallow whole (~8d6/round), weapon destruction, burrowing, all at about CR7-8.

Toliudar
2010-09-03, 02:49 PM
On the other side of the equation, I'd say that Azer, Gricks, Mephits, and Treants are probably overrated by at least 1.

hamishspence
2010-09-03, 02:53 PM
Elemental Weirds are CR12 and have 18th level Sorcerer spellcasting. Yep.

Worse- their regeneration does not specify what overcomes it. The 3.5 update didn't say, either. So RAW, they are like the Tarrasque- super-regenerators.

The two Weirds in Frostburn at least specified that their regeneration could be overcome by something.

arguskos
2010-09-03, 02:58 PM
Voors. DAMMIT VOORS!! *shakes fist in impotent rage* From MM4 comes the Voor, a monster that pretty much defines "Glass Cannon". It has a crapload of attacks (6 total, 4 of which are 20 ft reach each of which does 1d6+6 on a +10 atk, the other 2 are 10 ft that deal 1d6+3 on a +8), has DR 5/good, has SR 15, is immune to fire and acid and resistant to cold/electric 10, has a Climb speed, has blindsense 120 ft, rends for a bunch of damage, and has Combat Reflexes. The issue? It has 37 hp.

CR? FOUR. :smallmad:

Draz74
2010-09-03, 03:00 PM
Good Outsiders in general already got a mention, but the Planetar in particular has always just made me laugh with how under-CR'ed it is.

Let's take a Cleric 17, make him Large, give him good DR and SR and resistances, regeneration, shapechanging, nice stat boosts, a buttload of extra skillpoints, and a large array of useful SLAs ... and call it CR 16. What? :smallconfused:

... And here I was, thinking Cleric was a pretty strong class ... but apparently not ...

thubby
2010-09-03, 03:11 PM
direwolves are a good fight when they're alone, but their CR doesnt rise as much as the actual difficulty in killing a group of them because they pretty much always trip whatever they hit.

Axinian
2010-09-03, 03:11 PM
I like MM2 despite it's CR problems. Which is why I decided to send a forest sloth against the party the other day.... That creature is horrendously over CRed
Maybe its the party, but it took at least three of them to challenge the players at all, and there were only three players.

Ashiel
2010-09-03, 03:33 PM
Drowned from the MM3 is horrible. It's a 20HD undead with 150 hit points (adds its charisma bonus to HP instead of Constitution, in Pathfinder this is normal but you're also vulnerable to stuff like critical hits; in 3.5 this is amazing). It has has two slam attacks for +12 / 1d8+12 (with the option to subtract up to 5 points from damage to add up to 5 points to attack since Power Attack was pre-factored into its attack routine), a 30ft land and swim speed, and fast healing 5. Finally, to top it all off, anyone within 30ft of them is treated as being underwater whether they are or not and must make a DC constitution check each round to avoid drowning; meaning that it's surprisingly easy for half the party or more drop dead in the first round without the Drowned doing anything.

And for extra giggles; they have an enviroment of Any; so you could end up running into one of these in a desert. The only way to protect against their drowning aura is to have a +9 Con modifier or breath water.

CR 8. Suuuuure.

Dilb
2010-09-03, 04:17 PM
Good Outsiders in general already got a mention, but the Planetar in particular has always just made me laugh with how under-CR'ed it is.

Let's take a Cleric 17, make him Large, give him good DR and SR and resistances, regeneration, shapechanging, nice stat boosts, a buttload of extra skillpoints, and a large array of useful SLAs ... and call it CR 16. What? :smallconfused:

... And here I was, thinking Cleric was a pretty strong class ... but apparently not ...

Isn't it based on the planetar not having any equipment, except the sword? Most of their SLAs are spells they could cast anyway. The stat boosts are nice, but it's only at 23 wisdom, and there's only so much use a cleric gets out of good dex or int.

arguskos
2010-09-03, 04:20 PM
Isn't it based on the planetar not having any equipment, except the sword? Most of their SLAs are spells they could cast anyway. The stat boosts are nice, but it's only at 23 wisdom, and there's only so much use a cleric gets out of good dex or int.
It's a Cleric 17 at a CR lower than 17. By reason, it should be at least a CR 18 (Cleric 17+an amazing race+special powers>CR 16). There really isn't any justification for it NOT being over CR 17, minimum.

Eldariel
2010-09-03, 04:20 PM
And for extra giggles; they have an enviroment of Any; so you could end up running into one of these in a desert. The only way to protect against their drowning aura is to have a +9 Con modifier or breath water.

And the DC goes up each turn so +9 Con mod doesn't even protect you for very long... I...don't particularly care for those things.

Zaydos
2010-09-03, 04:21 PM
Planetars do have less HD than clerics too, but even so they shouldn't be lower CR than an NPC cleric (which assumes 15 as their highest starting stat and really bad equipment).

Saph
2010-09-03, 04:26 PM
And the DC goes up each turn so +9 Con mod doesn't even protect you for very long...

Unless you have the Endurance feat! Yes, there's actually a situation in which it's useful! :smalltongue:

liquid150
2010-09-03, 04:32 PM
The MM2 was written by locking drunken blindfolding monkeys in a room with darts and pages with monster pictures, numbers, abilities, and spell-likes. The authors took notes on which monkey hit which page, and built the monsters accordingly.

The CRs given to monsters are absolutely random with no thought behind them. Many are too high, many are too low. Almost none of them make any sense whatsoever.

arguskos
2010-09-03, 04:33 PM
The MM2 was written by locking drunken blindfolding monkeys in a room with darts and pages with monster pictures, numbers, abilities, and spell-likes. The authors took notes on which monkey hit which page, and built the monsters accordingly.
You assume there were AUTHORS, sir. I think you are mistaken.

Zaydos
2010-09-03, 04:34 PM
The MM2 was written by locking drunken blindfolding monkeys in a room with darts and pages with monster pictures, numbers, abilities, and spell-likes. The authors took notes on which monkey hit which page, and built the monsters accordingly.

The CRs given to monsters are absolutely random with no thought behind them. Many are too high, many are too low. Almost none of them make any sense whatsoever.


You assume there were AUTHORS, sir. I think you are mistaken.

Hey give credit where credit is due. Even blindfolded drunk monkeys have better judgment than that, it had to be WotC's writers.

liquid150
2010-09-03, 04:35 PM
You assume there were AUTHORS, sir. I think you are mistaken.

Technically the authors were the monkeys. The humans were actually just interns.

liquid150
2010-09-03, 04:36 PM
{Scrubbed}

Esser-Z
2010-09-03, 04:39 PM
No mention of the Hydra?

Eldariel
2010-09-03, 04:42 PM
No mention of the Hydra?

Hydras aren't that bad. They have a scary alpha strike but are squishy as all hell to spellcasters. They're more of glass cannons than anything

Esser-Z
2010-09-03, 04:43 PM
Fair enough. I'd gathered the idea of them being too strong for the CR over the years, may not be accurate!

Runestar
2010-09-03, 07:20 PM
Just my 2 cents...

1) I believe that classed npcs tend to be horrendously underpowered for their cr, and this disparity only grows as you go higher in lv. No way is a fighter20 comparable to a tarrasque. Perhaps some of you think it is the spellcasting monsters which are too strong, but I arrived at the opposite conclusion by comparing the npcs' stats against said existing monsters.

For example, I believe the designers created the hobgoblin warsoul from scratch, evaluated its stats independently and decided that it was a fair cr8, even with wiz9 casting. From this, we can infer that wiz9 is too weak to justify a cr9. Its "true" cr is likely 8, or perhaps closer to 7, as warsoul is tougher and has a few other special abilities.

This means that with planetars as cr16, it may mean that cleric17s should not be cr17 either. Closer to cr16 perhaps.

2) Likewise, this disparity only grows when you start using non-associated class rules. For instance, a gnoll cleric2 is cr2 by the game designer's own admission, yet superior to a human cleric2 in every aspect! :smalltongue:

3) I think Linnorns are too weak for their cr. They have far too few HD to be a credible threat, and the savage tide adventure module attempts to "re-balance" them as a result. At a glance, I think the gray's cr should be 15-16 (down from 20), dread's cr 17-18 (down from 25), and corpse tearer's cr 19-20 (down from 28).

Note that this assumes you optimize its spellcasting to further augment their stats (for example, start combat with long duration buffs, permanent effects such as extract gift etc).

4) Drowned (MM3) were errata'ed to be cr9, I believe.

5) Fiendish Codex revises the crs of many fiends in MM2 and Fiend Folio.

6) Mountain giant (MM2). Cr should be closer to 16 than 28!

6) As players become more optimized, I am actually holding dragons as the golden standard of what a fair and balanced cr ought to be. This means that when evaluating the cr of other monsters, I will be comparing them against a dragon's stats as a yardstick. :smalltongue:

Eldariel
2010-09-03, 07:31 PM
Just my 2 cents...

1) I believe that classed npcs tend to be horrendously underpowered for their cr, and this disparity only grows as you go higher in lv. No way is a fighter20 comparable to a tarrasque. Perhaps some of you think it is the spellcasting monsters which are too strong, but I arrived at the opposite conclusion by comparing the npcs' stats against said existing monsters.

Actually, I've come to the conclusion that Fighter 20 is stronger than the Tarrasque. It has wealth worth of magic items so it can fly, teleport and so on. Overall, classed NPCs have that advantage over monsters; monsters have treasure which is far lesser. The Tarrasque, on the other hand, is worthless.

Non-Associated Class Level Rules get a bit wonky though because they go up to the HD; that means once the non-associated levels "max out", you're at the same point as an NPC standard race of the same type. In reality, the CR is often 1 higher.


But I definitely disagree with Clr 17 being CR 16; it should be a 50/50 fight for one character against a monster of equal CR (by natural extrapolation of the CR rules) and that would suggest that you'd expect a single Clr 16 to be an even match to Clr 17, which obviously isn't true since Clr 17 has 9th level spells and Shapechange/Gate/Astral Projection/Miracles the fight into oblivion without breaking a sweat. The fact that PC Clr 16 has larger wealth doesn't even begin to compensate for that, unless he just scrolls all the spells (and they're still worse), which isn't sustainable, something the CR guidelines expect.

RebelRogue
2010-09-03, 07:36 PM
Single classed monks.

Runestar
2010-09-03, 07:38 PM
Actually, I've come to the conclusion that Fighter 20 is stronger than the Tarrasque. It has wealth worth of magic items so it can fly, teleport and so on.

Well, if you want flying teleporting fighters, there are still the balor, pit fiend and wyrm black dragon. Basically, I find that at higher lvs, npcs tend to be screwed over by the low wealth guidelines (which they are heavily dependent on for boosting their stats).

This reminds me, I also find the balor and pit fiend a tad weak for their cr. :smalltongue:

Flickerdart
2010-09-03, 11:06 PM
WotC seems to be really bad at balancing different parts of monsters with each other. Take, for example, the Ooze Drake. It has a +23 to hit with its bite. It has 21 AC. They might as well have put "AC: no" and "to-hit: yes" on it.

Zaydos
2010-09-03, 11:12 PM
WotC seems to be really bad at balancing different parts of monsters with each other. Take, for example, the Ooze Drake. It has a +23 to hit with its bite. It has 21 AC. They might as well have put "AC: no" and "to-hit: yes" on it.

According to the 3.5 MM 21 AC is about what a CR 8 monster should have (assuming average other defenses and offenses)... its attack bonus is what a CR 14 monster should have. Notably AC starts out 11 higher than attack but attack catches up at +.5 per level so that at CR 20 a good attack is +32 and a good AC is 33... how many CR 20 creatures follow this?

Eldariel
2010-09-03, 11:38 PM
Well, if you want flying teleporting fighters, there are still the balor, pit fiend and wyrm black dragon. Basically, I find that at higher lvs, npcs tend to be screwed over by the low wealth guidelines (which they are heavily dependent on for boosting their stats).

This reminds me, I also find the balor and pit fiend a tad weak for their cr. :smalltongue:

Meh, of course Fighter is still Fighter; the class is nothing so there are always better options. I have no doubt a decently played Wizard 20 is easily worth the CR20 tag, though. But that again really comes down to wonkiness of class balance. And yeah, Balors and Pit Fiends are a bit poor; no spellcasting at all, low durability and so on; their best part is the pack of spell-likes but while the list isn't bad, it could be better.

Endarire
2010-09-03, 11:53 PM
Monster Manual III 145's Runehound. Only CR3? Ow!

cdrcjsn
2010-09-03, 11:57 PM
I think Elementals are both underpowered (the smaller ones) and overpowered (elders) for their CRs.

An Air elemental in tornado form can pick up people and fly hundreds of feet up into the air, which can be problematic for people not equipped to deal with it.

Runestar
2010-09-04, 01:15 AM
I have no doubt a decently played Wizard 20 is easily worth the CR20 tag, though.

Well, that is another problem - you have to really cheese out a high lv wizard to make it worth its cr, considering its low hp, by buffing up to the gills with protection spells, which brings me to another issue of tracking them all.

Alternatively, consider a frost giant wiz15, which is cr17. Much higher than a wiz15, but also less vulnerable, since it easily has triple the hp, as well as better saves/AC/bab. I would compensate by going easy on the buffs, which also makes it easier and less frustrating for the players and me to manage.


WotC seems to be really bad at balancing different parts of monsters with each other.

That's one thing I like, actually. Wotc was not "bound" by predetermined guidelines on what a monster's stats ought to be. You see quite a few examples of monsters ignoring said limits. For example, animals tend to have crap AC, but good attack/hp. This prevents fights from becoming too standardized.

Plus, if a monster's attack rating is so high, you can always funnel some into power attack/expertise, especially if you want to keep AC relevant. :smallsmile:

Also, Grick. Cr3 with only 9hp? Too fragile, even with dr10/magic. Easy fix would be to give it 4 more HD. Raises cr to 4, but also provides it with more hp/bab/saves.

awa
2010-09-04, 11:02 AM
edit misread never mind

Ashiel
2010-09-04, 11:07 AM
4) Drowned (MM3) were errata'ed to be cr9, I believe.


Oh wow, a whole CR+1. :smalltongue:
Silly WotC. :smallredface:

Tyndmyr
2010-09-04, 11:16 AM
It might be reasonable without the drowning aura. Remove that, and it's tough for CR 9, but not ridiculously so.

Of course, Wizards has always been terrible about evaluating the benefit of abilities compared to stats.

DonEsteban
2010-09-04, 12:19 PM
But I definitely disagree with Clr 17 being CR 16; it should be a 50/50 fight for one character against a monster of equal CR (by natural extrapolation of the CR rules)
I can't agree with that. According to the DMG one CR x creature is a good (other words used are "moderate" or "challenging") encounter for four characters (presumably a class mix) of level x. The only quantitative guideline given is that a group should spend about 20% of their resources and "therefore" be expected to handle about 4 such encounters before resting.

Now a sequence of four fights, each against one CR x creature, are obviously less of a challenge than one fight against four CR x creatures. And four level x characters against one level x cleric hardly seems like a challenging fight at all! (Except if said cleric has had time to prepare, which is where it all gets pretty foggy anyway.) So there is evidence that a level x character should, in fact, not be a CR x creature -- which, I am fully aware, is in contradiction to Wizards' own rules.

For this and similar reasons I always took "a CR x creature" to roughly mean "a creature slightly more powerful than a level x character".

Eldariel
2010-09-04, 03:51 PM
I can't agree with that. According to the DMG one CR x creature is a good (other words used are "moderate" or "challenging") encounter for four characters (presumably a class mix) of level x. The only quantitative guideline given is that a group should spend about 20% of their resources and "therefore" be expected to handle about 4 such encounters before resting.

CR guidelines state the party should have 50/50 chances against a creature with CRs 4 higher than the party AECL. Now, as CR is doubled for every two creatures, apply the same in inverse to the party; the party is effectively a group 4 ECLs higher than each individual. So if we remove the party, we get a single individual with ECL equal to ECL able to take CR 1/4th of what the whole party would be able to. Ergo, level X character has a 50/50 chances against an EL X encounter using all his resources.

CR X creature isn't really supposed to be a challenge for an AECL X party, 'cause it's 4v1. It should be slightly taxing to resources but there should be no risk of death. And that pretty much applies to all creatures. I find it alright; I simply use higher CR encounters (and if some creature is optimized, well obviously I'll adjust the CR accordingly; though of course I don't shy away from overwhelming encounters).

Zhalath
2010-10-29, 10:19 PM
Of course, Wizards has always been terrible about evaluating the benefit of abilities compared to stats.

Wizards seems to have this idea that people can regularly make DC 15 or DC 20 ability checks. Lemme tell you, unless it's on your primary ability score (and it isn't, caster), you can't.

On the topic of hydrae, I've seen a non-optimized underleveled swordsage take out a hydra himself, with ranged maneuvers. It was entertaining, to say the least.

Also, aren't any monster with CR 27 or higher instantly under-CR'd because of the party having Epic Spellcasting (I hate ELH)?