survivability and XP question

[big teej]

greetings playgrounders,

my math is terrible, and the CR system has always struck me as slightly off, so I prefer to eyeball my encounters.

so I come to you with 2 questions

1st, survivability

I intend to throw a 2 part combat encounter at my 3rd level party
a hell hound
and then the hell hound again with the bone template

this combat will be back to back (roughly 3 - 10 rounds between killing the hell hound and round 2)

the party consists of (if everyone is there)
an elven druid
an elven ranger
a human ranger
a dwarf fighter
a human paladin

what is their survivability of this encounter?


2nd question
how much XP should that be worth? roughly-ish

thanks in advance.

[Gnaritas]

They should be able to handle it easily. If i am not mistaking the Hellhound is CR 3 and bone makes it a CR 4.

You can tell by the XP this shouldn't be too hard:
Assuming 5 level 3 players:
Hell Hound 180 xp (per player)
Bone Hell Hound 270 xp (per player)

[Telonius]

First attack should be pretty survivable. You've got a bunch of high-hp melee classes plus a Druid, and a fairly low-AC foe that only does an average of about 9 damage on a hit. Its immunities etc. won't be as much in play due to the lack of fireball-throwers in the party.

Adding the Bone template doesn't seem to add anything to the CR, if I'm reading BoVD correctly, but that's got to be an error.

For the Bone Hellhound, it's going to get an effective +4AC (+2 natural, and +2 from higher Dex) and a +2 bonus to attack from its increased Dex and addition of the Weapon Finesse feat. It gets an additional 8hp from changing the hitdice to d12s. The hitdice mean more, since slashing and piercing (i.e. what your rangers and paladin and fighter are most likely to have) only do half damage. I'd eyeball that as a CR4 or CR5 creature.

You can find a great encounter XP calculator here (http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20encountercalculator.htm). 450 each if the Bone Hellhound is CR4, 540 each if it's CR5. (EDIT: And that's if you're considering the two-part combat to be part of the same encounter).

[Gnaritas]

You can find a great encounter XP calculator here (http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20encountercalculator.htm). 450 each if the Bone Hellhound is CR4, 540 each if it's CR5.

I am not getting those numbers...

Wait a sec, did you just change them as i quoted?

[big teej]

First attack should be pretty survivable. You've got a bunch of high-hp melee classes plus a Druid, and a fairly low-AC foe that only does an average of about 9 damage on a hit. Its immunities etc. won't be as much in play due to the lack of fireball-throwers in the party.

Adding the Bone template doesn't seem to add anything to the CR, if I'm reading BoVD correctly, but that's got to be an error.

For the Bone Hellhound, it's going to get an effective +4AC (+2 natural, and +2 from higher Dex) and a +2 bonus to attack from its increased Dex and addition of the Weapon Finesse feat. It gets an additional 8hp from changing the hitdice to d12s. The hitdice mean more, since slashing and piercing (i.e. what your rangers and paladin and fighter are most likely to have) only do half damage. I'd eyeball that as a CR4 or CR5 creature.

You can find a great encounter XP calculator here (http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20encountercalculator.htm). 450 each if the Bone Hellhound is CR4, 540 each if it's CR5. (EDIT: And that's if you're considering the two-part combat to be part of the same encounter).

you are correct, the bone template does NOT increase CR (its a 3.0 book, i dunno if that makes a difference, but there you have it)



one last question
as I understand it
overcoming DR progresses in the following fashion
epic overcomes all
below this is +5
counting down to +1 which overcomes specific damage types
which overcomes special material.

so if the party had a magic weapon, it would ignore the damage type -specific DR right?


or did I just completely misread that part of the rules?

[Telonius]

Kinda not really, at least in 3.5. The way DR works is that something has damage reduction unless it's hit by something it's particularly vulnerable to. The general format is DR x/y. The damage is reduced by x hitpoints, unless condition y applies. Most of the time, x is 5, 10, or 15.

For example, DR 10/Cold Iron means that the damage is reduced by 10 unless the weapon is Cold Iron.

DR 5/magic means that it's reduced by 5 unless the weapon is magic. There's no differentiation about whether the weapon is a +5 weapon or a +1 weapon; if it's magic, it's magic.

DR 5/holy and piercing, means that it's reduced by 5 unless the weapon is both holy and piercing.

DR 10/slashing or piercing, means that it's reduced by 10 if the weapon is either a slashing weapon or a piercing weapon.

DR 3/- (like you might find in a mid-level Barbarian) means that the damage is reduced by 3 for any weapon attack.

And, DR 10/epic means that the damage is reduced by 10 unless the weapon is +6 or higher.

It's important to note that DR only applies to weapon and natural weapon damage. Energy damage (fire, cold, acid, electric, sonic, force), damage from spells, and damage from supernatural abilities will apply normally even if the creature has DR.

[Diarmuid]

I'm guessing he's looking at a 3.0 book where DR could be listes as 5/+1 or 25/+5.

Magic does not trump special material.

[ericgrau]

Encounter Level = PC level is a routine encounter. They should have very little trouble, but they will burn some spells, heals and so on doing it. CR = level +1 isn't much harder. I don't expect much risk of PC death in your fights, unless they don't have time to heal up between fights. Even then it would only make the encounter "difficult" (see below)

Encounter Level = level + 2 is difficult. PC death is possible, though often unlikely.

Encounter Level = level + 4 is overwhelming. PC death is likely, TPK is possible.

For a single monster Encounter Level = CR. For multiple monsters and their xp, check your DMG.

These are all rough guidelines. Depending on build optimization level, how well the PC's style matches the monsters, how prepared they are for that monster, which books the monsters come from, etc. it might be harder or easier.

[Douglas]

Magic does not trump special material.
Back in 3.0, it did. This made material-based DR almost meaningless past very low levels, which is why 3.5 changed it. In 3.5, if DR says X special material then you need that special material. Period. Certain specific magic properties can still trump it, but only because they are specifically designed to do so and you're paying big money to get that DR-penetration ability instead of getting a higher bonus. Generic magical weaponry beats DR/magic and nothing else.

[big teej]

I'm guessing he's looking at a 3.0 book where DR could be listes as 5/+1 or 25/+5.

Magic does not trump special material.

that would be correct, I was recently informed my DMG (and just about all of my other books) are 3.0 instead of 3.5

but thats okay because we acknowledge we play 3.x

but yes, this is correct, my book has DRs such as DRX/+3

I actually kinda like that system.... :smalltongue:


edit: NINJA'D!!!

also,

I'm fooling around with the encounter calculator, and it said the encouters were 'easy' right up until CR 6 which jumped to 'very difficult'

why? :smallconfused:

surely if CR5 is easy, CR6 cannot be that much tougher?

curse my ignorance...:smallsigh:

[Doug Lampert]

I'm fooling around with the encounter calculator, and it said the encouters were 'easy' right up until CR 6 which jumped to 'very difficult'

why? :smallconfused:

surely if CR5 is easy, CR6 cannot be that much tougher?

curse my ignorance...:smallsigh:

Eh? I just went to the page, 5 ECL 3 characters vs. 1 CR 5 is listed as "very difficult". What you describe should happen between CR 3 and 4.

However: The difficulties are Trivial, Very Easy, Easy, Challenging, Very Difficult, Overpowering, and Unbeatable.

So you've just skipped over challenging, there's nothing else in between.

AFAICT in this builder "challenging" is ONLY given if the encounter level exactly matches the "expected" value, which is impossible for a single monster vs. a party of 5 level 3 characters, since the expected value is EL 3.6.

DougL

[big teej]

Eh? I just went to the page, 5 ECL 3 characters vs. 1 CR 5 is listed as "very difficult". What you describe should happen between CR 3 and 4.

However: The difficulties are Trivial, Very Easy, Easy, Challenging, Very Difficult, Overpowering, and Unbeatable.

So you've just skipped over challenging, there's nothing else in between.

AFAICT in this builder "challenging" is ONLY given if the encounter level exactly matches the "expected" value, which is impossible for a single monster vs. a party of 5 level 3 characters, since the expected value is EL 3.6.

DougL

haha, oops, I accidently had the ECL set on '4'
its a 6 man group of level 3s
fixing the ECL caused the jump to occur from CR 4 and CR 5

so, if I'm understanding this correctly

I could throw a juvenile kython (I'm starting to love those lil buggers) at the party, and it be 'very easy'

but if I threw a juvie as well as a broodling kythong, it'd be "very difficult"

is this just because CR is wonky? :smallconfused:

[KillianHawkeye]

It should be pretty easy to convert 3E damage reduction to the 3.5 version.

... ...

Okay, since I'm not seeing where the DR is coming from in this situation, I'll instead mention converting the Bone template's "half damage from slashing and piercing weapons" into standard damage reduction. (Note: that's the same feature that skeletons had in 3.0, and now they use DR instead.)

Like the skeleton, I'd recommend granting the creature DR 5/bludgeoning (meaning it takes 5 less points of damage from weapon attacks unless the attacker is using a bludgeoning weapon).

[big teej]

Okay, since I'm not seeing where the DR is coming from in this situation,.

it simply occured to me that I wasnt sure, and I asked, the bone template doesn't grant damage reduction. :smalltongue:

sorry for the confusion

[Kylarra]

Encounter Level = PC level is a routine encounter. They should have very little trouble, but they will burn some spells, heals and so on doing it. CR = level +1 isn't much harder. I don't expect much risk of PC death in your fights, unless they don't have time to heal up between fights. Even then it would only make the encounter "difficult" (see below)

Encounter Level = level + 2 is difficult. PC death is possible, though often unlikely.

Encounter Level = level + 4 is overwhelming. PC death is likely, TPK is possible.

For a single monster Encounter Level = CR. For multiple monsters and their xp, check your DMG.

These are all rough guidelines. Depending on build optimization level, how well the PC's style matches the monsters, how prepared they are for that monster, which books the monsters come from, etc. it might be harder or easier.Also keep in mind that at low levels, EL+2 might very well be overwhelming, particularly when you're dealing with party level 1-4.

[KillianHawkeye]

it simply occured to me that I wasnt sure, and I asked, the bone template doesn't grant damage reduction. :smalltongue:

sorry for the confusion

I still think that if you converted the template to 3.5, it should have the same DR as a skeleton instead of that "half damage to slashing & piercing attacks" bs.