What CR?

[SlashRunner]

I just started a new campaign with a group of friends. We're all new to D&D (most of us understand most of the rules, but we haven't been playing for any significant amount of time). All of them are currently 2nd level, and have an extra 10 hp due to a houserule. What CR of monsters should I be throwing at them?

[LOTRfan]

Technically, 2nd level adventurers should be able to face targets of CR 5 and win (albeit with a lot of difficulty), but since you guys are new, I suggest sticking with CR 2 threats.

[Tvtyrant]

A couple CR 3s like individual Gricks wouldn't kill you, but they should be first of the day fights so your running on full.

[AslanCross]

It really depends how well-optimized they are, and from your description, I don't think they're really optimized at all. Remember that CR only represents the challenge of an individual monster, and not a group. As such, you can send 4 Bugbear zombies at them (CR 2 each), but just not all at the same time (which would be an EL 6 encounter).

The DMG recommends that a party of level X can reasonably handle four encounters of level X within a day, consuming 25% of their resources (spells, HP, consumable magic items) in each encounter. However, they should be able to handle monsters of up to X+4, except that such an encounter should be fairly rare and is typically a "boss" encounter.

Now here's the caveat: The CR system is very vague, and as some would say, "broken."

Here's why:

A 10th level fighter, Juvenile Red Dragon, 10th level Monk, and 10th level wizard are all CR 10---yet they will all threaten the party in dramatically different ways and at dramatically different levels.

A CR 10 Juvenile Red Dragon has a breath weapon that deals 8d10 damage, has 168 HP, and can fly at 150 feet per move. (That's faster than a hasted flying wizard.) It has a lot of options, and while it only has 2nd level spells, it can still reasonably buff itself with things like scintillating scales that can make its usual dragon weakness--touch AC---much harder to breach. Also, dragons tend to live in favorable terrain--high mountains, or even better, smoke-wreathed active volcanoes. The PCs will find themselves fighting the environment as much as the monster itself.

A 10th level human wizard has much more options, as she would have 5th-level spells, and as such might drop spells that are almost guaranteed to shut the party down. Case in point: black tentacles, solid fog---even cloudkill might put a huge dent in the PCs' plans. The Wizard, however, would usually need a bunch of summoned/dominated creatures to screen for her. Still, she has the capability to severely injure, incapacitate, or kill most or all of the PCs at once.

A 10th level human fighter might be an extremely powerful swordsman, but with only 2 attacks per round (as opposed to the dragon's 6), he might not dish out enough attacks to significantly injure ALL of the members, though he might have the ability to do so to one party member.

A 10th level human monk is not a credible threat at all. Flurry of Blows tends to miss, a lot, and the damage is not significant. Between low AC and middling HP, a monk has neither tactical options nor damage potential.

Not all CR 10 creatures are created equal, and as CR goes up, you might find that this becomes more and more true. At lower levels it isn't felt so much.

You will have to get a general feel for the party's ability, and learn how to assign appropriate threats. Generally you want to keep combat exciting, but you don't want to keep killing them.

[calar]

Depends how you run the campaign. If you only throw one encounter per day at them I would recommend a CR3 maybe 4 threat. Otherwise numerous encounters per day should remain lower, at CR 1 or 2.

[SlashRunner]

Running on full won't really matter, since our only spellcaster (a cleric) is AWFUL and would manage to screw it up no matter how many spells he has left. So, would the extra 10 HP be equivalent to ~1/2 or 1/3 extra CR? Also, in case it matters, the party includes 3 people (a Soulknife, Rogue, and Cleric) who are all level 2 and the encounters I'm going to subject them to will likely be undead-themed.

[Re'ozul]

An extra 10 hp on top of what? Normal hp (full first then rolling) or something else (full hp per hd or something different?).

If everyone is new and not making optimized characters I'd start with a CR 3 encounter when they are full and go from there. (and by that i mean regularly optimzed in class not what goes as simply optimized in this forum since here optimized usually means a lot stronger than that)

Also I'd start with straightforward enemies first, no enemies that can easily trip or have special active abilities. Though they hsouldn't have much trouble with a CR4 either unless its late in the day.

EDIT: Ohhh, rogue versus undead themed. hmmm I'd be more careful in that case. Though the cleric makes it a bit easier. Though throwing undead at the rogue so soon (or is it soon in your campaign?) might discourage him if he simply likes the rogue for sneak attack.

[SlashRunner]

They just have an extra 10 HP at first level. It came from a mistake where we thought that HP was like AC and started with a base of 10, and we ended up just keeping it since it won't matter at higher levels anyways.

[The Boz]

(and by that i mean regularly optimzed in class not what goes as simply optimized in this forum since here optimized usually means a lot stronger than that)


It is my understanding that level 2 Wizards that are optimized on this forum can cast level 4 arcane and divine spells at will, and are constantly flying.

[AslanCross]

Running on full won't really matter, since our only spellcaster (a cleric) is AWFUL and would manage to screw it up no matter how many spells he has left. So, would the extra 10 HP be equivalent to ~1/2 or 1/3 extra CR? Also, in case it matters, the party includes 3 people (a Soulknife, Rogue, and Cleric) who are all level 2 and the encounters I'm going to subject them to will likely be undead-themed.

Frankly, the extra 10 HP won't matter past the first encounter. Many regular monster attacks can take that flat additional HP out in 1 or 2 hits (what, with all the monsters that have 1d6, 1d8 and 2d6 damage attacks?). Let the first encounter be an EL 3 to keep them on their toes, but after that you can use EL 2s instead. Alternatively you could make the last encounter for the day a boss encounter at EL 3 or 4.

[Re'ozul]

It is my understanding that level 2 Wizards that are optimized on this forum can cast level 4 arcane and divine spells at will, and are constantly flying.

After seeing the creations some people come up with...
http://masterdev.dyndns.dk/drslog/not_sure_if_serious.jpg

[Provengreil]

I remember when I was doing this first time stuff. My recommendation is to throw CR = party level(2 in this case) until you get a better feel for what your party might find difficult. case in point; I have only 1 person in my group, aside from me, that enjoys using spells. so while they tend to dominate melee based encounters, and at least do well on ranged ones, encounters with spells or special abilities are troublesome. for example, they once took out 3 gnolls and a level 3 gnoll barbarian in one encounter, at level 3. that was EL...5 or something, i don't remember. it was a tough enough fight, i guess, but they pulled through pretty well. later that session, they met a gelatinous cube (CR 3, IIRC) and lost fighter.

[Provengreil]

After seeing the creations some people come up with...
http://masterdev.dyndns.dk/drslog/not_sure_if_serious.jpg

that's an interesting pic, considering your sig.

[Keld Denar]

It really depends on a couple of things. The easiest way to do things is to compare APL to EL. EL is easy to calculate. Use the EL calculator linked on the main page of the Hyperlink D20SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/).

APL is average party level. The way Living Greyhawk calced it, was that you sum up all of the levels, divide by the number of party members, and then, if you have 6 players, add 1. So, 4 level 2s would be APL2, 5 level 2s would also be APL2, but 6 level 2s would be APL3. You'd have to adjust this even further if you have more than 6 players, but I'll tell you, encounters are HARD to balance for more than 6 PCs. If you simply increase CR, you'll run into abilities like DR and Incorporiality that the PCs are simply too low to deal with. If you increase the number of foes, combat can become REALLY lethal if the NPCs focus fire (which is a smart idea, PCs do it for a reason).

Anyway, I'd suggest that you start with 3x the party's APL in ELs per day. That means 3 EL 2 encounters, or 2 EL 1 encounters and an EL4 encounter, or 2 EL 3 encounters, whatever. Remember, traps have EL as well. If your party is handling that easily, try increasing the number of ELs they fight.

Remember, balance is about EL, not CR. CR is simply a function of how hard a single foe is. EL is about how hard the whole encounter is.

[SlashRunner]

What does the calculator mean by ECL?

[erikun]

the party includes 3 people (a Soulknife, Rogue, and Cleric) who are all level 2 and the encounters I'm going to subject them to will likely be undead-themed.
So your throwing the party up against undead, where two of the party members' main abilities are completely neutralized and the third is, as you put it, "would manage to screw it up no matter how many spells he has left"?

I'd say stick with CR 2 and see how everyone does. Scale up as needed, although with most of the party only dealing ~1d6 damage, you might be fine with skeletons and zombies for most of the campaign.

[SlashRunner]

Not the whole campaign. Just a dungeon. And yeah, knowing the Cleric, he would end up casting Inflict wounds on the undead.

[AslanCross]

What does the calculator mean by ECL?

Effective Character Level. That's the sum of the character's class levels, Level Adjustment, and Racial hit dice. LA and RHD are usually both 0 for the PHB races and many other player races.

The Bugbear, however, has 3 RHD and LA +1. So a 1st-level Bugbear fighter would be ECL 5. A 1st-level Aasimar paladin has 0 RHD and LA +1, which makes him ECL 2.

[Keld Denar]

ECL is Effective Character Level. That's basically the summation of class levels, racial HD, and level adjustment. Assuming your PCs are using the base races from the PHB, the last 2 are 0, so its just the sum of their class levels. A human rogue2 is ECL2, for example.

[Half-orc Bard]

It really depends how well-optimized they are, and from your description, I don't think they're really optimized at all. Remember that CR only represents the challenge of an individual monster, and not a group. As such, you can send 4 Bugbear zombies at them (CR 2 each), but just not all at the same time.

A lesson I learned when I first DMed 11 worgs 4 lvl 2s...