CR rating??? Please clarify

[Scottlang]

Ok, I want to throw the PC's up against a Ettercap and 5 giant spiders... But according to the CR challenge rating it's a CR + 6 even with out the traps... I dont think this is the case... I think a party of lvl 3 (of 4-5 players) would have a good challenge, ad they say Ave party level is all levels added together divide by number of players, why isn't it the same for monsters (lvl 3 + (5 x lvl 1) =8 /6 is a total of 1.33) or am I wrong?? It's basically 5 on 5...or if the one player doesn't pitch 5 on 4... Please help

[eggynack]

An equal CR encounter is not one of equal strength to the party. It's an encounter that will drain a party of four of about 25% of their daily resources. A party of four level three characters will face an equal CR challenge with a single level three opponent. If you were to make the opposing force a party of four level three characters, then the encounter would have even odds of beating the party, and a total party kill isn't something you necessarily want in every encounter.

[Ferronach]

I am not able to check my books right now to see the numbers and abilities but here goes.

First and foremost: the CR system leaves a lot to be desired, use it as a loose guideline and eventually as you become more familiar with the game mechanics you will develop your own rankings.

The CR system attempts to account for the relationship between an opponent's survivability and it's ability to deal damage.
Just because something has low HP and a weak natural weapon does not mean that it is easy. It could be incorporeal or invisible or have incredible dodges (i.e. hard to hit). It could have powerful spell-like abilities (SLA) or be highly intelligent and cunning. Pay attention to what a "monster" can and cannot do. Some seem harmless but can wipe even a fairly well equipped party with a simple combination of abilities that don't even involve hitting the PCs. An intelligent opponent will set up an ambush and may have underlings to act as a distraction etc.

A balanced encounter will play to the party's strengths and weaknesses. If you threw a party of fighters/barbarians etc up against something with save or die/suck abilities that require a will save, most of the party would die/suck pretty quick. Throw the same thing against casters and it would be a different story.

Try throwing a few different types of encounters their way and see how they approach each and how they fare.

If your party is low OP the CRs may be a little high in some cases but will likely be reasonable (excluding some examples like that damn crab (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20040221a))
If you have a high OP/Tier party then you may need to get more creative and the CR system will likely have less meaning.

[XionUnborn01]

An equal CR encounter is not one of equal strength to the party. It's an encounter that will drain a party of four of about 25% of their daily resources. A party of four level three characters will face an equal CR challenge with a single level three opponent. If you were to make the opposing force a party of four level three characters, then the encounter would have even odds of beating the party, and a total party kill isn't something you necessarily want in every encounter.

Basically this. That's why a Human with 4 class levels is CR 4. One isn't likely to take down a party of four level 4 characters, but it's enough of a challenge that it should use about 1/4 of their resources.

That's why even if your encounter seems like it shouldn't be hard, the single ettercap should use about 1/4 of the party's daily resources, and adding in the spiders makes them use even more resources-even if the spiders aren't a huge threat, they can damage, poison, and possibly even kill a PC because more d20 being rolled means more crits happening. Though CR 6 is probably high, it's probably more like a CR 5 or so, depending on the exact OP level of the group. The Ettercap's Dex damage makes the fairly unthreatening spiders much more dangerous because it can make the PC easier to hit.

[prufock]

Here's the d20srd encounter calculator (http://www.d20srd.org/extras/d20encountercalculator/). That should help you with your calculations.

[Scottlang]

That encounter table I disagree with, how can a CR 3 creature and a CR 2 creature be a higher challenge (CR 5) of a level 4 party?? A zombie Lord (monk) and a ju ju zombie?? The party has a Cleric of Sanenrea, a Rogue , a Ranger, who's an archer n a Bard/fighter?? All level 4....

[Mystral]

That encounter table I disagree with, how can a CR 3 creature and a CR 2 creature be a higher challenge (CR 5) of a level 4 party?? A zombie Lord (monk) and a ju ju zombie?? The party has a Cleric of Sanenrea, a Rogue , a Ranger, who's an archer n a Bard/fighter?? All level 4....

An equal CR to the average level to the party does not mean equal strength to the party, but that 4 of these encounters per day is something the party should be able to do without too much trouble.

Your Party of 4 Level 4 Characters has a CR of 8, by the way. Just to give you a sense of scale.

[Banjoman42]

a total party kill isn't something you necessarily want in every encounter.
Depends on the PCs :smalltongue:

[WhamBamSam]

That encounter table I disagree with, how can a CR 3 creature and a CR 2 creature be a higher challenge (CR 5) of a level 4 party?? A zombie Lord (monk) and a ju ju zombie?? The party has a Cleric of Sanenrea, a Rogue , a Ranger, who's an archer n a Bard/fighter?? All level 4....Because as eggynack said, a CR of party level +1 is not necessarily a fight they should lose. It's a fight that should take up slightly more than a quarter of their daily resources.

Note also that relatively optimized parties sometimes punch above their weight class, especially when you're dealing with monsters straight out of the Monster Manual. The fact that this encounter is CR6 doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't throw it at your party if you think they should win or want to give them a toughish fight.

[Nibbens]

If you've never seen this guide (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nx-o8VAjhUwh3nnfzDQT-JA5eFLnN_BZJiBitGjBMDg/edit?pli=1), i live and die by it now - regardless of if you're running PF or 3-whatever, the ideas are still valid.

Nevertheless, don't forget to take into account PCs who bend action economy in their favor. Any summons, animal companions, (significant) secondary primary attacks, battlefield control shenanigans, etc which pose a significant threat in combat would actually up the CR that your characters can handle. So a CR=APL fight might drain 15-20% of resources instead of the 25% that's "supposed" to be drained.

In theory, a slightly unoptimized group of a fighter, a cleric, a rogue and a wizard would handle an APL=CR and drain 25% of their resources. But if that wizard uses summon spells every fight and can cast 6 spells per day, then an APL=CR fight would essentially be under their APL because the action economy was just tipped more in the PCs favor. Also, what if the fighter was a Ranger instead with an animal companion wolf - who tripped someone every time it bit them. Now the ranger (taking advantage of his tripping wolf) makes AoO's every round.

TL;DR - More action economy in the players favor = easier fights.

[atemu1234]

An equal CR encounter is not one of equal strength to the party. It's an encounter that will drain a party of four of about 25% of their daily resources. A party of four level three characters will face an equal CR challenge with a single level three opponent. If you were to make the opposing force a party of four level three characters, then the encounter would have even odds of beating the party, and a total party kill isn't something you necessarily want in every encounter.

Basically. CR encounters aren't meant to be particularly risky. What you're suggesting does carry risk.

[prufock]

That encounter table I disagree with, how can a CR 3 creature and a CR 2 creature be a higher challenge (CR 5) of a level 4 party??

It isn't, you need to re-read those guidelines. A single level 4 PC is CR 4. A group of four of them is EL 8.

[Scottlang]

Ok the EL of the group being CR 8 does make it a little more sense... Cos a bard, a cleric, a Ranger and Rogue should handle (which they did) 6 x skellies (⅓ CR) & 4 crawling hands (½ CR) fairly well I was shocked when the Web you guys mentioned was supposedly CR 5 I mean if you take the hp out of the book, 2 channels kills all of em... N no one has to draw a weapon... But thanks guys this has helped a little....

[WhamBamSam]

Ok the EL of the group being CR 8 does make it a little more sense... Cos a bard, a cleric, a Ranger and Rogue should handle (which they did) 6 x skellies (⅓ CR) & 4 crawling hands (½ CR) fairly well I was shocked when the Web you guys mentioned was supposedly CR 5 I mean if you take the hp out of the book, 2 channels kills all of em... N no one has to draw a weapon... But thanks guys this has helped a little....No. The EL of the group is still 4. What the CR of the group being 8 means is that a party of 4 level 4 characters is a CR8 challenge. If your party faced another party of 4 level 4 characters (or 4 CR 4 monsters, same difference), it would be almost certain that one or more PCs would die, and there would be a roughly 50% chance of a TPK. Because you still seem to be missing the point that a CR equal to the party's effective level means that the party should be able to take out four such encounters in a day.

[Scottlang]

Ok wambamsam so what your saying that 6 skellies and 4 crawling hand is challenging to the party and 1 CR 3 creature and 1 cr 2 then is a very difficult challenge as it is then a CR 5 which means then there's a chance of 4 vs 2 there's a good chance of more then party me member dying, so I mustnt put them up against those type of creatures, and only put em up against CR ¼—cr 1 max then?? Cos then it will be a challenge to the party??

[XionUnborn01]

Yeah, I think that you might need a quick fundamental runthrough of how a challenge rating works.

So, you have a party of four level 4 characters. That means that they should be fighting Challenge rating 4 encounters. Why is that you ask? Because a challenge rating 4 encounter is meant to use approximately 1/4 of the party's resources (spells, HP, per day uses, items, etc).

So when a party is facing a CR 4 encounter, there should be little chance of death without some sort of good luck for the monster, or bad luck for the players.

The reason that a party of four level 4 characters is a CR 8 encounter is because they would be enough of a challenge that a group of level 8 characters to use about 1/4 of that group's resources.


Basically it's like this:
A level 4 PC is CR 4 assuming it's a standard race and so on.
One level 4 character is 1/4 of a normal party's makeup which is why they could be expected to handle four of them a day.

I hope this helped.

[WhamBamSam]

Ok wambamsam so what your saying that 6 skellies and 4 crawling hand is challenging to the party and 1 CR 3 creature and 1 cr 2 then is a very difficult challenge as it is then a CR 5 which means then there's a chance of 4 vs 2 there's a good chance of more then party me member dying, so I mustnt put them up against those type of creatures, and only put em up against CR ¼—cr 1 max then?? Cos then it will be a challenge to the party??I said in a post above that just because an encounter has a CR above the party level doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't run it, or that it's even necessarily that much of a risk from the party's point of view. The CR system is sometimes imperfect. I'm just trying to explain what it's meant to represent, why "fair" or "challenging" fight ends up having a CR above the party level, and why even relatively low-risk encounters can have CR at or above the party's level.

The swarm of very low CR monsters you're describing is probably not as dangerous as its CR to a level 4 party, because, as you note, they're starting to develop the sort of crowd control that can clear them out en masse (I'm assuming by "channel" you were referring to the Cleric's ability to Turn Undead). It might well be as dangerous/resource intensive as its CR to a level 2 party, however, because they have to slog it out against superior numbers, and they have weaker crowd control options and fewer uses/day of said options.

What the CR5 means is that your level 4 party should use up slightly more than 1/4 of the day's resources. If they managed to do it with less than a quarter, good for them. If they slipped up and someone died or the dice didn't go so well for them and they took a bit more damage and/or had to burn a few extra spell slots, well, that's also something that could happen. The real test isn't that individual fight, but how the party would handle 4 consecutive fights of similar difficulty, spaced out long enough for them to heal and such in between (though not long enough to rest), but also enough that their short term buffs run out.

[Mystral]

Ok wambamsam so what your saying that 6 skellies and 4 crawling hand is challenging to the party and 1 CR 3 creature and 1 cr 2 then is a very difficult challenge as it is then a CR 5 which means then there's a chance of 4 vs 2 there's a good chance of more then party me member dying, so I mustnt put them up against those type of creatures, and only put em up against CR ¼—cr 1 max then?? Cos then it will be a challenge to the party??

Not at all. Nobody says what you must do.

An adventure should be made out of several encounters. Some should be easy or normal, some should be challenging, the boss fight might even be really hard. The composition depends on the power of your party and the taste of you and your players. I, for example, rarely confront my players with an encounter that isn't 2 points of CR over their EL, simply because I trust that they are capable enough to handle it.

A CR 5 encounter for a EL 4 party is still quite easy, unless the party is badly optimised, the players aren't experienced or the encounter is harder than usual for some non-CR reason (A monster with immunity to non-magic weapons against a party with no magic weapons, a flying monster against a party without much ranged capability and so on). If an encounter is harder for the party, you should add +1 to the CR for treasure and XP purposes, and make it possible for the party to fight the monster (or at the very least run away).

[jiriku]

As a courtesy to your readers, please take a few moments when you respond to ensure your writing is coherent. A few periods in the right places can do wonders for your writing.

Let's set up some examples:
Your PCs are EL 3-ish.


An EL 3 is "challenging" for them. An encounter is "challenging" if even one member of the party is seriously threatened in some way.
An encounter of EL 3-7 is "very difficult" for them. An encounter is "very difficult" if even one member is very likely to die.
An encounter of EL 8+ is "overpowering" for them. An encounter is "overpowering" if several PCs are very likely to die, or the entire party could possibly die.


A mixed group of 1 ettercap and 5 Medium monstrous spiders is EL 6. This encounter is "very difficult", and one PC is likely to die. For example, the ettercap can deal about 10 points of damage per round if all of its attacks hit. If the spiders and ettercaps all throw webs on round 1, they could easily lock down most or all of the party. This might give the ettercap time to move up to an entangled PC with low AC and make two full attacks over a couple of rounds, dealing 15-20 damage. That's enough damage to put many 3rd level characters in negative hit points, very likely to die.

6 human skeletons and 4 crawling claws is EL 4. This might also be considered "very difficult", but I'd tend to call this a "trick" encounter. If the party has a cleric and the cleric uses turn'n'burn to destroy the undead, it's quite easy. Without that trick, though, it could be dangerous -- the skeletons have an 18-20 threat range with their scimitars, and deal an average of 9 damage on a crit. With 6 of them attacking every round, a crit is going to happen sooner or later. If several skeletons gang up on one PC, that PC could do poorly. However, with large groups of weak monsters, a lot depends on the average Armor Class for the PCs. If their AC is quite high, the monsters can't really hit them and pose little threat. If their AC is low, then large groups of weak enemies can deal a lot of damage to them.

[OldTrees1]

Your PCs are EL 3-ish.

EL(Encounter Level) is the estimated CR of the total encounter(including monsters, hazards, traps, etc.).
The average ECL is the effective level of the party.
If you confuse EL and ECL, you will have a bad time.

His PCs' party has an average ECL of 3-ish. This means mirror match would have a EL of 7-ish.


Ok the EL of the group being CR 8 does make it a little more sense... Cos a bard, a cleric, a Ranger and Rogue should handle (which they did) 6 x skellies (⅓ CR) & 4 crawling hands (½ CR) fairly well I was shocked when the Web you guys mentioned was supposedly CR 5 I mean if you take the hp out of the book, 2 channels kills all of em... N no one has to draw a weapon... But thanks guys this has helped a little....
@OP This post(#13) of yours has it mostly(but sufficiently) right.

[Katana1515]

If you've never seen this guide (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nx-o8VAjhUwh3nnfzDQT-JA5eFLnN_BZJiBitGjBMDg/edit?pli=1), i live and die by it now - regardless of if you're running PF or 3-whatever, the ideas are still valid.
.

This, maybe double this. It's a great guide and I hand that link out to new DMs all the time.

Not directly linked to the question, but advice for the OP. A tactic I frequently use when my encounter is over CRed by RAW but I reckon it should be fine is waves, have some of the monsters turn up a round or 2 into the fight. This has numerous advantages

1. It avoids that ridiculous thing newbie DMs do where fights always look like 5 a side football matches just before kickoff. Your encounter will feel more natural and dynamic.

2. You can tailor the difficulty. Did the PCs curbstomp the first pack of monsters in 1 round? Bolster the 2nd wave, throw in a ranged attacker or spellcaster to mix it up. Has it all gone wrong and the party cleric got KO'd? Delay the next wave for a few rounds while the PCs whittle down the opposition, this can make for great drama as you make noises about how 'the wailing howls of the enemy draw closer' while the PCs panic, pushing potions down unconscious throats and consider escape plans.

3. This makes fights last longer, not always an advantage, but at higher levels (of both optimisation and experience) uberchargers and the like can make your encounters feel short or trivial. This and a few other things gives you control back as to how long you want your big climatic fight to last.