About CR and EXP ... and everything else

[Dwarfi]

Hello everyone, as I am still a starter as a DM, I would like to ask some questions on this.

#1 I am using a rather old book for our adventure, and sometimes it just misses a CR for an encounter.

Example: 2 goblin warbands. 2 captain (CR9) 4 Lieut. (CR6) 6 Sneaks (CR6) 2 Lesser adepts (CR5) 6 Minor adepts (CR3) 140 soldiers (CR1)
Our group has a basic LV of 9 (one character is already 10)
We are 5 people, the goblins didnt stand much of a chance.

How do I add all these CR together? Wasnt there some kind of rule that creatures with a CR of some point below the group level dont give any exp at all? In this case the CR1, CR3 goblins and so on.

---------

Raising a challenge level:
Lets say I want the group to be attacked by a group of dire wolfs in the mountains. One wolf alone isnt much of a challenge. So I want to add more. How does each new creature affect the CR?

Or how can I make a beast stronger and how does it affect the CR ?

Thanks again everyone.

[sirpercival]

For the first question, use this.

[RobbyPants]

I think you're using one term for two things. There is Encounter Level and Challenge Rating.

The CR is listed on a per-monster basis and measure's that monster's difficulty. It's also what you use to calculate the XP.

The EL is supposed to be the difficulty gauge for the entire encounter, but it is not used to calculate XP for the fight.


That calculator that Sirpercival can take care of both for you. It will show you the XP per party member and lists the EL for you in the bottom portion. If you're wondering how to calculate either, I'd suggest looking in the DMG. The descriptions are somewhat lengthy.

[Dwarfi]

Thanks for the calculator should be a nice guide for some encounters.
Maybe I made a mistake, but with the CR of the goblins and our Levels it should have been an "overpowering difficulty"... which it totally wasnt. ^^°
With the calculators result every chars would get ~3500 EXP... ok, we had the 2 fitting buffs redied in time but seriously ? 3,5k for an encounter where we barely got any damage at all ? I think I will reduce that so a number that feels a little more fitting. XD

[InnaBinder]

Thanks for the calculator should be a nice guide for some encounters.
Maybe I made a mistake, but with the CR of the goblins and our Levels it should have been an "overpowering difficulty"... which it totally wasnt. ^^°
With the calculators result every chars would get ~3500 EXP... ok, we had the 2 fitting buffs redied in time but seriously ? 3,5k for an encounter where we barely got any damage at all ? I think I will reduce that so a number that feels a little more fitting. XD

"Overpowering difficulty" has almost as much to do with party capabilities as with the monsters' capabilities.  140 1-HD creatures sounds like a fairly large challenge to overcome, until you think about any decent AoE spell your party's 5th level arcanist has.  One Fireball could potentially wipe the lot of them, or at least reduce 140 down to around 20 of them.  That's not taking into account how easy or hard it is for those remaining soldiers to hit the party, vs. whether the party's melee folks have options like Cleave to further thin the herd.

[Dwarfi]

I checked some of the next encounters and its almost a joke.
Wights (10) CR3 EL 10.
Each with a hit +3... that means I must roll a 19 or 20 to be able to maybe hit the mage or rougue.

I could just raise them by 3 HD, then they should have +6 which is still low but at least possible.
Or maybe add something nasty like a lich or a 2-3x mohrg.

-------
Storywise I would like to implement some cult of the dragon guys, any idea how such a cleric could look like ?

[InnaBinder]

nevermind.  Too early.

[oslecamo]

Eerr, wights are corporeal,. It's Shades that are incorporeal.

[Dwarfi]

@Oslecamo: I read through your DM guide. Nice, nice.

Gave me some ideas to improve the encounters. Especially changing feats and some useless spells.

though I have no idea of how to use hide, move silently, spot or bluff checks for monsters to get any advantage. (So far I only played a fighter that did nothing of those so I have no idea at all)
What can a high bluff check make a (player)character do ?

[oslecamo]

Monster Stealth is a matter of tackling some Darkstalker on an over-HD monster and then maxing Hide and Move Silently. Potions of Camouphlage and Silence also help. Then just make sure your battlefields have some kind of cover/concealment for the stealthy monsters to hide.

Now the obvious problem is that if you ask spot/listen checks from your players, you're kinda screaming there's something stalking them in the shadows. An option here is asking for your players skill modifiers ahead of time and then rolling in secret when the time comes. If the players ask what you're rolling for, make a poker face and say some "random tables", or make a maniac smile. Actually, roll dices behind the screen now and then whetever there's actual monsters stalking them or not, so they can't be sure what you're doing it for.

Bluff checks are kinda of a big can of worms. It's very easy to pump it out with Glibness, and if there's a thing that's really annoying for players, is the DM directly manipulating the PC actions. "The NPC suceeds in his bluff check and your character jumps in the pool of acid" is something that really should never come up in a campaign.

So my best advice here is being subtle. Again, ask your character's sense motive bonus in advance. Roll in secret. Then if the NPC suceeds in  bluffing the PCs, tell them he sounds perfectly believeable, and yes, that path with dark spikes is perfectly safe and there's free candy and treasure at the end of it. Ok, perhaps a little more subtle, but I think you get the idea.

Other options include a monster bluffing about his own strenght/weaknesses, like a vampire pretending he's alive so the party doesn't bring out the anti-undead stuff. Including pretending to be hurt by things that wouldn't affect an undead.

[Halinn]

Now the obvious problem is that if you ask spot/listen checks from your players, you're kinda screaming there's something stalking them in the shadows. An option here is asking for your players skill modifiers ahead of time and then rolling in secret when the time comes. If the players ask what you're rolling for, make a poker face and say some "random tables", or make a maniac smile. Actually, roll dices behind the screen now and then whetever there's actual monsters stalking them or not, so they can't be sure what you're doing it for.

Wouldn't be a bad idea to get into a habit of asking for those rolls at times when there isn't even anything to spot/listen to.

[Dwarfi]

Cool thanks, I already prepared a piece of paper for the most important skills and saves. Everyone will just fill it out before we start our next adventure session.

I started to "clean up" the feats. cleave, gr cleave, toughness and such crap...better use more versatile stuff or at least impr ini. some of the better melees get disarm, trip and feats like that.
Or simply replacing some gear or spells. Evil clerics in particular tend to choose only the worts feats.

And I will as well be more active with the items they wear. Potion of invisibility,+ healing potion + summon monster for example.... or does the invisibility break when he starts to cast it or just when its done ?

[Kethrian]

Summoning a monster is not an attack, so it won't break invis.  And your summoned creature attacking won't break your invis either.

[Dwarfi]

The original ecnounter would be: 10 wights, in a hill are, spot checks at 60 feet. i would wonder if no one would make that, so a fireball+ cleric would pretty much take care of most of it.

New:
Its starting to rain (reducing the spot range)
10 wights with improved feats and stats (hold the line+ rob gambit or weapon focus on natural weapons)
+2 mohrgs with fitting stats

I wonder how this works out ^^ The wights are very godd in move silently, can I make use of that somehow?

While Iam on it: The group will encounter a young adult dragong. I thought about giving it the fly by attack feat, though I am a little unsure of what it actually enables the dragon to do?
Can the dragon land, hit/grapple and immediatley fly again ? What would the dragon be able to do without the feat ?

[ksbsnowowl]

The thing to remember with wights is, once they start hitting, your PC's could quickly land in a world of hurt.  Each hit deals a negative level, which has many bad side effects, and can make some PC's nigh-useless.  Don't know what your party's level is, but they'll start to run when they are effectively at half-HD through negative levels.

But, if your PC's have high AC's, hitting is problematic.  Wights are intelligent undead, so make sure they flank.  Now they are hitting on 17+ on the die.  Their intelligence is only 11, so getting one of them Improved Trip might be difficult, but they've got enough Hit Points to soak one AoO each.  And the initial attack roll for a Trip is a touch attack, making it much easier to hit.  Then it is opposed checks.  Granted, the wight only has a +1, but the party wizard probably only has a +3 at best (for Dex).  Get the wizard prone and flanked, now your wights are hitting on a 13 or better on the d20.

Have the wights swarm one character and have each one try to trip until the character is tripped, then the remainder slam him the rest of the round.  Decent chance he's got two or three negative levels by then.  He tries to stand up and he'll take 3 or 4 more negative levels...

[oslecamo]

The original ecnounter would be: 10 wights, in a hill are, spot checks at 60 feet. i would wonder if no one would make that, so a fireball+ cleric would pretty much take care of most of it.

New:
Its starting to rain (reducing the spot range)
10 wights with improved feats and stats (hold the line+ rob gambit or weapon focus on natural weapons)
+2 mohrgs with fitting stats

I wonder how this works out ^^ The wights are very godd in move silently, can I make use of that somehow?

Well, there's lots of things that make spot checks harder, not so much that make listen checks harder, so a bigger move silently check is always nice to have.

Morghs are a nasty addition, in particular because they can take some punishment and then they have a melee save-or-do- nothing-while-they-nom-your-brains. If the party knows what they are, they'll make them a priority target, giving time for the wights to close in.

While Iam on it: The group will encounter a young adult dragong. I thought about giving it the fly by attack feat, though I am a little unsure of what it actually enables the dragon to do?
Can the dragon land, hit/grapple and immediatley fly again ? What would the dragon be able to do without the feat ?

Yes, Flyby attack would allow the dragon to aproach, atempt a grapple and then get away with a captured party member. Whitout the feat, at best the dragon could aproach, grapple a PC, then have to finish his turn on that position, making him an easy target for the party's counter attack.

Another popular tactic is the classic strafing run. Dragon flies over the party and in the middle breathes over the PCs, then geting behind from and to behind some cover. Rinse and repeat.

[nijineko]

the thing to recall with mass low hd characters, is to use group tactics. specifically, the aid another action. if one person is trying to hit, and you need a 19 or 20 to hit, if the 3 or 4 adjacent allies of the enemies use the aid another action and succeed, that is +2 to hit per success. makes that 19-20 drop to 11-20.

especially if the enemies have reach weapons. if you use the move actions to swarm around a given pc, you can have up to 5 enemies within 5', assuming one to the right, one to the left, and three in front (two on the diagonals). that makes 9 additional enemies within 10' who only need a 5' reach weapon to hit. if they have a 10' reach weapons, you can have a third layer too.

given five individuals all attacking one pc, the four can give the remaining one a +8 to hit... useful for tripping, sundering, bullrushing, grappling, and plain old attacking.

so given your large group against the party, the party could have been slaughtered.

for the players side: cleave, AoE, and skill checks become necessary to attempt to take on such an encounter. group intimidate is a good option.

[Dwarfi]

Thanks for all the informations. I will try to make this a little more challenging than the last encounters.

About the mass low HD monsters: If  they encounter another warband of goblins, I will change some stuff. Javelins or bows for the distance instead of slings, more teamwork (10 people shooting an aoe on 1 field) and maybe the help another action.
Though The fire shield of the wizzard was the mainproblem. That made every attack of the goblins a suicide attack. Maybe some reach weapons would solve that problem.

About the wights: I am not really that worried about the group, the barbarian is basically imune to everything based on fort saves and with rage he has a lot of str to withstand trip. the others are more vulnerable but not as easy to get to.
The cleric can turn undead and the mage has his own toys, the only one in danger is the rogue. ^^
Thanks to our previous adcenture, all characters have at least 20AC, except if the mage doesnt use his Mage armor for whatever reason.

The idea is to get close, while only the first row of zombies gets spotted. The others try to walk around the group hidden and attack from the sides. Maybe I can get some free hits on the rouge or the mage this way, while the barbarian fights the others off - At least until the cleric turns all of them. ^^° Like I said, his fort save is so high, he is basically imune to anything. I would need a DC20+ to be of some thread.

[nijineko]

note that tower shields provide cover, and if the front rank has cover, so does anyone behind them. unless the pcs are in an elevated place, or the advancing enemies are on a downslope towards the pcs, you can give two to three (or more) full ranks of enemies total cover. shield wall... works for overhead cover too. then there is that feat which gives boosts for shield wall tactics. plus some equipment, iirc. tower shields in the front rank, pikes in the next two ranks, archers behind that doing volley shots.... should put some hurt on the pcs. it works in real life, after all. without cavalry or cabers to break up the formations, the pcs will have some difficulty short of AoE stuff.

[ksbsnowowl]

tower shields in the front rank, pikes in the next two ranks...

Just out of curiosity, how do people in the third row attack foes in front of the first row?  Unless they are large with reach weapons, they don't threaten in front of the first row.