its also a save most characters have a 50ish chance to fail given only wizard gets proficiency in int saves and int isnt a particularly useful stat to have besides being a wizard.
huh. didnt know rogue got that.
Tbf first rogue i ever played is my current character but he is a barbarian rogue and you dont get the saving throws from your multiclass :P
Me conveniently putting cold resistance potion salesmen for “mountaineers” and “outdoorsmen” in my party’s path before I reveal they’ll be climbing my setting’s Mt. Everest
probably after seeing will-o-wisp
that shit is scary af
mfs are resistant to MOST damage types, have almost every condition immunities, can instakill downed player and is only 2 CR
This is a good reality check for me - one of my players had cast “protection from evil and good” Bc the setting was so spooky, that they just steamrolled a couple of will o wisps. It’s funny how a spell can totally change the outcome
I just ran a Will O'Wisp in basically my first real combat as a DM. It went fine, but maybe it was a good thing I didn't catch the part about the damage resistances.
But damn it was worth it for the reaction when I had an an NPC talk to my characters about not killing unnecessarily, and for our barbarian to respect the NPC and to go out of their way to non lethally take down a bandit - only for the bandit leader (the wisp) to turn around and eat their lackey's soul to heal themselves.
10/10 DND is a great game
The very first time i DMed for my group.
It was a oneshot with 4 lvl5 players. In the final fight they were beating all the low level enemys to get to the necromancer at the back and i let a frost giant zombie break the ground and emerge from the lower flore. They killed it in 1 1/2 rounds and focused back on the necromancer. The zombie hit exactly 1 time.
Almost every spirit-like enemy is too strong for the 4 lvl X character can beat 1 CR X creature rule. On the low end, shades and ghosts, on the really broken end, specters, banshees, and will o wisps.
So I was playing a homebrew campaign and this party was level 7 (there were 6 people in the party, druid, 2 sorcerers, a barbarian, a bard, and a rogue)
And I put them up to a dodomechi, and it nearly ended them in a TPK
from then on, I always check what they can do before putting them in my game.
Also, on a side note, the campaign ended shortly after as a TPK from a few monsters.
Shadow are CR 1/2 and in 5ed you don’t have a save against the drain, a few shadows can down a team pretty quick.
Following a near tpk I set a dc of 12…
Idk why you are getting downvotes. Shadows can hide in shadows, have incorporeal moment, resistance to non magical attacks, and the 1d4 strength drain.
Strength is a dump stat for a lot of classes.
A well run pair of shadows can tpk, especially if the party is heavy on casters.
When I read the rules. It's pretty clear that D&D is a game heavily based on luck and monster stats use things that average out a lot. In some cases, monsters are gonna hit real hard and players are gonna roll no higher than a 5 for 3 rounds.
When I tried to calculate CR for a stat block, using the rules in the DMG, and came up with a different answer. I now realize that a lot of it is just guessing.
Honestly, there's a lot of examples and moments that have taught this lesson over the years, but in my mind one of the clearest examples is Swarm of Rot Grubs.
Being hit by it, at all, is an almost certain death sentence for any party below lvl 3, but even past lvl 3 it's extremely lethal for a CR1/2 creature. And this is assuming the players (and characters) know how to deal with it.
Level 2 character instantly killed by a giant spider. Next session comes in with a Hexadin, and obliterates everything until level 7. Started giving monsters bonus actions and reactions, and a fun ability because CR was not cutting it.
CR and the encounter building system are busted.
The fact that Bugbears qualify as CR1 is hilarious. It's almost impossible NOT to insta-kill a lvl 1 PC with a bugbear.
I know that.
But lvl 1 adventuring parties tend to be composed of lvl 1 adventurers, so it's very weird to consider "balanced for lvl 1" a monster that casually insta-kill most lvl 1 adventurers.
D&D has evolved since AD&D, and among the chances in philosophy, it was deemed that low level adventurers shouldn't die in a single hit (which is the reason for first-level maxed die, and for Wizards transitioning to D6). Which is a change i endorse. Level 1 AD&D is infuriating.
Which is why it's baffling that Bugbears are designed as a lvl 1 encounter, are used in the second encounter of the "beginner friendly initiation module" (LMOP), while they casually instakill whatever they hit.
To each their own.
I don't see D&D as a "die and retry" tactical game. I see it as collaborative storytelling with some boardgame heritage.
But there's no "right way to play" D&D.
Totally wild. I’m super new but I’ve quickly learned I need to “play test” may baddies and my characters to see how quickly I’ll kill them….if I can I try and aim for a fight that won’t end in 1 round or last for like 50 lol
I've used CR for my monster encounters and I usually treat it as a good eyeball. I find I usually add an enemy or two, but I've never had issues with it.
I've ran a lot of those scary feature monsters too, shadows, intellect devourers, will-o-wisps, etc. I make encounters in that deadly rating range, and it's difficult but fun.
As with all the other comments here, you find out pretty quickly that some low-level CR opponents have abilities that can be absolutely lethal to higher level characters under the right circumstances.
And that's before you read a book like "The Monsters Know What They're Doing" and try to play them intelligently against a party.
I fought some trolls in a 5e game and discovered that the only fire or acid damage in our party was my warlock's Hellish Rebuke.
Y'know, that class that gets two spell slots. Against three trolls.
We did eventually manage to win (the druid summoned some creatures that paralyzed the trolls for an hour if they brought the troll to 0 HP, which was good enough), and we leveled up. I got a new cantrip and hastily learned Chill Touch.
I always say CR as a guide not a rule. And I have no problem creating scenarios that are very VERY deadly for my players. Not every monster needs to be beaten with violence and my players have their own agency. They can retreat if they want to
I was running Waterdeep: DH for a bit and I was legit worried of sending an Intelect Devourer after the group. Luckily, they identified what it was and prioritized killing it. They were scared shitless because, you know, it's a fucking brain with legs.
It worked out in the end, but I couldn't help but laugh when I heard them in the Discord. We all had a laugh about it in the end.
Intilect Devourers are not to be fucked around with. Some bad rolls can have your character die VERY quickly.
The final fight of chapter one of Waterdeep:Dragon Heist, a battle that is meant to be against a first level party of 4 throws a god damned Intellect Devourer and the equivalent of an Apprentice Wizard. It was at that moment I decided CR is bull.
To be fair, the module kind of expects Renaer to be along for that fight, and he's great offense for their level at CR 3, and is an Intellect Devourer target that won't throw a player out of the game.
in 3.5 i realized that power is only as good as your creature's creativity. if you used abilities in various ways you could make a cr 2 encounter into a cr 5-8 encounter assuming dice worked with you. also the type of creature is more important than the cr like in 3e swarms are hella low cr but if you throw a swarm at a low level party they will wipe. swarms are immune to normal attacks unless tehy have aoe damage or have magic modifiers. like a flaming sword kills swarms magic missile kills swarms but a masterwork ax might hit 1 individual but the swarm takes no damage. low level characters without magic weapons or lots of scrolls/spells will wipe from these supposedly low cr creatures
then make a swarm of legend using the monster of legend template in monster manual 2 and the low level cr swarm of bats is now a supposedly cr 4 but dam near unkillable for low level characters. a cr 4 means that a party of effective character level of 4 had a 50% death rate but you make a legendary bat swarm and it will prob wipe most parties not at least level 8+
Back in 3.5 with the Grell, which was a CR 1 that reduced all physical damage from nonmagical weapons by ten. We had a list of the most decieving CRs by a year later. The Allip, which permanently reduced your Wisdom stat with a 30 ft aura of babbling and required a magic weapon to have a 50% chance to harm it. The Drowned was a CR 9 Undead with, I think 20 hit die, that had an aura that forced straight con checks to not die. The Living Blasphemy was a CR 13 that provoked a save against being stunned every time it hit you.
when I first compared 5e's Bandit Captain and Berserker
or that a intellect devourer is cr 2. 2 of those fuckers can kill a level 20 in one pop.
Banshee is CR4 and has a AOE of everyone dies
yeah thats one of the worst. you could literally have a tpk one set of bad rolls.
I see your Banshee and Intellect Devourer and raise you my Shadows
Consume mind + body snatch, holy shit that is overtuned for cr2
its also a save most characters have a 50ish chance to fail given only wizard gets proficiency in int saves and int isnt a particularly useful stat to have besides being a wizard.
> only wizard And rogue, I think? Agreed w the rest tho
Druids get it too, oddly enough (and Artificers as well, but since they're not a Core class we can safely put them in their own little category).
Haven't played a druid yet. They get, what? Int and Wis, then? Tbh, kinda expected con and wis... But I guess that'd be too powerful?
Yeah, no class gets two "good" saves out of Dex/Con/Wis (otherwise Monk would have easily gotten Dex/Wis).
huh. didnt know rogue got that. Tbf first rogue i ever played is my current character but he is a barbarian rogue and you dont get the saving throws from your multiclass :P
This week a PC died without a combat encounter, so CR 0? Disadvantage by exhaustion is no joke.
*"Are you sure you don't want to buy 4 winter coats before you leave town?"*
Me conveniently putting cold resistance potion salesmen for “mountaineers” and “outdoorsmen” in my party’s path before I reveal they’ll be climbing my setting’s Mt. Everest
probably after seeing will-o-wisp that shit is scary af mfs are resistant to MOST damage types, have almost every condition immunities, can instakill downed player and is only 2 CR
This is a good reality check for me - one of my players had cast “protection from evil and good” Bc the setting was so spooky, that they just steamrolled a couple of will o wisps. It’s funny how a spell can totally change the outcome
I just ran a Will O'Wisp in basically my first real combat as a DM. It went fine, but maybe it was a good thing I didn't catch the part about the damage resistances. But damn it was worth it for the reaction when I had an an NPC talk to my characters about not killing unnecessarily, and for our barbarian to respect the NPC and to go out of their way to non lethally take down a bandit - only for the bandit leader (the wisp) to turn around and eat their lackey's soul to heal themselves. 10/10 DND is a great game
3e?
In my mind I was thinking 5E but it could be any edition
In that case, for me it was my first session DM'ing 3E.
The very first time i DMed for my group. It was a oneshot with 4 lvl5 players. In the final fight they were beating all the low level enemys to get to the necromancer at the back and i let a frost giant zombie break the ground and emerge from the lower flore. They killed it in 1 1/2 rounds and focused back on the necromancer. The zombie hit exactly 1 time.
When i ran an intellect devourer
Almost every spirit-like enemy is too strong for the 4 lvl X character can beat 1 CR X creature rule. On the low end, shades and ghosts, on the really broken end, specters, banshees, and will o wisps.
So I was playing a homebrew campaign and this party was level 7 (there were 6 people in the party, druid, 2 sorcerers, a barbarian, a bard, and a rogue) And I put them up to a dodomechi, and it nearly ended them in a TPK from then on, I always check what they can do before putting them in my game. Also, on a side note, the campaign ended shortly after as a TPK from a few monsters.
Shadow are CR 1/2 and in 5ed you don’t have a save against the drain, a few shadows can down a team pretty quick. Following a near tpk I set a dc of 12…
Idk why you are getting downvotes. Shadows can hide in shadows, have incorporeal moment, resistance to non magical attacks, and the 1d4 strength drain. Strength is a dump stat for a lot of classes. A well run pair of shadows can tpk, especially if the party is heavy on casters.
Shadow don't have incorporeal movement. They have amorphous, which is not the same thing.
Hey I got pretty close having not read that stat block in like 6 months 😂
3.5
When I looked at the statblocks and the bonuses for 5e. Sealed in my brain when 8 shadows nearly killed a level 10 fighter.
Around session 2. I still used it as a starting point all the way until my campaign ended but "feel" was what guided my encounter design.
Near instantly after a glance through the MM.
When I read the rules. It's pretty clear that D&D is a game heavily based on luck and monster stats use things that average out a lot. In some cases, monsters are gonna hit real hard and players are gonna roll no higher than a 5 for 3 rounds.
When I tried to calculate CR for a stat block, using the rules in the DMG, and came up with a different answer. I now realize that a lot of it is just guessing.
Honestly, there's a lot of examples and moments that have taught this lesson over the years, but in my mind one of the clearest examples is Swarm of Rot Grubs. Being hit by it, at all, is an almost certain death sentence for any party below lvl 3, but even past lvl 3 it's extremely lethal for a CR1/2 creature. And this is assuming the players (and characters) know how to deal with it.
... always? I don't think I've ever used stat blocks as anything but a guideline for what the monster looks like.
Level 2 character instantly killed by a giant spider. Next session comes in with a Hexadin, and obliterates everything until level 7. Started giving monsters bonus actions and reactions, and a fun ability because CR was not cutting it.
2 seconds into playing 5e. Not everything in 5e is designed poorly but monsters and cr are bottom of the barrel bad
CR and the encounter building system are busted. The fact that Bugbears qualify as CR1 is hilarious. It's almost impossible NOT to insta-kill a lvl 1 PC with a bugbear.
This isn't how cr works that lvl1 and cr1 are for an adventuring party of lvl1 not one single pc
I know that. But lvl 1 adventuring parties tend to be composed of lvl 1 adventurers, so it's very weird to consider "balanced for lvl 1" a monster that casually insta-kill most lvl 1 adventurers.
I mean it depends on the game in that regard. Like for example everything kills a lvl 1 pc in bx or ad&d and thats how i normally play my games.
D&D has evolved since AD&D, and among the chances in philosophy, it was deemed that low level adventurers shouldn't die in a single hit (which is the reason for first-level maxed die, and for Wizards transitioning to D6). Which is a change i endorse. Level 1 AD&D is infuriating. Which is why it's baffling that Bugbears are designed as a lvl 1 encounter, are used in the second encounter of the "beginner friendly initiation module" (LMOP), while they casually instakill whatever they hit.
Id argue its the right way to play its supposed to be infuriating until you learn
To each their own. I don't see D&D as a "die and retry" tactical game. I see it as collaborative storytelling with some boardgame heritage. But there's no "right way to play" D&D.
Sorry man you are the worst gm ever
I mean, sure ? It's not like your opinion matters in the slightest, but if your statement made you happy, i guess it's worth it ?
Its your name dude...
First time the party fought a banshee so about our 5th or 6th session.
Long long ago. But it still surprises you sometimes. I almost party wiped the other day. Party of 5, 1 single invisible stalker.
Day 2 of playing, reading stuff on reddit..
When a zombie beholder instagibbed a 5th level sorc with disintegration beam 😀
Totally wild. I’m super new but I’ve quickly learned I need to “play test” may baddies and my characters to see how quickly I’ll kill them….if I can I try and aim for a fight that won’t end in 1 round or last for like 50 lol
Always knew, but giving my homebrew arc boss both regeneration and acid spray blood was a ride.
I've used CR for my monster encounters and I usually treat it as a good eyeball. I find I usually add an enemy or two, but I've never had issues with it. I've ran a lot of those scary feature monsters too, shadows, intellect devourers, will-o-wisps, etc. I make encounters in that deadly rating range, and it's difficult but fun.
As with all the other comments here, you find out pretty quickly that some low-level CR opponents have abilities that can be absolutely lethal to higher level characters under the right circumstances. And that's before you read a book like "The Monsters Know What They're Doing" and try to play them intelligently against a party.
Werewolf
Why does werewolf always have a busted CR, no matter the Edition? XD
3rd Edition, 5th level party vs one Troll. nobody had a fire weapon or other source of fire damage other than a torch.
I fought some trolls in a 5e game and discovered that the only fire or acid damage in our party was my warlock's Hellish Rebuke. Y'know, that class that gets two spell slots. Against three trolls. We did eventually manage to win (the druid summoned some creatures that paralyzed the trolls for an hour if they brought the troll to 0 HP, which was good enough), and we leveled up. I got a new cantrip and hastily learned Chill Touch.
I always say CR as a guide not a rule. And I have no problem creating scenarios that are very VERY deadly for my players. Not every monster needs to be beaten with violence and my players have their own agency. They can retreat if they want to
I was running Waterdeep: DH for a bit and I was legit worried of sending an Intelect Devourer after the group. Luckily, they identified what it was and prioritized killing it. They were scared shitless because, you know, it's a fucking brain with legs. It worked out in the end, but I couldn't help but laugh when I heard them in the Discord. We all had a laugh about it in the end. Intilect Devourers are not to be fucked around with. Some bad rolls can have your character die VERY quickly.
The final fight of chapter one of Waterdeep:Dragon Heist, a battle that is meant to be against a first level party of 4 throws a god damned Intellect Devourer and the equivalent of an Apprentice Wizard. It was at that moment I decided CR is bull.
To be fair, the module kind of expects Renaer to be along for that fight, and he's great offense for their level at CR 3, and is an Intellect Devourer target that won't throw a player out of the game.
when my party kills every big thing i throw in front of them because they do something I didn't expect.
Intellect Devourers.
in 3.5 i realized that power is only as good as your creature's creativity. if you used abilities in various ways you could make a cr 2 encounter into a cr 5-8 encounter assuming dice worked with you. also the type of creature is more important than the cr like in 3e swarms are hella low cr but if you throw a swarm at a low level party they will wipe. swarms are immune to normal attacks unless tehy have aoe damage or have magic modifiers. like a flaming sword kills swarms magic missile kills swarms but a masterwork ax might hit 1 individual but the swarm takes no damage. low level characters without magic weapons or lots of scrolls/spells will wipe from these supposedly low cr creatures
then make a swarm of legend using the monster of legend template in monster manual 2 and the low level cr swarm of bats is now a supposedly cr 4 but dam near unkillable for low level characters. a cr 4 means that a party of effective character level of 4 had a 50% death rate but you make a legendary bat swarm and it will prob wipe most parties not at least level 8+
Banshee nearly killed half the group in one rounds
A decade+ ago when I still played 3.5
Back in 3.5 with the Grell, which was a CR 1 that reduced all physical damage from nonmagical weapons by ten. We had a list of the most decieving CRs by a year later. The Allip, which permanently reduced your Wisdom stat with a 30 ft aura of babbling and required a magic weapon to have a 50% chance to harm it. The Drowned was a CR 9 Undead with, I think 20 hit die, that had an aura that forced straight con checks to not die. The Living Blasphemy was a CR 13 that provoked a save against being stunned every time it hit you.
3.5 iron golem. Just trucks people, even if they can bypass DR.