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Purpose
This thread proposes to refute the following assertion:
The game assumptions are that a party of 4 against will use up just 20% of their "disposable resources" against an enemy with a CR equal to the APL. It says that a Party of Four going up against a monster with a CR of APL + 4 is considered so deadly that it has a 50% chance of killing the party (that is: it is of roughly equal power to the entire party).
It also says that a party which is twice the size counts as a party of four of APL + 2 for purposes of encounter design, and a party which is half the size counts as a party of four of APL - 2 for purposes of encounter design. So a "party" of one level 8 character is considered to be a party of APL 4, and a monster of CR 8 is therefore an encounter of APL + 4 which has a 50% chance of killing the party.
Relevance to Pathfinder RPG
This assertion has been used to pit a CR8 fighter against a CR8 monster, and since the fighter dies more than half the time, the fighter is declared “broken” and in need of revision in PRPG. This assertion is also used to point out why other classes are ineffectual (monk and paladin for example) and also need revision under PRPG. Since PRPG design resources are limited, mistaken assessments are detrimental to the design process. This is especially true if these mistaken assessments are used to stifle debate about the effectiveness of the classes. This refutation does not attempt to indicate that the classes are balanced or not in need of improvement. It addresses only the fallacious argument that a Level 8 character should defeat a CR8 monster 50% of the time.Qualifications
Before I get into the meat of my response however, I would like to state my qualifications. I hold a BS in Electrical Engineering (with qualifications for a minor in mathematics). I utilize multivariate complex vector calculus (calculus involving multiple complex variables where variable "direction" is important), topology (the mathematical kind), spacial mapping, polar stability charts, Z and Fourier transforms and systems of partial differential equations daily in my business. I mention this because the following discussion will likely be somewhat mathematical and I want to assure readers that I have the background to carry out these discussions confidently. OK, with that out of the way...
Refutation
D&D game versions prior to 3.0 did not have a sound challenge rating guide for the DM. It was a design goal of 3.0 D&D to provide more guidance to DMs on what kind and count of monsters were appropriate challenges. The word “appropriate” can mean a number of things, so the designers had to quantify this in some fashion. Eventually the designers decided that “monsters of the appropriate challenge" would yield a 20% reduction in the party's expendable resources. This begged the question though, of what is the appropriate challenge? How does “appropriate” get quantified in a way DMs can use it?
Looking at encounters in general, we see that the following variables all impact the challenge of the encounter:
I am certain there are other variables that contribute to encounter “appropriateness”, but these 7 will do for purposes of discussion. One can imagine how radically changing (and I say radical so the effect will be pronounced) any one of these let alone a number of them will have on the level of difficulty an encounter. Furthermore these variables are all independent variables(definition: an independent variable is “is a variable which can be assigned any permissible value without any restriction imposed by any other variable.”). Each of these variables is independent of the other 6. That is, the number of foes present is independent of the classes of each party member, for example. Each of these independent variables combine in various ways to form the overall difficulty of the encounter. The types of interaction between these variables are numerous upon inspection (e.g. the special abilities of characters eases the encounter by a factor that is partially determined by the ability of the foes to negate this advantage) and exceedingly difficult if not impossible to quantify (e.g. to what degree does terrain and encounter distance affect the challenge of an encounter – and how much does this effect depend on the current resource level of the party?).
Given this, the designers were faced with a difficult task. I admit I am speculating at this point, but I believe given all of this, they decided they would try to break the “appropriateness” of an encounter (and thus its independent variables) into two quantifiable parts: Challenge Rating (CR) and Encounter Level (EL). They somewhat met this goal for a set of specific circumstances, but utterly failed to derive a system that truly captured “appropriateness” in general. Additionally, the way they used these terms further confused the issue.
CR was apparently designated as the “fixed” parameter for an encounter and would be assigned to the monster to describe it's general capability at full strength (special abilities, hit dice/level). EL was used to capture all of the other independent variables (number of foes appearing, terrain and distance factors). It was a reasonable idea, but it had its problems. The core problem comes about because even if they assign independent variables associated with the foe to CR and the other independent variables associated with other things to EL, they still had no way to quantify these numbers.
They apparently decided to determine CR empirically – that is through test and measurement. Page 302 of the MM suggests they created a fighter, cleric, rogue and wizard of the guessed-at CR+2. (So if they guessed the CR should be 5, they created the sample party with each character at level 7) and then had the party apply any buff spell with a duration of 10 minutes/level or more. They then ran the encounter a number of times using 2 foes in a setting appropriate for that monster (ambushers ambushed, ranged attackers attacked from range etc). If the party used about 20% of their “consumable resources” (hit points, spells, consumable magic items) then the CR was about right for the monsters. I understand, based upon various playtest posts that came out after 3.0 was released, that this process wasn't followed rigorously, making CR a bit less meaningful than it otherwise should have been and further muddying the waters. Nevertheless, this is the general approach taken to assign CR. Were they accurate? Not in all cases, even by their own admission.
Now at this point I am going to stop and ask – what have the designers done by calculating CR? They have used the independent variables for party size, level, and class to create CR - a dependent variable (a variable who's value depends on the values of independent variables). Mathematically, they have said:
CR(l,n,c) = f(l,n,c)
Where l = average party level, n= number of party members present, c = classes of party members, and CR is the Challenge Rating of the foe relative to the party. To put this in plain words, they said “ CR is a function of the party's level, class and number in the case where the classes were the core 4, the levels were an estimate based upon the desired outcome and the number was 4”.
As with many complex relationships, it is not possible to describe f(l,n,c) mathematically. If we could do this, we could calculate the CR function for every monster in the MM. But this wasn't done. What also wasn't done was trying to calculate the dependent variable CR using other values for the independent variables l (level), c(class), or n (number in PC party). Thus not only can't we see the full function f(l,n,c), we don't even have a few points to reference for its output value; we have exactly one point, the point where l = estimated CR+2, n = 4, and c = core 4. To put this another way, what would be the CR of an ogre if the designers had decided CR was to be based upon pitting the ogre against a single 1st level aristocrat? Would it still be 3? No. The CR would be much higher because the level of aristocrat needed to defeat an ogre with a 20% use of resources would have to be higher. As much as we would like to think of CR as an fixed value (read this as independent variable) and despite that that is how it is portrayed in the MM , it is expressly a dependent variable that has been calculated given a relatively strict set of input parameters. I further postulate that the CR map expressed by CR(l,n,c) = f(l,n,c) is highly non-linear with significant difference in its derivatives and possibly some places of discontinuity – effective “holes” in the map where no CR exists for a given set of input parameters, which makes speculation about the shape of the CR map specious at best.
Now let's focus on EL. This is the grab bag of independent factors like number of foes appearing and terrain and situational modifiers. The tables on pg 49 of the DMG, especially table 3-1 and the text associated with it, discuss changing the number of creatures present to adjust encounter level. This text and table indicate you can change the number of foes to adjust EL (terrain and other factors that might effect EL are discussed in non-quantitative terms on pg 50 of the DMG). This is all well and good, but this table makes the underlying assumption that we are using the CR system defined previously in the MM, that the CR of the monster is fixed. As I have shown above, the CR value provided in the MM is only that value for the specific case of inputs l, n, and c set as expected. If this assumption is changed (like n = 1 character instead of 4), Table 3-1 loses its meaning and the kind of scaling discussed in the table and the text above no longer holds true because the CR for an encounter where n = 1 has not been determined. However, if one assumes CR to be calculated as described in the MM, this table is more or less acceptable.
This “logarithmic effect” - doubling the number of foes present for an increase in EL of CR to CR+2, is reiterated on pg 37 of the DMG where an 8th level NPC foe is a CR8 encounter, 2 8th level NPC foes are an EL 10 encounter and 4 8th level NPC foes are an EL 12 encounter. Again, the term CR is blithely used here, but the only CR the designers can be talking about is the CR derived as described in the MM, the one based upon the function of 4 core characters.
Given this, it doesn't make a great deal of sense to pit a a fighter 8 against a CR 8 foe and expect a win 50% of the time since we really don't know the CR – the appropriateness if you will – of this monster versus a single character. One can assume that such a competition is unbalanced though simply based on the current definition of CR. The very definition of CR assumes that value was defined with the presence of 4 party members and is implicitly undefined elsewhere. The fact that some other classes may fair well against a CR8 challenge some of the time in single combat is no way indicative of the map of the function CR(l,n,c) = f(l,n,c). This key issue, that the map for CR is undefined except in the special case of 4 party members, makes using the logarithmic scaling rules on pgs 37 and 49 of the DMG useful only if the CR remains constant. This may not have been what the designers intended, it may not be what the designers wrote at various times (perhaps they forgot CR was a dependent variable and treated it like a constant - a special form of independent variable - as well) but nevertheless, it is true. What makes matters more confusing for the general reader is that table 3-1 (well specifically the example on how to use the table at the end of pg 48 involving ogres against a 6th level party) treats CR as an independent variable. “Find the party level and look across until you see CR2 in the table, then look up to find you need 4 ogres for a CR6 encounter”. This statement implies that CR is an independent variable and pays no heed to how CR was derived in the first place. It further implies that EL is now a dependent variable – not based only on number of creatures present but upon CR, which functions as an independent variable in Table 3-1 and is implied to be an independent variable on pg 37 but is not an independent variable itself.
I really don't think the designers worried overmuch about these issues. Perhaps they did; I really do not know. I doubt they considered that their logarithmic addition of monsters vs increase in EL would be or could be reversed to pit single characters against single foes in the name of game balance and if they did foresee and intend this, then they forgot that CR itself was a dependent variable that could not be “reversed” in this fashion.
Conclusion
Reversing the information in Table 3-1 or page 37 of the DMG to compare a Level 8 character against a CR 8 monster is a mathematical error. The table and text only apply when CR is determined using the empirical methods discussed on pg 302 of the MM. The fact that CR is used as an independent variable in Table 3-1 and in the discussions on pg 37 does not disqualify the fact that CR itself remains a dependent variable. This is especially true since CR depends upon the independent variable of “character's in the party” - the very parameter that is being reversed from the information presented in the tables.
I'll start by saying that I respect Frank and his points- I often agree with his insights and ordinarily find his arguments valid. however, this one I do disagree with.
The idea that a single character of x level should be able to match up with a challenge of CR x is, I think, fallacious. A fighter of level 13 can't take a storm giant. A 20th-level wizard might have a chance against the Tarrasque, but I doubt it. A 15th-level rogue is pretty much smoked fighting alone against anything undead or a construct of CR 15.
Challenge Rating being based on
a) being a party of 4, and
b) having the traditional Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard (and the accompanying teamwork benefits/buffs)
seems, to me, to be wrong. Hopefully an alternate system might be included in the PFRPG- we could even go back to the old 2nd edition format of HD/powers for an appropriate CR.
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Okay, but if an NPC fighter is a CR 13 and a Beholder is CR 13, the system says they're supposed to be equal challenges to a party of four characters.
Something is wrong with the CR system if it says the two are equivalent and they're not.
If a CR 13 NPC is equivalent to a Beholder, and they pose an equal challenge to a party of 4, they should also pose an equal challenge to each other.
So, he is correct when he says a 13th level fighter SHOULD win against the CR 13 creature, because the game says the Fighter is CR 13 and therefore equivalent.
Okay, but if an NPC fighter is a CR 13 and a Beholder is CR 13, the system says they're supposed to be equal challenges to a party of four characters.
Something is wrong with the CR system if it says the two are equivalent and they're not.
If a CR 13 NPC is equivalent to a Beholder, and they pose an equal challenge to a party of 4, they should also pose an equal challenge to each other.
So, he is correct when he says a 13th level fighter SHOULD win against the CR 13 creature, because the game says the Fighter is CR 13 and therefore equivalent.
This seems actually addressed in pathfinder, a 13 level fighter would be CR 11, not 13 by Pathfinder rules.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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What's we're talking about here is what some of my friends and I call the "featureless black plain" combat arena. This is a combat that effectively takes place in a non-real (at least on the material plane) locale with no terrain features, and nothing else present that will influence the fight. It's sometimes fun to pit two characters against each other to see which is stronger, better, etc.
The problem with this, esepcially when used to compare elements of the game to each other, is that it doesn't actually represent the game at all. In an actual encounter between a 13th level fighter and a beholder, the outcome depends highly on how the fight starts and the terrain. Is the fight in a large open area that the beholder can float 50 feet up and be out of reach from melee attacks? If so, then good bye fighter. If the fight is instead in a cramped tunnel that the beholder can't gain altitude in or manuver easily in, then the fighter at least has a shot. This is similar to a fight between a melee character and a wizard, since the wizard can fly, cast spells at range, etc. Other factors also have huge impacts on the outcome - which side is surprized? Does the fighter have access to flight?
Especially when comaring single characters strengths, these types of factors have a much larger impact than when comparing a whole group of 4 or more adventures. In a full party, most of the time, at least one character can counteract many of these types of influences, and therefore make the battle on even footing - the wizard can let the fighter fly, the cleric can cure adverse conditions, the rouge can scout ahead and gain intelligence and help set up an ambush, and the fighter can protect the soft targets in cramped conditions that don't allow for easy escape.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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This seems actually addressed in pathfinder, a 13 level fighter would be CR 11, not 13 by Pathfinder rules.Irrelevant for the original purpose; if you put level 13 fighter and wizard separately against CR 11 enemies, there's still a difference in effectiveness.
It all depends on the CR 11 enemy. If it's a low will save brute, the wizard will likely have the advantage. If it's a magic immune golem, the fighter will.
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I've read what the OP has said and completely understand it. I also understand what the others are talking about. I just don't see the overall result as being an effective gauge in determining results. For one, CR incorporates a party of 4 characters, each with different abilities. If only one of those abilities are being presented in a fight, that character is most likely going to lose more than 50% of the time. In the case of the beholder vs. the fighter, the fighter has the advantage of not relying on magic to subdue the creature so the central eye has little effect on him but without the cleric's protection spells and healing support, or the fighter lacks the ability to use ranged weapons as effectively as his melee weapons, he will always fail. I think a better test in regards of determining the power of a class is comparing how much more they contributed to the combat. In the same combat above, the Alpha fighter may have a slightly higher chance of being effective against the creature with ranged weapons but he still fails because of the lack of protection or healing. Add in the cleric to that fight, and you gain the fighter that can take on a beholder. You are looking at a game that each class plays off another class. A wizard needs the fighter to protect him, the rogue needs the fighter to set up flanking situtaions, the cleric needs the fighter to remain the prime target of the enemies attacks so he buffs the fighter to remain so. That's how the game is supposed to work.
It all depends on the CR 11 enemy. If it's a low will save brute, the wizard will likely have the advantage. If it's a magic immune golem, the fighter will.
Quoted for truth. A cleric will have an easier time against undead, fighters do better against creaters without touch attacks, wizards do well against masses of mooks - as long as they have a meat shield. Speaking of meat shields, rogues fight differently with and without flanking buddies.
There are different types of combat challenges. IMO, a dead-even comparison of X-level versus CR-X can (and have been) be interesting and enlightening, especially if it considers the different types of challenges, but that's as far as it goes.
Here is Frank's post from the Gaming Den. I don't know if he wants to address this issue any more after everything thats happened, but I figured it'd give everyone something to chew on.
The first thing to note is that when Monte Cook and Skip Williams designed the encounters and rewards system for 3rd edition, they did so with some truly radical notions. Not only was it much more mathematically rigorous than previous systems, but it also revolved around a concept whereby characters were expected to fight many less enemies both in individual battles (in the old days manticores came in groups of 1-4 and orcs came in the dozens or hundreds), but also over the course of gaining a level. The explicit goal is for players to go up a level at the end of four or five adventuring days and to have just 4 encounters in each. Clearly, a monster in 3e was intended to be a much scarier thing than its AD&D counterpart.But it was also supposed to go forward much faster. While the old Gygaxian systems seriously spoke of playing the game for four years straight without anyone getting to 11th level, the 3e D&D throwdown is explicitly that a single adventure path will take you from 1st level to 20th. Ideally in 3e a campaign which starts at 1st level at the beginning of a school year will get to 20th and retire by the end of that school year. This is an understandable goal, since a very large number of players are students, and when finals happen people leave town and lose touch - a campaign which has not "reached the end" often will never do so. In the 3e rules, a character who performs "standard adventuring" five days a week for three months in-game is *supposed* to graduate to the Epic wilderness. In 3 months of GAME TIME.
Many people haven't wrapped their minds around what that means, and believe me I'm not super happy with it. Honestly the Pathfinder "slow" progression is not nearly slow enough for my liking. The very concept that people gain power so quickly that in the time it takes a peasant to go back to the farm and return with next year's grain the capital city will have been overthrown by adventurers newly promoted to epic status THREE TIMES offends me. But that *is* the rules, and that *is* what the CR balance system was based on. More on that later.
Right now I'm going to talk about logarithms. A logarithm is a method of converting exponential notation (which grows really fast) into linear notation (which does not). The D&D concept is that doubling power is worth +2 levels. This linear conversion means that you can easily talk about bonuses in the abstract without knowing precisely what levels things are in order to make pronouncements (or for example, make rules and abilities which might be encountered at several different levels). If things stayed exponential all the time, then the difference between 4 and 8 (one double) would be 4, while the difference between 8 and 16 (the next doubling) would be 8. This way every doubling is just 2.
Which brings us to the Challenge Rating concept. Every Monster has a Challenge Rating. Every character encountered as an opponent counts as a Monster of their level, which is an important point which will be returned to. However, encounters are not expected to be designed based on CR (except indirectly). At each level you are "supposed" to face monsters which are mostly of the same EL as your "Party Level." You are also supposed to face a number of encounters which are higher or lower in EL. That number is supposed to be kind of low (DMG, p. 49), as it is to be recalled that ELs lower than the "Party Level" are supposed to be easy and ELs higher than the "Party Level" are supposed to have a real chance of killing the party off. But what are EL and Party Level?
For a party with four members and a constant level, the "Party Level" is just their level. For single monsters, the encounter level is just the CR. So for the "standard" assumption of 4 PCs gang-banging a single monster, you normally do this against a single monster of a CR of your level.
If you double the number of monsters, you add +2 to the EL. If you double the number of PCs, you add +2 to the "Party Level." And while you can't really have half as many monsters (since it starts at 1), if you have half as many PCs you *subtract* 2 from the "Party Level." Something that you can do exactly twice (that is, if you lower the Party Size to one, you reduce the "Party Level" by 4, and it doesn't go any lower than that). That's on page 39 of the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide.
But the real cake taker comes in the old charts that DID NOT make it to the 3.5 DMG from the 3e DMG. If you still have one of those it actually gives you percentages for characters to lose to encounters with ELs higher than Party Level. As part of Andy Collins' attempt to make the 3.5 DMG over a hundred pages longer, that chart was expanded into some descriptive paragraphs with adjectives that we can argue over the meaning of. But in the 3e DMG it just gave you a number. And the important one is where it straight explicitly told you that an encounter with an enemy with an EL 4 higher than the party level had a 50% chance to defeat the party (much more numerically informative than the 3.5 description of it being one where it is "very dangerous" and PCs "may die").
The fact that the explicit original concept is for a 50% win ratio versus an opponent 4 EL above Party Level is telling however. We go back to the rules for having a character appear as an opponent: his CR equals his level. Imagine for the moment that we had our party of four facing off against one of their members (perhaps from a Mirror of Opposition or a Lazy DM). That's an opponent that is EL X, and a party of Party Level X. That's a standard encounter. Once which they should win just about every time and use up about 20% of their daily resources doing. But imagine if instead we sent in a duplicate of EVERY character - a group of 4 monsters who all had a CR of X. That's an encounter of EL X + 4. And according to the original formula that has a 50% chance of winning against the party. Hardly surprising, because the party is facing ITSELF.
But now let's go back to the one man party. He has a party level of X - 4, because there are half as many and half as many again as many characters in the party as the standard group. Now let's imagine that he fights himself. That's a CR X monster once it's an NPC, and an EL of X. So that EL is still four higher than the Party Level, so his chance of victory is still only 50% - again unsurprising because the party is a mirror match for the opposition. You can extend this to a party of any size. Since groups of monsters of equal size and strength always generate an EL that is 4 higher than the "party level" equation for the same group, the equation always tells you that a mirror match could go either way - as well it should.
But the entire hubris of the CR system is not merely that it is a phenomenally mathematical way of claiming that characters are equal to themselves in a fight, and able to use numbers to their advantage, it's also a presentation of the concept that different creatures within a single level should be of roughly equal power. That is, that a CR 8 monster should fight roughly the same as another CR 8 monster. Not tactically, but in overall win percentage against other monsters and characters in aggregate. That's a huge claim and it would seem to imply that a CR8 Monster chosen at random is the equal of a Level 8 Character. And indeed it does, since as we recall a "party" of a single 8th level Character has a "Party Level" of 4 and is thus facing an encounter with an EL of Level + 4 when he fights a randomly chosen CR 8 monster - just as he is when he faces against a virtual copy of his own character with a goatee - because that's a CR 8 monster as well.
Are there flaws in the system? Heavens to Betsy yes. Some of the biggest have to do with how haphazardly the high ends of the game were playtested. Late game tactics weren't really explored at all, and the few playtest reports we've seen for the early introspections show us that they really didn't use monster abilities to their fullest. They had demons running into battle without even using their at-will buffs, let alone their powerful blast effects. And while the monsters were being played to their lowest ability, the Wizards were apparently in almost all cases dumping evocations, and sparingly at that. The Clerics weren't buffing themselves or the party particularly, just handing out healing. The pre 3rd edition playtest logs that have leaked to the outside world look like AD&D chat logs. The early high level material is understandably quite hit and miss. And unfortunately, the early material includes all the basic classes.
Another major offender is the Dragons. For reasons not fully understood by anyone, the Dragons have their CR set as a "very difficult encounter" instead of as a normal encounter. The end result is that you actually get less XP and treasure for defeating a Dragon than you do for defeating any other random monster of equal strength. But that's a different gripe.
The point is that the original concept is that a 15th level character would have a 50% win ratio against a CR 15 monster, or another 15th level character, or a party of 111th level characters or a team of 4 CR 11 monsters. Balancing high level play is a lot of work because the original designers didn't do a very good job of it. But that doesn't change the intended balance point.
-Frank
What's we're talking about here is what some of my friends and I call the "featureless black plain" combat arena. This is a combat that effectively takes place in a non-real (at least on the material plane) locale with no terrain features, and nothing else present that will influence the fight. It's sometimes fun to pit two characters against each other to see which is stronger, better, etc.
Why are you deliberately assuming crappy methodology? We actually try to replicate the encounters in the way that that monsters actually would be fought. Ankhegs, for instance, burrow up from below; Spiders lurk in thier webs. Beholds liver underground in tunnel complexes, so we fight them underground in tunnel complexes. Who surprises who? That depends on what kind of stealth and perception the two sides have.
terrain. Is the fight in a large open area that the beholder can float 50 feet up and be out of reach from melee attacks? If so, then good bye fighter.
To the extent that this is true, it's part of why FIghters suck. Whipping out a bow ought to be a valid option.
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In an actual encounter between a 13th level fighter and a beholder, the outcome depends highly on how the fight starts and the terrain.
It all depends on the CR 11 enemy. If it's a low will save brute, the wizard will likely have the advantage. If it's a magic immune golem, the fighter will.
This and the discussions above like it point to the non-linearity of the CR map space. Small changes in the independent variables can radically alter the outcome of the result. This also underscores what the designers did when they created their empirical CR formula. They made a number of these assumptions and then worked from there. Throw out the assumptions and you throw out the result derived from those assumptions.
If a CR 13 NPC is equivalent to a Beholder, and they pose an equal challenge to a party of 4, they should also pose an equal challenge to each other.
Wouldn't that be nice? It isn't that way though because the CR space is non-linear (an assumption since no one has managed to map the CR space but I think it is a good one). There are at least 7 independent variables affecting how one creature matches against another. That is at least 7 (and possibly as many as 7! (7 factorial: 7x6x5...x1 or 1260) different coefficients to a non-linear equation that must be accounted for. Furthermore, and more importantly, CR itself is meaningless (undefined really) for any opposition other than a 4-person core party. One can develop (via empirical data gathering) the one on one map space for a given scenario, but it would not bear much relation to the 4 on 1 scenario created by the designers. What it would be would be another “view” into the overall CR map and these results will not be comparable to any other results unless the input conditions were the same.
We are talking about beholders and Level 13 fighters here, so lets look at it this way. If one assumes CR equivalences, we can say an Orc (CR 0.5) will defeat a dolphin (CR 0.5) 50% of the time. See the issue? CR's really are not comparable to one another. They are comparable only at the one point where they were created – at the point where the foe faced 4 core characters, at all other points they are undefined.
It all depends on the CR 11 enemy. If it's a low will save brute, the wizard will likely have the advantage. If it's a magic immune golem, the fighter will.
Not to derail, but this is actually not true. Golems are extremely strong and have good DR; fighting them, while possible, isn't easy unless you kite with a powerful bow. There are, however, numerous spells that wreck golems, magic mmunity notwithstanding: grease and silent image, to name two.
The idea that a single character of x level should be able to match up with a challenge of CR x is, I think, fallacious. A fighter of level 13 can't take a storm giant. A 20th-level wizard might have a chance against the Tarrasque, but I doubt it. A 15th-level rogue is pretty much smoked fighting alone against anything undead or a construct of CR 15.
The Rogue will lose painfully to most undead if he's not allowed Gravestrike, yes. Luckily, the fact that he auto-loses to *some* CR 15 monsters does not prevent him from going 50/50 with CR 15 monsters as a group.
And a lone 20th level is not threatened by the Tarrasque in any significant way.
Okay, but if an NPC fighter is a CR 13 and a Beholder is CR 13, the system says they're supposed to be equal challenges to a party of four characters.
Something is wrong with the CR system if it says the two are equivalent and they're not.
And that is the real problem.
Some people are using a broken tool to measure the value of some things.
The tool (CR/EL/PL system) is broken, by the designers own admission. And as such, can not be used as a way to accurately measure anything.
The entire point is to *fix* it. Therefore, we use it for our measurements, and correct the things that don't fit.
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Some people are using a broken tool to measure the value of some things.
The tool (CR/EL/PL system) is broken, by the designers own admission. And as such, can not be used as a way to accurately measure anything.
Yes, I am in agreement with you on this. CR of any given monster is at best a guess. CR of a character is assumed to be equal to it's level, though I don't know if this was verified in playtesting extensively. Maybe someone that knows about this can comment.
The CR/EL system has enough disclaimers around it to cause anyone reading it critically to pause. This is another aspect of the CR/EL problem that makes the approach I refuted in my original post seem less than perfect. Even if the basis of CR was completely sound (and it isn't except where defined for 4-person parties), the amount of hand-wringing by the DMG authors over assignment of CR and EL issues should alone make a rigorous reversal of their work and any conclusions drawn therefrom highly suspect. If the authors say, in effect "this is kinda of right, to a point", tearing it apart mathematically and using the results as a basis for argument can be no more sound (and is probably less sound) than the original system the reversal was based upon.
I didn't go into this aspect of why the "CR8 vs fighter 8" assertion was flawed since I wanted to stick to the math side of things, but this is another reason swinging the CR/EL system around like a club at the PRPG team will lead to bad design decisions. At the very least, the DMG designers' concerns over the CR/EL system should cause anyone relying for any purpose upon the CR/EL system in the DMG to do so with a fair degree of caution.
Lich-loved, what's your alternative? What balance point would you suggest is appropriate? What means fo evaluating a character's ability would you prefer?
CR isn't perfect but as far I know, it's the best we've got.
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The entire point is to *fix* it. Therefore, we use it for our measurements, and correct the things that don't fit.
I agree. But maybe what needs to be corrected are the many erroneous assumptions in the DMG about the CR system, the CR rating system itself, and the misuse of the CR system in the EL tables and associated text. Perhaps PRPG could simply say that monster CR is based on the process defined in the MM pg 302 and that Table 3-1 and associated text in the DMG, when used to reduce party sizes below four (and maybe above 8) no longer applies.
This would fix the problem with the perception that a given character of level x should beat, on aggregate, a monster of CR x 50% of the time. And this change could be done quickly and cheaply and would not involve a rewrite of all core classes save the rogue.
Would you accept this as a fix?
Okay then, answer me this: What CR *should* a lone character of level N go 50/50 with?
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Lich-loved, what's your alternative? What balance point would you suggest is appropriate? What means fo evaluating a character's ability would you prefer?
CR isn't perfect but as far I know, it's the best we've got.
Great question. Of course I do not have the answer, but I do have an answer. I just posted it. Have a look right above this post.
I agree the CR/EL system is the best we have and I would use it as is. I would just disallow extrapolations based on the CR/EL system. The 3.5 designers had to put a line in the sand to quantify "appropriateness". They chose 4 core buffed and ready and an acceptable loss of 20% of disposable resources. Given that many groups play like this, that is a fine place to create a CR system. I just wouldn't go building big castles of thought on that foundation. The EL system relies on the CR system and is therefore no better than the CR system and is likely worse (rarely does adding complexity atop something simplify or strengthen it). Thus I think the designers overstepped their bounds when they went and built atop the EL system for scalability purposes, adding in this "doubling is EL+2" stuff. It has collapsed under its own weight.
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I think there are a few factors not being properly considered here.
1. An encounter at EL is supposed to use up 20% of a party's resources. That includes everything from spells to consumable magic items to hit points. The last is the most important.
If an encounter uses up 20% of a party's hit points, how many hit points does a party have? 20% may very well be more than the hp of the party wizard, so him "dying" is easily within the realm of losing 20% of your "resources" while surviving.
2. That leads directly to the second concept. If there are 4 party members, each can be though of as "25% of the party's resources." That means losing 20% can translate to "an 80% chance of one party member dying". When you consider going to APL +1 or higher encounters, as the DMG says, the chances of a character dying go up very rapidly.
3. The base encounter difficulty does not assume a "chance" of the PCs losing. It fully assumes that the party will absolutely win all of the time. The base is that the party can fight and win 4 of those encounters every day before having to rest. It is only with the fifth such encounter, where the party will have expended the "last" 20% of their resources, including hit points, that they are likely to die. Rather obviously, being out of hit points, that is exactly what they should be doing.
While this extends a bit to APL +1 and +2 encounters, and even +3 and higher encounters, the factors change rapidly. A party should only be able to survive two APL +2 encounters before facing death from expended resources in the next encounter.
4. Even though an NPC has a CR equal to its class level, the comparison to a PC is simply not equivalent. The NPC has significantly less gp resources, particularly at higher levels. At 8th level, the PC has 27,000 gp worth of equipment. An NPC has 9,400 gp worth of equipment. That is nowhere near comparable.
It also leads to a theoretical Catch-22 situation of a party of 4 PCs facing a party of 4 NPCs of equal level theoretically having a near guaranteed TPK of each other, with nearly all of the group's resources being expended. When you consider that is 108,000 gp worth of equipment versus 37,600 gp worth of equipment, it should be obvious that no such mutual destruction has anywhere near a chance of occurring. One group is obviously much better off than the other.
5. The above means that an 8th level PC is not a CR 8 encounter. He has nearly 3 times the equipment of an 8th level NPC, and almost 8 times the average treasure of 3,400 gp of an EL 8 encounter. That sheer mass of equipment should enable him to utterly slaughter any EL 8 encounter as a solo with very little effort.
Should. There is still one factor missing.
6. Consumables are part of a character's equipment, and they "automatically" replenish after every four encounters, just like hit points and spells. People ignore this and often refuse to either purchase or use consumables for fear of either running out of them "forever", or of "wasting" character wealth allotment on them. When that is done, and a character is equipped exclusively with permanent magic items, the character's power level drops considerably. That is the primary reason why a single PC would be disadvantaged against a monster of his CR, and why an NPC can be more powerful. A simple check of the cost of a +1 weapon versus the cost of oil of greater magic weapon +1 will demonstrate how lethal equipping an NPC with purely consumables that are all activated prior to an encounter can be. (It is 2,300 for the magic weapon versus 750 gp for the oil, plus the cost of an ordinary weapon.)
A DM using (and abusing) that will have very powerful encounters, particularly with NPCs.
A player ignoring it will wind up with an underpowered PC.
7. The threat of encounters at and above APL changes between APLs.
An APL +0 encounter at 1st level is a reasonable challenge, while an APL +3 encounter is disproportionately lethal.
An APL +3 encounter at 14th level is a reasonable challenge, while an APL +0 encounter is a walkover that rarely uses 5% of a party's resources, let alone 20%.
This also applies to creatures and combinations. At most APLs a solo monster above the APL is a greater threat that multiple creatures, while a solo creature at the APL tends to be a cakewalk while multiple creatures are a threat.
Altogether this means you cannot simply go with a simple comparison of PC level to monster CR. If you do, you will wind up with a very seriously flawed analysis.
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Okay then, answer me this: What CR *should* a lone character of level N go 50/50 with?
Another great question. The answer is - I don't know off hand, but we have a way to tell. We do what the 3.5 designers did and run a "standard character" (one rogue, one fighter, one mage and one cleric) against a given monster. We run the combat 6 times each and fight to the death. If the character does not win 50% of the fights, we up the character's level and try again until we get something close to 50/50. This is the CR for that character against that monster.
Note that this doesn't tell us anything about how another character will fare against the same monster. The results might be the same or they might be different. But regardless, I would wonder why you would want to do this. You couldn't compare the fighter's CR against the rogue's CR because the fighter and the rogue are fundamentally different (in the same way you can't compare a CR derived from a 4-party approach to one of a 1-party approach). If you desire the fighter and the rogue to be fundamentally the same (I think this is your goal - to make the fighter the same as the rogue in combat power), then you could say that the fighter needed to be bumped in power to be equal to the rogue in one on one fights, but then you would need to go back and retest the CR for a four party group using the enhanced fighter to see how [pi]those[/i] CR's changed now that you had a beefier fighter. The CR's for all the monsters as they are defined now would need to come down since the new "strong-fighter" party was arguably more capable than the previous "wimpy fighter" party (of course, extensive playtesting would be needed to reset the CR to be sure it was lowered enough.)
It is a vicious cycle, of course, since now the fighter of level x will be fine against a monster of NewCR x but the party will no longer expend 20% of its resources defeating the monster. To do that, you need to add to the foe in some way (more foes encountered or beef up the foe so it isn't a pushover) and you are right back to the fighter not being as effective when alone since he is no longer capable of fighting to a 50% win ratio with a challenge that would reduce 20% of his party's resources.
Part of Frank's point is that this 50% success rate is a distribution amongst variables. Comparing this lone character is to be done across a variety of challenges and scenarios that would be designated towards equal EL, where you then look at the distribution and hope that this results in a roughly 50% variance.
You should realize this does NOT state a level one orc warrior should beat a dolphin 50% of the time, but instead states that this orc will be the victor in half of the following...
* Four tiny centipedes
* One zombie (human, commoner)
* One dolphin
* One stirge
* One nimated candlestick
* Two kobolds
* One elf
* et cetera...
That is what Frank is stating when he speaks of balancing a class. EL is not a cut-and-dry statistic, but a guideline. But in order for it to be a guideline, then the statistical distribution needs an overall balance.
Because a supposedly balanced class can survive 50% of the time against a variety of challenges, there is obviously going to be a number of scenarios where he's guaranteed to lose (and vice versa). When you have different, yet balanced, characters, the encounters at which they'd lose will not overlap isometrically. As a result, teams of characters will cover their respective weaknesses and bring their strengths to bear as the encounter demands. Teams very much matter, and single-class parties remain a problem.
EDIT: The below part isn't directly pertaining to the discussion, but is related.
It has been plainly stated in the DMG that the CR of an NPC fighter is equal to their level, and one less than that if they're one of the NPC classes. With the gold available to NPCs, and assuming an elite array doesn't increase CR, I can tell you without a doubt that if my party had the choice between a frost giant and a 9th level human barbarian with the elite array, they'd take the human any day, because there is no venue for the barbarian to even be equal to the giant.
Taking this route, and since PCs get even more gold/gear than NPCs, this actually says that a player of level X must be BETTER than a CR X monster; which makes the fighter even more pathetic.
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I had an email exchange with Frank on this subject, as follows (Frank is in italics):
The immediate flaw which I noted in the argument, which is not yours but that of the old 3.0 table you cite, is that a character of 15th level should have a 50% chance of killing or being killed by a CR15 monster. An example of a CR monster is a 15th level NPC, who will have inferior equipment to his PC adversary. As such, defeat for him is more likely than for the PC, even if they were otherwise identical. Whether this extends to other monster types, I can't say, of course.
Believe it or not, this is actually (supposedly) taken into account by the CR system. An NPC is designed to be disposable. They are *supposed* to nova off all their resources in one fight as they die. They are thus given less total resources in order to "make up" for the fact that they are expected to use all their charges for the encounter they appear in. For example: a Bronze Griffon is not available all the time for an adventuring character. But for an NPC they will happen to be encountered while it is in use. That was the original concept behind the lower NPC cash totals and the reason that it wasn't supposed to lower their CR/EL. At least, that's what Skip Williams *said* the idea was, and I have no reason to doubt him.
Linked somewhat to this, I think it is a logical leap to say that, because the table says this, it necessarily means that ALL PCs should have a 50% chance of killing ALL monsters of equal level. It could easy be read as (and I do) meaning ON AVERAGE, a PC would have a 50% chance of killing a monster. On average, meaning that if you ran the simulation lots of times, using many different character and monster combinations, you should get an average 50% kill rate. I'm not sure if that is really what you are saying, where I think you are suggesting that any PC should have a 50% chance of killing any monster, all the time.
That would be a logical leap, but I never said that. I have said repeatedly that there are good and bad matches, which is why when I do a rigorous playtest I set up a list of many appropriately CRed encounters and total up the wins and losses across the board rather than picking on a single match-up which may be stacked heavily in favor of one character or another.
For example, I'm not sure I would fancy the chances of a 3rd level wizard against an ogre, for example - the wizard could probably hurt it, but might struggle to take it down, unless he was prepared specifically for it. If the Sleep spell fails, he's probably toast after a single hit from the club. Assuming he prepared Sleep, or still has it available. Or if he fails the initiative check, even. It would certainly be brief, either way. A fighter or cleric would possibly last longer and have more of a chance to kill it. Of course, there are many other factors to throw into the mix - terrain, distance, canny play, and so on. And then, if we move on to different monsters, we face a whole other series of new factors.
Yes. Wizard vs. Ogre battles are very fast. If the Wizard doesn't tie down or eliminate the Ogre in the first or second round, he is probably dead. But while it's really fast, it's actually usually a win for the Wizard in my experience. Ogres have poor saves and bad initiatives.
The other issue is that it ignores party composition. Different PC abilities provide options. The game was playtested, so far as I am aware (you doubtless know more) to be most compatible with a party of four PCs - an arcane caster, a divine caster, a warrior-type and a sneaky bugger. These options increase the chance of party survival, and are more lilkely to result in the "average" result on a more consistent basis (in statistical terms, the standard deviation would be lower than with the single characters).
I find that you actually get better results dong lots of tests with one character than less tests with four characters and more opposition. With multiple characters it becomes intractably difficult to see whether you have a character who is overperforming and another underperforming. For example: when a Wizard tosses around Deep Slumber, it is the Fighter who will get many of the "Killing Blows" - but we know who the star player is in that situation. One weak and one strong character can indeed make a balanced Party, and it frequently happens in actual play. But that's still bad for game balance, and bad for the game.
I think maybe you read too much into the table. I suspect the 50% thing was taken out between 3.0 and 3.5, not just to provide more filler in text form, but because it isn't necessarily true - I suspect the Monte Carlo-style simulation I mention above has never been performed, and no one really knows if it comes out at 50% or not (or anything like). It probably doesn't - you are as aware as anyone of some of the problems with certain character classes, and CR can be wonky too, as you point out.
For many classes it actually comes out really close. I run the "Same Game" test for every class that I design and playtest. That's the standard that Keith and I have for balance, and it's quite achievable.
I certainly don't see it as a manifesto for ensuring all PCs do the same amount of damage - I would suggest that average damage by party is more the benchmark to be looking at. But that is more a theological issue than anything else.
I don't really care if players do the same amount of damage. I want them to contribute to victory equally, which is very different. A Controller hurling Web and Glitterdust around can be the MVP without doing any damage. In fact, I had a Wizard character who seriously went no less than four levels (4th-7th) without inflicting a single point of damage on anything and still managed to consistently be considered the most valuable character in the party.
I would be interested to know the nature of the standard test, since a lot of the argument seems to hinge on that. A model normally stands or falls based on its assumptions.
Lich-loved:
It is conceivably true that a Fighter/Rogue/Cleric/Wizard team, when the fighter has been upgraded, will be so powerful that it breaks the CR system. However, I find this unlikely. First of all, if you give the extensions of the system toward smaller parties any weight at all, you can clearly see that the fighter does not carry his weight. I suspect that an unoptimized fighter/rogue/cleric/wizard team actually does *not* fight as effectively as the CR system demands, and improving the fighter might help get them on track.
But even if that's not true, you have to deal with the fact that the El system is the same for ANY 4-person party. We can exclude certain obviously determental groupings-- the four-bard party doesn't, and shouldn't, measure up. But I really want to have a game where a fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard party is as good as a cleric/cleric/rogue/wizard party. If we have to sacrifice the specific numerics fo teh CR system to make that hapen, I think it's worth it--although I do concede that there's room for informed disagreement on that point.
Sam Weiss
While the PC/NPC nonequivalence is a perplexing problem. Indeed, I've asked how Frank Trollman accounts for it and not yet received a satisfactory answer. I don't agree with him about everything. That said, I'd like to point out that this problem actually supports the title argument, that a level 8 PC (of any class) should go at least 50/50 with CR 8 monsters.
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Part of Frank's point is that this 50% success rate is a distribution amongst variables. Comparing this lone character is to be done across a variety of challenges and scenarios that would be designated towards equal EL, where you then look at the distribution and hope that this results in a roughly 50% variance.
I agree. My orc and dolphin example was rather lame and was designed only to reframe the debate away from the many powers available to a beholder. It also attempted to show that terrain and environment actually make a difference even within the CR system, despite the fact that terrain and environment are expressly the domain of the EL system per the DMG. It is another failing of the CR/EL system that is has this kind of cross-pollination of independent variables.
That is what Frank is stating when he speaks of balancing a class. EL is not a cut-and-dry statistic, but a guideline. But in order for it to be a guideline, then the statistical distribution needs an overall balance.
It does have a balance - well as much as it can be said to be balanced. It is balanced around a party of 4 characters encountering a number of different foes (this is the area where the EL table works). It is not balanced for situations where CR means something different than defined in the MM, like for a party of 1 character. The EL system of lowering APL by 2 for halving the members breaks down the first time it is tried on a party of half size. It invalidates the underlying "constantness" of the CR rating, an independent variable in the EL scaling process, but a variable dependent on the party size to begin with.
It has been plainly stated in the DMG that the CR of an NPC fighter is equal to their level, and one less than that if they're one of the NPC classes. With the gold available to NPCs, and assuming an elite array doesn't increase CR, I can tell you without a doubt that if my party had the choice between a frost giant and a 9th level human barbarian with the elite array, they'd take the human any day, because there is no venue for the barbarian to even be equal to the giant.
Yep. Frost giants are flat tougher than human barbarians, no doubt about it. I fail to see where this is wrong, though.
Taking this route, and since PCs get even more gold/gear than NPCs, this actually says that a player of level X must be BETTER than a CR X monster; which makes the fighter even more pathetic.
I am not following you here. Where does it say that a player of level X must be better than a CR X monster? I think this is the crux of the fallacy. The only place that even hints this may be true is the log-based scaling of EL based on number of foes present and this table was for use in scaling monster CRs (determined by a fixed party count) up or down based on more monsters present. The fact that a Level X fighter can be seen as a level X monster does not automatically mean that table 3-1 and its text can be reversed to apply to parties as well since CR is itself a function of party size.
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It is conceivably true that a Fighter/Rogue/Cleric/Wizard team, when the fighter has been upgraded, will be so powerful that it breaks the CR system. However, I find this unlikely. First of all, if you give the extensions of the system toward smaller parties any weight at all, you can clearly see that the fighter does not carry his weight. I suspect that an unoptimized fighter/rogue/cleric/wizard team actually does *not* fight as effectively as the CR system demands, and improving the fighter might help get them on track.
I do not give the EL system any weight to smaller parties. It violates a basic tenant of the CR system upon which the EL system is based. I concede it may be possible to estimate that parties of half size are possibly as effective as APL-2, but there is no way I would bet on this given the way CR is determined. I remain firm in my belief that once you get to APL-4 and a party of 1, you have left the path of wisdom.
But even if that's not true, you have to deal with the fact that the El system is the same for ANY 4-person party. We can exclude certain obviously determental groupings-- the four-bard party doesn't, and shouldn't, measure up. But I really want to have a game where a fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard party is as good as a cleric/cleric/rogue/wizard party. If we have to sacrifice the specific numerics fo teh CR system to make that hapen, I think it's worth it--although I do concede that there's room for informed disagreement on that point.
The presented EL system is only valid for parties comprised of the core four classes since it is only those classes that comprised the underlying CR system upon which the dependent EL system is based, though I concede it is reasonable to expect similar results from any four person party where these four roles were filled in a competent manner that did not significantly deviate from the standards set by the core four classes.
Regarding the viability of f/c/r/w parties versus c/c/r/w parties, I agree your goal is a fine one, but I wonder if in playtesting a f/c/r/w party uses about 20% of its expendable resources and a c/c/r/w party does the same thing? Have you tested this against an appropriate CR encounter? If the answer is that both parties use about 20% of their resources (albeit they may be different resources) then your goal has already been met. Something tells me there won't be that much difference in resources expended when the two parties are compared but more data is needed.
It also attempted to show that terrain and environment actually make a difference even within the CR system, despite the fact that terrain and environment are expressly the domain of the EL system per the DMG. It is another failing of the CR/EL system that is has this kind of cross-pollination of independent variables.
Here's how I would deal with this -- assume that a monster is encountered in its home terrain, with a reasonable degree of set-up. Charge EL for anything extra. For instance, it's in the nature of oozes to inhabit dungeones, so the CR of an ooze assumes open space, not an open field. But a room full of mist or magical darkness is not something the ooze would necessarily have access to, so it increases EL.
Lich Loved, you are a terrible human being and a terrible scientist. Not only have you created not one, but now at least two (or more?) threads specifically to flame me, but there were seriously already threads on exactly this concept that you had already been linked to. You deliberately created a flame thread in a place I rarely go and then didn't link to it in any of the ongoing discussions. You are a lousy debater and a morally decrepit individual.
But you are also just like Ben Stein. You argue against reason and science, but you don't even have a testable model to replace things with. Seriously, you offer absolutely nothing to this or any other discussion. You have no clue how to design an experiment to test whether something is balanced to your entirely subjective and unreasoned liking, and have not even proposed a methodology by which anyone might be able to do so.
I vote that this thread be locked, and with prejudice. It was created in bad faith by a person of no character for the explicit purpose of flaming another person. Lich Loved, and everyone who aids him in any way in his pathetic project should be ashamed.
-Frank
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I vote the thread stay open. And i believe Mr Trollman quite frankly has some nerve accusing anyone of flaming or anything after the tone he has used in several of his posts (Ironicly his last post was more flamebaiting than the entirety of the rest of this thread). As the old saying goes if you cant take it in dont dish it out.
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-Frank
BWahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
I didn't know Frank could be this funny.
It is too bad that I am fairly certain he was being serious....
I see a Holmgang as the only way forward [assuming Lich-Loved and Frank have equal CR of course!]
In all seriousness though I'm finding this post very interesting in terms of the topic and quandaries its throwing up regards CR etc.
Hopefully it won't be dragged into the flames...
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While it might be underhand to quote Frank in this context (this was private correspondence, in reaction to a suggestion of mine that he tone down the invective) what you will read next, in Frank's own words, might help clarify the situation.
I am polarizing. I started posting on Paizo a few weeks back and there are a number of people who hate me and another number of people who consider themselves "my supporters." That's phenomenal. If I did not use strong language, less people would hate me and less people would agree with me. And I honestly don't give a flying rat's ass if people hate me, because I'm in medical school and I'm never working in the industry again.
Being an incorrigible c@!$ who uses strong language and harsh tones polarizes debate. And if you just want to accomplish as much of your agenda as possible, that's seriously a win. Look at Newt Gingrich. He is hated by a lot of people and he got thrown out of office very quickly. But in his time in office he pushed a lot of his agenda forward. Another example would be Stalin. He outright killed people who didn't agree with him and went down as one of the most hated men in history. But he did double the life expectancy of Russian women and won a multi-front war against the two largest genocidal regimes in human history (Germany and Japan).
I have an agenda. That agenda does not include being loved or even liked on the Paizo board or any board. And believe it or not, that honestly really is a rational stance that real people have. One that can be acted upon to positive effect. Using strong, dismissive language against people can push debate. By being an unreasonable voice you can change what constitutes a reasonable voice. Like FOX News or the Chinese Media.
To be honest, this says much more than Frank really intended. His comparison of himself to Stalin is really rather amusing, and says more about his inferiority complex and fantasy life than anything about D&D.
The thing is, Frank's stated aim for these flaming contests is that he thinks (falsely, in my view) that it might further his agenda. However, the real reason he wants it is because it makes him feel important. His inability to take any criticism further demonstrates the fragility of his ego.
The thing is, an entire thread dedicated to debunking Frank is rather missing the point - he's loving it, because we are talking about him, it vindicates his martyr complex, and it certainly won't change his behaviour. I don't believe we are helping with this. I suggest we let Frank have his say but, if he turns nasty, retaliation is a waste of time and energy. Just ignore him - it is easier. His points are often valid, and the fact he is a twerp is something we have to ignore. Treat him like a spoiled kid, because that is what he is. He isn't a total bastard (a quick search of his name on Google turns up that he helped out in the aftermath of New Orleans) but his personal issues are polluting this debate somewhat.
Frank is well named. Remember: don't feed the troll, man.
(I suggest we forget about this thread. I understand Lich Loved's aim, but it isn't working and could have a broader detrimental effect on the Alpha playtest if Jason and Co get sufficiently pissed off with us. And, let's face it, it isn't the normal way of these boards, and we (most of us) are above this sort of thing.)
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Lich Loved, you are a terrible human being and a terrible scientist. Not only have you created not one, but now at least two (or more?) threads specifically to flame me, but there were seriously already threads on exactly this concept that you had already been linked to. You deliberately created a flame thread in a place I rarely go and then didn't link to it in any of the ongoing discussions. You are a lousy debater and a morally decrepit individual.
But you are also just like Ben Stein. You argue against reason and science, but you don't even have a testable model to replace things with. Seriously, you offer absolutely nothing to this or any other discussion. You have no clue how to design an experiment to test whether something is balanced to your entirely subjective and unreasoned liking, and have not even proposed a methodology by which anyone might be able to do so.
I vote that this thread be locked, and with prejudice. It was created in bad faith by a person of no character for the explicit purpose of flaming another person. Lich Loved, and everyone who aids him in any way in his pathetic project should be ashamed.
-Frank
First, I find your attitude and post deplorable. I only saw Lich-Loved mention your name once, and that was only to say that the argument he's tring to refute came from you. No insults, no flaming, just a thorough discussion of why he feels that your basic premise is wrong. None of it related back to you as a person, but instead going to the origin of the numbers used in your premise.
Second, just because he doesn't have anything to replace your premise with doesn't mean he's wrong. I've seen you use this as the basis of several of your arguments, and if it's wrong that should be pointed out, regardless of whether or not there's something immediately available to replace it. If I look at your gas-powered rocket that you're trying to send to the moon and say "that'll never work, gas doesn't have enough 'oomph' to go that far", just because I don't know how to build a rocket that *will* make it to the moon doesn't mean I'm wrong.
Finally, your insults and accusations only serve to make you look bad. Debate the merits of your premise, and lay off the ad hominem attacks. Trying to silence dissenting opinions only gives the impression that you can't defend your premise. Oh, and telling me I should be "ashamed" if I happen to agree with Lich-Loved doesn't endear me to any of your future ideas.
Just so we are clear here: Lich-loved has made two separate threads designed to discredit Frank as opposed to discussing his ideas in a rational way, as well as making numerous personal attacks in other threads that have derailed those discussions.
Considering that several of the people in this thread here have baited Frank relentlessly on these boards, watched him get mad, and then proudly proclaimed their moral superiority in those same or other threads....well, it's kind of sick in my opinion.
The moderators won't stop it despite my requests, so I'm basically bailing out here.
In conclusion, and in case you weren't listening, the whole thing is small-minded, bully behavior, guys.
So... beat up any fat kids lately?
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K, you obvious live in the same la-la land as Frank. What you just posted is a gross distortion of what has happened over the last few weeks. Your appeal elsewhere for moderators to step in is grossly hypocritical. If you can't take it, don't dish it. It is simple. These boards are generally very civilised. If the quality of the debate is low, it is because you and Comrade Frank (and a few others) have made it thus. You have been invited to tone it down, and you refuse every time with self-righteous justification like that which Frank gave above. These boards self-police, by and large - you have been at the wrong end of it.
If I might quote you, from only yesterday:
My advice is: buck up, buttercup. Laugh it off, and don't take this stuff personally. People know who the jerks are so it serves no one to point them out or go out of your way to chastise them. Online life is not a place for thin skins.
I suggest you take your own advice.
Hey, being demonized for saying "that mechanic sucks" is not the same as personal attacks on one's character.
If you weren't such a tool, you'd know that.
:-) Saying, "This mechanic sucks, and anyone who disagrees with me is a moron", on the other hand, is. And a "tool"? K, your veneer is cracking...
Whatever...you sad little man.
K grow up
You first.
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Just so we are clear here: Lich-loved has made two separate threads designed to discredit Frank as opposed to discussing his ideas in a rational way, as well as making numerous personal attacks in other threads that have derailed those discussions.
Considering that several of the people in this thread here have baited Frank relentlessly on these boards, watched him get mad, and then proudly proclaimed their moral superiority in those same or other threads....well, it's kind of sick in my opinion.
I haven't seen it. Not saying it hasn't happened, just that I haven't seen it. With that in mind (and to not derail this thread any further) can you send me an email with links to the threads you're talking about? Email is: klaw at klaw dot name
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I'm not a Frank & K supporter.
I do read what they say with great interest. Whether I agree or disagree, they have always been rigorous in their thinking. When they say the rules already work this way, they're usually right. The problem that I have is that even though the rules work that way, I wish they didn't.
And what's funny is that they seem to think so too. While they're advocating something very strongly to fit the rest of the rules package, they're also bringing attention to how the rest of those rules are working. If it isn't the way you intend the game to work, it is good that they're bringing that rigorous thinking to engage that aspect of the rules.
Personally, I'm a bit ashamed of some of the Paizo community here. If nothing else, several people in this thread have allowed things that have been said in other threads to 'intrude' and have not provided links. If I were an outsider and didn't know how often the people in this thread were polite and civil in disagreement, I might be scared away.
So, if we're debating the math of the CR system, let's debate the math.
Hey, being demonized for saying "that mechanic sucks" is not the same as personal attacks on one's character.
If you weren't such a tool, you'd know that.
Are you refering to this thread?
Personally this board with or without frank is no where near bad as internet standards go...not even in the gaming world.
He pointed out that a concept that's being discussed in multiple threads isn't sound, and gave a fair backing for that.
I saw zero personal attacks in this thread by the Op. I actually like a few of Franks opinions because they spark some debate (although not the demeanor), but this isn't a personal attack even if it proves Frank wrong on many of his points.
So, if we're debating the math of the CR system, let's debate the math.
But we aren't doing that. Lich Loved isn't really debating the math behind the game at all, he's essentially just calling Skip Williams a liar. Not a failure (which many people have honest reasons to do), but liar - which is pure conjecture on his part.
Cook and Williams ran through their projected math for what high level combatants should accomplish. Lich Loved alternates between the argument that he doesn't like those standards and the argument that these standards were not met. And while I am willing to grant both of his arguments, neither one actually leads us to the conclusion that they did not intend to meet those standards.
That something IS does not imply that it OUGHT. That something OUGHT does not imply that it IS. Lich Loved arguing that he thinks the standards ought to be different does not mean that they are. Lich Loved pointing out places in the game where the results are not the same as what the original designers said they should be does not mean that they should be that way.
Lich Loved has rejected the power scale that the original designers said they were trying to operate under. But he hasn't provided for the creation of one he wouldn't reject. All he has done is prevaricated and conducted smear campaigns.
That those smear campaigns are directed at me personally makes me an interested party of course - but he's still wrong. He's still not actually offering any evidence to support his views or even articulating what his views are. He has made himself immune to logical debate by virtue of not actually having a position to be debated. Basically, he's just a jerk.
-Frank