At what point do GMs out there adjust encounter CRs?
For example, my campaign is set in a frozen world, and everyone knew this when they made characters. As a result, the party predictably includes members such as a Flame Oracle, an alchemist specializing in fire bombs, a ranger built to fight creatures with the Cold subtype, plenty of flame weapons, etc.
When I set up an encounter with, say, ice trolls, I tend to lower the CR by 1 or 2 because the party is so atypically well prepared to fight such monsters.
Does this sound reasonable, and under what circumstances do others make these adjustments?
Also, is it reasonable to adjust encounter CR based on how many sourcebooks are allowed in a game? Obviously, a party made from core vanilla ONLY is going to be less powerful than a similarly optimized party where all 3.5 and PF sourcebooks are allowed. At least for those encounters with core, non-retooled monsters, is it reasonable to adjust effective CR based on the increased power level of the PCs?
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Not really any cr worth adjusting, Ice Trolls are intelligent and know fire is bad for them, they most likely thought of how to face fire opponents in their cave, now if you play Ice Trolls like regular trolls then yeah they will die horribly, An Ice Troll sorcerer/shaman casting protection from fire every day is not unreasonable. Now if the pcs were fighting ice trolls in a volcano or very hot place...yeah I would lower the cr.
It certainly is reasonable to lower the CR due to optimization. On the other hand, they sacrificed other abilities for this to work.
Use that against them. After all, if you are in that world, why should they be the only ones who think of that? Many tactics of monsters and - especially - NPCs will include fire, e.g. alchemists fire, fire spells, flaming swords etc. Similarly, opponents can be expected to protect themselves against fire, since this will be used against them.
Also, are you really playing monsters to their potential? Do creatures with darkvision attack in the dark, removing light sources first? Do they aid another to hit the guys with high ACs? Do they use traps? Diversions? Ranged weapons? In the case of critters with cold immunity but cold weapons (e.g. breath weapons), do they attack with their comrades included (which after all does not hurt them but your team)? Do monsters retreat when they realize they will lose and come back later that day or night, so the party has used up resources? Have you considered environmental effects (e.g. winds make casting and throwing/shooting projectiles difficult)? Do you have at least 3 encounters per day? Are the characters really getting enough sleep to recover spells and KI?
If there is something in the above list that you have not considered, maybe this can help you :-)
Adjusting CR based on sourcebooks is not what I would do. I consider Paizo Pathfinder books mostly balanced (at least non-campaign books). 3.5 is something else entirely - if you allow everything there you will have problems. Many of them have horribly overpowered material in them. Not allowing them in the first place or only allowing options on a case by case basis is much better IMO.
No reason to adjust the CR.
With their human-level intelligence and wisdom and what the write-up says about their tactics, there is no way an ice troll would willingly face a party armed with fire alone. And in a group, they would work together to bring down the fire-bearers one at a time. Considering that bit about working as mercenaries, you can expect them to use military-level tactics against the PCs, so an ambush to take out the fire weaponry and powers would be within possibility.
Don't adjust the CR (that lowers or increases the EXP they'll receive).
Just make the challenge harder, either through terrain, advanced tactics, or simply beefing up the enemy.
The most obvious answer here is "Don't send fire vulnerable/Cold subtype enemies all the time when your party is made up of a Flamethrower, a Carpet Bomber, the Cold subtype equivalent to a weedwhacker, and a buncha people armed with Shishkebabs".
The CR already takes vulnerability into account. Let the PCs be good at what they chose to be good at. Then sic a few fire elementals or efreeti on them--again, without adjusting CR.
I think people may be thinking too literally here.
I mentioned "ice trolls" only as an example. As it turns out, the one encounter I ran that featured ice trolls did in fact feature them using Darkvision in exactly the manner Sangalor describes, and to some effect. However, at the end of the day, they were still Cold subtype giants up against a group armed to the teeth with fire magic and cold immunities (plus a ranger built specifically to kill giants).
Again, this is in a campaign set in a world that has been taken over by an evil god of ice, featuring a LOT of cold-themed encounters. I don't resent the players optimizing against cold in any way -- it makes sense for them to do so -- but in general, they are going to effectively be over-powered against cold type enemies.
Rynjin suggests to "make the challenge harder", which is exactly what adjusting the CR level does.
He also effectively says, "don't run a campaign set in a frozen land", but I'm not satisfied with that answer, because it's too limiting.
Don't be afraid to use alternate adventuring parties and other humanoids. The main characters are probably not the only ones wandering around with fire weapons and dealing with the native creatures.
Not really any cr worth adjusting, Ice Trolls are intelligent and know fire is bad for them, they most likely thought of how to face fire opponents in their cave, now if you play Ice Trolls like regular trolls then yeah they will die horribly, An Ice Troll sorcerer/shaman casting protection from fire every day is not unreasonable. Now if the pcs were fighting ice trolls in a volcano or very hot place...yeah I would lower the cr.
Protection From Energy is a 3rd level spell, requiring a troll cleric of 5th level. At that level, it protects ONE troll for 50 minutes.
Not all the trolls, all day.
That's not really a solution. Even if it were, it means draining the resources of the troll encounter to set it somewhat back to normal against the PCs. That troll shaman COULD have cast Lightning Bolt, Fly, or something else instead of Resist Energy.
Remember that the troll's Cold immunity just isn't going to come into play against this party. At all. None of them use cold weapons or spells. Ever.
Don't be afraid to use alternate adventuring parties and other humanoids. The main characters are probably not the only ones wandering around with fire weapons and dealing with the native creatures.
Yes, I get that. I'm asking specifically about the more typical encounters that will occur against cold type creatures, like ice trolls, frost giants, winter wolves, ice toads, ice elementals, ice mephits, white dragons -- you know, that sort of thing.
-1 CR for the encounters in their favor.
+1 CR for the encounters not in their favor.
-1 CR for favorable terrain
+1 CR for unfavorable terrain
Increase CR for outnumbering the party(2 on 1 is +1 CR, 4 on 1 is +2 CR and so forth)
Decrease CR for being outnumbered by the party.
In this case, I would decrease the CR of the Trolls as encountering them is very favorable to the party due to their fire vulnerability. If they have favorable terrain(Their lair for instance) and have prepared it, got their ambush off, and sprung their trap then I bump up the CR.
Another example would be the a group of Fire Mephits jump the party in their lair. This fight is definitely unfavorable to them, their fire immunity grants them a large benefit. The terrain is beneficial to the Mephits and they outnumber the party 2 to 1.
+3 CR
Don't adjust the CR (that lowers or increases the EXP they'll receive).
Not really. They'll receive the same EXP, because they'll be run through the same number of equal CR encounters, it's just that their CR will be adjusted.
For example, I could plan for 4 CR 8 encounters for the day. If ice trolls (for example, and I'm working from memory here) are CR 4, then ordinarily 4 of them are CR 8. If I lower CR by 2, then 8 of them are CR 8, and the party fights 8 instead of 4 -- but they still get the same amount of EXP.
Just out of curiosity, do you GM or are you primarily a player?
-1 CR for the encounters in their favor.
+1 CR for the encounters not in their favor.
-1 CR for favorable terrain
+1 CR for unfavorable terrainIncrease CR for outnumbering the party(2 on 1 is +1 CR, 4 on 1 is +2 CR and so forth)
Decrease CR for being outnumbered by the party.In this case, I would decrease the CR of the Trolls as encountering them is very favorable to the party due to their fire vulnerability. If they have favorable terrain(Their lair for instance) and have prepared it, got their ambush off, and sprung their trap then I bump up the CR.
Another example would be the a group of Fire Mephits jump the party in their lair. This fight is definitely unfavorable to them, their fire immunity grants them a large benefit. The terrain is beneficial to the Mephits and they outnumber the party 2 to 1.
+3 CR
I think your assessment is correct, in general. Favorable terrain was once a factor, at this point it is less so because everyone in the party either has Boots of the Winterlands or some other method of overcoming snow/ice terrain. An ambush would be another story.
Being outnumbered only counts if the extra opponents can get at you. Being "outnumbered" at a choke point may well be very different -- but I can agree with you that in general it should count.
As for the fire mephits, I would agree with the bump only if the party had no other energy attacks at its disposal. These guys are sharp enough to have made that a non-issue -- the alchemist can throw acid bombs, for example. It is also a non-issue because in this campaign there just aren't many fire-based creatures roaming around.
Don't be afraid to use alternate adventuring parties and other humanoids. The main characters are probably not the only ones wandering around with fire weapons and dealing with the native creatures.Yes, I get that. I'm asking specifically about the more typical encounters that will occur against cold type creatures, like ice trolls, frost giants, winter wolves, ice toads, ice elementals, ice mephits, white dragons -- you know, that sort of thing.
Pretty much, you have a party that is over-optimized for the terrain they are in. If they play well and are intelligent in how they use tactics, then anything you toss at them that will be really a challenge will risk a TPK every time the dice go against a player.
The solution is to toss in more stuff against which fire doesn't do much; things like earth elementals, golems, rival parties using fire gear, etc. Or you can adjust the CRs repeatedly until you find one that works, but you'll probably kill a player character or two along the way.
Balance in the game is based on an assumption of four rather generic characters with varying abilities. So it is not outside of the GM's purview to lower a CR if his party has had foreknowledge of the types of creatures and environment they would be facing, and has maximized their potential against these things, to the exclusion of other abilities, such as that they demonstrate easy mastery over those creatures and environment (in the OP's case, an ice world).
But that's the key to this: they must demonstrate this mastery. You have to run an encounter or two in light of their specializations and see whether they really are kicking butt and taking names. If they are, then, yes, clearly they are hyper-specialized, and these encounters are easy for them. Conversely, if they happen upon a creature that does not fit their speciality, you will want to watch to see if they suffer and struggle, and perhaps reward them as if against a higher CR.
REMEMBER: Some people here will very eagerly tell you that if the hypothetical party above specialized away from a general ability to handle "normal" monsters, then it is their own fault and you should punish and penalize them every way you can. WRONG. It is not your job to punish your players or their characters, especially if they have indulged your theme of an ice world by creating characters that would fit into that ice world. If, on the other hand, they have over specialized in a generic world, you don't need to "punish" them then, either, because the game and the dice will pretty much do that by themselves.
The Core rules themselves tell you it is okay to ad hoc CR (see page 398 of Core), and gives adjustments for terrain and gear as examples. But remember, those are just examples. There are many other reasons to make adjustments not listed there, but implied.
I, myself, take terrain into account, because we use actual models on the table with our miniatures, and I like to get the terrain involved. Some terrain is serious enough to require a CR adjustment, either one way or the other (especially when it favors a specific type of creature, "powers" that creature somehow, or itself deals damage). I try to take this into account when designing the adventure.
Another thing I have done, going way back to early editions, is to provide some item or weapon that is overpowered for the party, but which will give them a chance at defeating a more powerful enemy. Clearly, this can "even out" the CR a bit, by increasing a party's power beyond what would be normal at their level.
REMEMBER: Some people here will very eagerly tell you that if the hypothetical party above specialized away from a general ability to handle "normal" monsters, then it is their own fault and you should punish and penalize them every way you can. WRONG. It is not your job to punish your players or their characters, especially if they have indulged your theme of an ice world by creating characters that would fit into that ice world.
I agree with everything else you have written here, but especially this.
Not really. They'll receive the same EXP, because they'll be run through the same number of equal CR encounters, it's just that their CR will be adjusted.
For example, I could plan for 4 CR 8 encounters for the day. If ice trolls (for example, and I'm working from memory here) are CR 4, then ordinarily 4 of them are CR 8. If I lower CR by 2, then 8 of them are CR 8, and the party fights 8 instead of 4 -- but they still get the same amount of EXP.
Just out of curiosity, do you GM or are you primarily a player?
Half and half.
And I'm not sure what you're saying here, exactly. I'm just going by how the book calculates CR (aggregate of the EXP all the monsters present will provide once defeated).
"Lowering the CR by 2" doesn't work the way you describe. CR is lowered by adding/subtracting monsters or using weaker ones and actually lowering the challenge, not just by changing the values and saying a CR 4 monster is now CR 2, barring circumstantial changes (which don't actually change the EXP values IIRC, just the overall CR of the encounter).
CR and EXP are tied hand in hand by the way the book does it.
And note, my advice wasn't "don't run a campaign in a frozen land" but not everything needs the cold subtype and vulnerability to fire.
Throw in your winter Fey, your Ice Trolls, and such every now and again, but there are plenty of things that survive just fine in a frozen wasteland that aren't frost monsters.
Polar Bears aren't frost monsters. Most Humanoids and Monstrous Humanoids aren't frost monsters. And so on.
Polar Bears aren't frost monsters. Most Humanoids and Monstrous Humanoids aren't frost monsters. And so on.
Absolutely, and when encounters feature those monsters that the party isn't optimized to defeat I wouldn't change their effective CR because they are optimized to defeat them (because they aren't).
I'm not sure why you are confused about the concept of effectively lowering CR. Let me try to explain.
IMC, the party is optimized to fight cold type creatures. When I choose to have them encounter something with the cold subtype, I might consider the party able to defeat such an opponent as handily as if it were 1 or 2 CR lower than it actually is. Thus, a white dragon of CR 8 might really be considered CR 6 or 7 for the purpose of determining how difficult an encounter it will be and the EXP reward for defeating it. It's like I magically change the CR of the creature from an 8 to a 6 or 7. Does that make sense?
Currently, the party is running through an adaptation of the classic module "Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl". Because the party is optimized to defeat cold creatures AND one party member (the ranger) is optimized to kill giants, the party has been cutting through frost giants like butter. I'm talking a CR 17 encounter that 5 10th level equivalent PCs and their cohorts prevailed in, with a cohort and an animal companion getting killed. Did I give them the full EXP for a CR 17 encounter? Heck no, I dialed it back to the EXP award for a CR 15 encounter, which is what it effectively was -- APL+5, very dangerous but not impossible to prevail against. All of the fire magic and the giantslayer ranger made the encounter a lot easier than it should have been.
I guess it's a matter of taste, but I would prefer to do THIS than engage in cheeseballery like suddenly switching to lots of fire-based encounters in a supposed ice world (or even dialing back the classic ice monster encounters in a supposed ice world). The players knew what they were getting into from the start and I told them from the start that cold type monsters would be under-CRed. They had my blessing to optimize against them because that's what you would expect intelligent PCs in that world to do.
I see what you're saying it just didn't grok the way you worded it before.
And I don't consider it cheeseballery to tone back the frost monsters, honestly. Not saying cut 'em out, or suddenly make all the goons fireproof, but a lot of "classic ice monster encounters" don't have to be "Enemies that take 1.5x damage from fiyah".
Chuck a group of Eskimo Bandits or whatever you wanna call 'em at them, and such. People, with class levels, just poppin' out of the snow.
Stuff like that keeps the theme, but also keeps the difficulty at a manageable level.
Do not adjust the CRs.
If you want to make the encounters harder send more enemies. Also, remember, if you are sending less enemies at the party than the number of PCs in the party then you are doing it wrong imo.
Monsters are almost always better when they are focused on Offense as opposed to Survival.
Remember that almost all of the undead are immune to cold. Burning Skeletons can instead be flavor changed to have a cold aura (cold fire?) and you can do a lot of cool stuff.
Perhaps instead of just 1 troll per character you have the trolls lure the PCs over an army of the undead who are buried in the snow. As soon as the step over them all of the undead make a surprise round of grapple checks. Now the trolls jump the party.
One thing that I would do is have a lot of bloody burning(cold fire [Aura of cold instead of fire, immune to cold, vulnerable to fire]) skeletons that attack the party on a regular basis to, if nothing else, take resources from the party.
Bottom line is that you don't need to increase/reduce CRs. It is your fault for telling them that they need to make characters hand crafted for a cold adventure. Now you get to deal with the consequences.
Perhaps the PCs find an area that isn't frozen, and a cave leading into the ground. There in the ground it turns out that there is a caldera under the ground at this point, and the PCs are not tasked with fighting fire and earth creatures.
Mix things up for a bit. Remember, when it comes to cold, it doesn't have to be rocky, mountainous terrain. One of the most dangerous encounters I ran was in a cold, foggy swamp of all places. Not much that Boots of Winterlands can do in that kind of terrain.
Also, I don't increase CR for sourcebooks. Mostly because I also get access to said sourcebooks, or can generally work around it with good tactics.