|
On the one hand, PCs have their character level, which can be translated to CR.
On the other hand, Monsters have their CR.
Balance / risk / reward is determined by these figures.
There seems to be an assumption that the individual character builds do not change the balance from the PC point of view.
In other words, all PCs of level X with appropriate WBL are the same, no matter how they are built - and equal to CR of X - 1.
This would seem to imply that changing the way that monsters are built, say by swapping some feats around, should also not change *their* CR.
However, if I take something like a Ghost with Base Attack of +6 and give it Vital Strike to use with its CR, or swap a Banshee's Iron Will feat, say, for Vital Strike, then it would seem to me that the creature is considerably more powerful.
I'm not sure how balance is supposed to be maintained.
Either we accept the argument that whatever optimisation takes place either with PCs or monsters the CR is considered the same so the balance remains.
Or we start assessing how optimisation changes CR on both sides of the balance.
This is a rules, question, BTW, because risk / reward and balance are very much a part of the rules. The question is, how should we handle this?
Richard
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There isnt any 'balance' in this game. There are guidelines. Its nearly impossible to assess optimization because of differences in system mastery, differences between classes, differences betwee options, and house rules/conventions at various tables.
Something as simple as whether or not characters have free access to their choice of magic items or not makes a massive difference in the power granted by magic items even if they all have the same rough amount of wealth.
CR gives you a starting point, you then have to assess each individual party against different kinds of threats. As long as you have a robust, and expressive game system (by expressive I mean a game in which the mechanics are meant to inform the flavor, and thus make you 'feel' like whatever you are doing) then balance is really just a general concept and not something measurable.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Deterministic CR rules, like all GM-guiding rules, are starting points, nothing more. It is the GM's privilege and responsibility to adjust the CR based on the actual challenge presented to the party. If that means that two level 10 wizards with the same wealth have a 3 CR swing between them, or that the same NPC changes CR based on whether the party is optimized or not, that is not only acceptable, it's expected.
Use the "Monster statistics by CR" table, the general monster creation rules, and your own judgment when deciding what challenge an encounter presents. If your gut tells you that the CR is wrong, take a second look, pinpoint the discrepancy, and either adjust the CR or adjust the encounter to compensate for your needs.
You can't design and run a Pathfinder game by algorithm alone. If you could, we wouldn't need GMs at all.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Your argument misses the one primal force of challenge: The GM.
The entire idea of character levels and APL and CR and Hit Dice are all just recommendations and guidelines (as Kolokotroni said).
The GM can swap out the Iron Will for Vital Strike, sure, and the GM should be aware that this will make things more difficult. It is up to the GM to determine if this change is acceptable for the party, give the party more rewards for it, or otherwise modify the encounter.
It isn't a rule's question because customizing monsters and building encounters are both fully in the purview of the GM's power as arbiter of the game and the events within the world of the game. There are no rules that state a party MUST fight APL monsters, and if they don't then they are entitled to something. There are no rules that state modifying a creature's feat or spell choices MUST affect the creature's CR. It is 100% GM fiat.
The CR system is a way to develop combat encounters with consistent rewards.
The core of the CR system is the "Level" system. But the system to fit the "level" system into the "Cr" system is as much a game of guessing as it is about live tests.
The most exact and reliable way to determine if an Opponent is appropriately CR based is to calculate his numbers.
If you give the creature vital strike in place of a saving throw bonus feat does that increase its average damage per round? Is the new number significantly higher then the old number?
Note that as the GM you often need to adhere the CR system while the players break it with Feat X or combination Y, a good way to deal with this problem is to note down their stats and compare them to the monster creation guideline.
Example level 3 Human Fighter (20 point buy):
Str 18. Dex 12. Con 14. Int 12. Wis 11. Cha 10.
Power attack. Furious focus. Weapon focus (Greatsword). Iron will. Toughness.
Gear: Full plate. Mw Greatsword. (And some random expendables)
Average HP: 34. AC: 20. Attack: +9. Average damage: 16. High save: 5. Low save: 2.
If you compare this to a CR 3 creature you will see that the player vastly outweighs it in defenses (Assumed numbers: 30 hp, Ac 15) and attack (assumed numbers: +6. 13.
Also note that if you attack Saves or Touch ac, then this guys advantages are largely gone, for his exceptional AC will count for nothing.
This means you can generally allocate a +1 Cr to this player if you want to give him an exactly correct challenge, but there are risks to this, you as GM must make sure that the CR increase does not bypass his capacity for greater challenges, if you meet his High attack, high AC character with something that attacks saves or Touch AC then that players advantage is negated.
So against the Fighter above who outgrew his level you should increase the difficulty of "Meaty" opponents who attack AC and deal HP damage, but those who attack other defenses should remain the same.
As a GM, my personal experience is that you should not optimize and build monsters the same way a player would.
Stick to the Cr tables without modifying them to account for the players capacity for brutality unless it is especially fitting.
Example:
Once your players have the level required to cast spells like fireballs massed low CR threats become redundant. If you include masses of goblins in a battle, don't reward the party for killing every single goblin if getting rid of them all was just a matter of casting one fireball, you should just reward them as if they had killed 5 or 6 at most.
Example 2:
A player has used feat combination YXW to deal exponentially more damage then he should for his level. To compensate you might use a similar feat combination on one of your Bosses to let that Boss deal back some of the damage the player is dishing, this will promote a game of "tag" between your players and yourself, as the players find that enemies are increasingly able to one-shot them, and return fire by researching better ways to one-shot the enemy back, welcome to the era of Scry / Fry.
If you wish to deal with a players expansive capacity to deal damage i recommend you counter him by granting your npc's extra defenses. The NPC's extra capacity for taking damage will make the fight last longer, and many a player likes imagining his character going toe to toe with tough opponents who just refuse to go down.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thank you very much for all the answers.
I accept that the GM can take the role of modifying encounters to suit the party.
However I would also like to consider this question with the GM as a disinterested party.
I think that there are three schools of players who prefer a GM to act in this way.
The first are the ones who simply want the GM to run an adventure as written, possibly because they don't trust the GM to do any fiddling about with it.
The second are the ones who see the creation of a PC group that are able to deal with any "reasonable" challenges to be part of the challenge of the game.
The third group are the ones who value consistency and "believability" in a game world.
I belong to both the second and third group.
My view is that once I have a rough idea what a campaign is going to be about (e.g. by reading the player's guide for the AP we're going to be in), then it's up to my fellow players and I to produce a party that is going to be able to deal with all of the "reasonable" challenges that we're likely to encounter. I don't particularly want the GM to start adjusting the encounters to compensate for our strengths and weaknesses - if we're out of balance, that's our problem to sort out, not the GMs.
I also dislike the idea that the shape of the world is going to change to suit me in some way. It breaks my sense of immersion. Part of believability means that the NPCs and monsters that live in this world behave in a way which is optimal to their survival. I'm quite happy to accept that I have a sixth sense with my PCs which allows me to gauge what adventures are within my grasp and which ones are too hard, but after that I expect to be confronted by situations which feel like they could have come out of a well written fantasy book.
There is also a final group of people who are interested in looking at GMs from this disinterested point of view and that's the adventure writers. Writers have to think about getting the balance right in their adventures without having any idea what PCs are going to be run in it. You might assume that a GM will tailor the adventure to suit the PCs if the party is extreme but on the whole you want to pay attention to balance because you want to minimise the amount headache that you cause the GM.
And, IMO, adjusting encounters for players is a headache for GMs.
I know that is just one way of looking at things and I'm sure there'll be people who think it isn't possible to run a game with a disinterested GM. As an old gamer (!) I know that that was a central concept of FRPGs in the past, and like I said I still think there is a contingent of gamers who are interested in that concept being preserved in their games now.
Which brings me back to the question of balance in its, if you like, theoretical form - i.e. the CR system.
Maybe I should re-phrase my original question and ask if the CR system is broken, just how broken is it?
For example, if a CR 5 encounter is supposed to be "challenging" for a party of four 4th level characters, then just how true is this given the variability of a CR 5 encounter and the possible difference in the construction of the four 4th level characters?
Richard
This already begins to get tricky when taking the Point Buy Budget into Account.
Not really.
Do you have less than or equal to 15 pointbuy? If yes, no CR change.
If No, CR+1
Pointbuy has diminishing returns which is why Player APL doesn't really change from either 20 PB or 30 PB unless playing a class that significantly benefits from a high PB like Monks or Warpriests.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Which brings me back to the question of balance in its, if you like, theoretical form - i.e. the CR system.Maybe I should re-phrase my original question and ask if the CR system is broken, just how broken is it?
For example, if a CR 5 encounter is supposed to be "challenging" for a party of four 4th level characters, then just how true is this given the variability of a CR 5 encounter and the possible difference in the construction of the four 4th level characters?
I think the issue with that question is that CR, like most of the rules, was never designed to be used as anything more than a guideline. If you start expecting it to hold the game together by itself, then yes it's going to look broken due to variations in encounter design, character design, player ability, and often circumstantial modifiers too.
Some people may not like the GM needing to or having the power to modify things as needed, but rules and adventures are written with that expectation. You only have to look at the feedback to players that have complained about an AP being too much or not enough of a challenge to their group to see Paizo's opinion on that. The rules get you into the approximate ballpark, but the GM needs to do the fine (and sometimes not-that-fine) tuning if you want a balanced game.
So my answer is : if a GM tries to use CR by itself for balance (and isn't lucky enough to get an average group vs an average encounter), it isn't that CR is broken, it's that the GM is breaking the game themselves by not using it the way it was designed to be used. While that's dangerously close to me saying "they're doing it wrong", there really isn't any other way to say it. All playstyles are certainly valid, but if you're using one that doesn't follow the basic design principles of the game, you will still need to adjust the rules accordingly to meet your chosen playstyle in order to get a satisfying result - the game can't adjust itself to meet player preferences, after all.
Maybe a better way for me to say it is like this: If a group decides they want the rules to be the ultimate arbiter in all things, and to remove the role of GM fiat in balancing, the consequences of this will be a less balanced game (and yes, the same is equally true if you have a bad GM that misuses that fiat to balance things badly). If they wish to claim the game is broken because of this, that is of course their prerogative. My personal feeling there is that it's the same as claiming a chisel is broken because it isn't working very well as a screwdriver - but that is very much my personal P.O.V. I can certainly understand people having the P.O.V. of "but the rules should be dealing with this by themselves."
|
|
Some people may not like the GM needing to or having the power to modify things as needed, but rules and adventures are written with that expectation. You only have to look at the feedback to players that have complained about an AP being too much or not enough of a challenge to their group to see Paizo's opinion on that. The rules get you into the approximate ballpark, but the GM needs to do the fine (and sometimes not-that-fine) tuning if you want a balanced game.
As the game has increased in complexity, my ability to be able to predict the outcome of any encounter has diminished to the point where it's more or less guesswork. Looking at player and GM feedback on this forum, I think I'm hardly alone in this.
Trying to adjust an encounter prior to it taking place in order to keep the level of challenge right seems to me these days to be a pretty much impossible task. At least, once you get above 3rd level or so.
Additionally you raise the spectre of excessive GM power that caused such a backlash with player power that has happened over the last decade or so. If the GM starts to play with the risks/rewards of an encounter, isn't it possible that he will bring his own judgement about PCs into play, even inadvertently? Do I need my GM's approval of my PC in order to increase my chance of survival, or should it have nothing to do with whether my GM likes the concept of my PC or not?
I approve of GM fiat but only in the sense of maintaining a realistic fantasy environment. Indeed, as a GM, I prefer to be disinterested because I don't want to be accused of adjusting the game on the basis of my own playing prejudices.
For these two reasons I would rather have a CR system which, both as a player and as a GM, I could *largely* speaking rely on. If there are, broadly speaking, problems with the system then I would like to try to find some way of solving them.
Richard
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As the game has increased in complexity, my ability to be able to predict the outcome of any encounter has diminished to the point where it's more or less guesswork. Looking at player and GM feedback on this forum, I think I'm hardly alone in this.Trying to adjust an encounter prior to it taking place in order to keep the level of challenge right seems to me these days to be a pretty much impossible task. At least, once you get above 3rd level or so.
I'm leaning towards agreement on that. I've certainly had more occasions where I've had to adjust tactics to tone down an encounter (or put up with the fact the PCs are trampling the opposition into the ground) than I can remember.
Additionally you raise the spectre of excessive GM power that caused such a backlash with player power that has happened over the last decade or so. If the GM starts to play with the risks/rewards of an encounter, isn't it possible that he will bring his own judgement about PCs into play, even inadvertently? Do I need my GM's approval of my PC in order to increase my chance of survival, or should it have nothing to do with whether my GM likes the concept of my PC or not?I approve of GM fiat but only in the sense of maintaining a realistic fantasy environment. Indeed, as a GM, I prefer to be disinterested because I don't want to be accused of adjusting the game on the basis of my own playing prejudices.
For these two reasons I would rather have a CR system which, both as a player and as a GM, I could *largely* speaking rely on. If there are, broadly speaking, problems with the system then I would like to try to find some way of solving them.
Richard
I can understand and get behind that, and I'm pretty certain we'll get people on every side of the argument agreeing for the most part that the current system does not do that to the degree of accuracy a lot of people would like it to.
The current system works for me (in as much as making those on-the-fly changes during play isn't a dealbreaker for me.) I certainly understand it doesn't work for everyone. The question would appear to be whether or not the risk and reward involved with changing it is enough to sway Paizo, and I don't think I see enough of an argument on either side of that to make it a forgone conclusion either way. All I can really conclude right now is that it'll be interesting to see what, if any, changes are made in the longer term.
CR was originally meant to be a solid system, but it would have had to be empirically-derived, and IMHO, in the development of 3.0 not nearly enough playtesting was done above 3rd level or so to calibrate the higher-CR monsters (notice some of the CRs in the 3.0 Monster Manual II: for example, the mountain giant). This carried over to some extent into 3.5 and PF.
One of the problems with calibration is that a CR 11 fighter is not equal to a CR 11 wizard unless they're suddenly teleported against their will (no save!) into a 10-foot room and told to kill each other, which is a fairly absurd scenario. Without any balance among PC capabilities by class, it's close to impossible to balance monster CRs against PC capabilities.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Always have to keep the players in mind.
The base assumption is that the party is at least partially balanced.
I like to tailor challenges to the party. This doesn't mean purely catering to their strengths, it also means challenging their weaknesses in a reasonable way.
Personally I also use a lot of homebrew creatures or homebrew edits of creatures. Sometimes this gets wacky. I think it's perfectly reasonable to change something on the fly if you deem it necessary for maintaining reasonable challenge. This can be anything from tweaking the enemy count, tactics or fine tuning some numbers on the horrific monstrosity you dreamed up.
What I most want to optimize is the player's experience.