I remember my first DM said exactly that... we stop playing with him after our 4th TPK. It made me step up as DM and babyproof the world so my friends could experience D&D. And even that, we have a lot of stupid, but very memorable close calls. It made me understand that level zones exist for a rason in videogames. Yes, life is unfair, but this is a game, we came to have fun. And yes I got a reputation as a mommy DM, but at least people want to come back to play at my table.
I love this! You tried something, it didn't work as expected, and you made changes. Bravo. I think this is how everyone should play. Thanks for sharing your story!
In general this is true if you are running a sandbox campaign. But for a specific storyline you may need to check CR so that you can create the right balance of challenge and entertainment.
I have an intro to D&D campaign I have run several times now that starts at level 1-3 (I let the individual players pick their difficulty, 1 for hard and 3 for easy) and goes into the teens. I specifically tell them to not make a backstory for the character yet, just make the bones and play them some and get a feel for the character. The climax of the second quest (to investigate the unexpected silence of a higher level druid), at levels 2-4 puts the players against a dragon with enough head start that if they are not stupid and they run then their characters can escape unharmed. The purpose of that is to teach the lesson early that the world can be dangerous and that they should not expect to be able to easily win all battles and if they do a dumb and fate is not on their side then I absolutely will kill their characters. I have mercilessly dumped a whole breath weapon on a single level 4 ranger that thought the party should fight even though everyone else ran. One especially brave (and foolish) wizard tried to sneak up to the still sleeping dragon to get some of it's modest hoard and the last thing the party saw as they abandoned him was him being torn in half for breakfast. One party decided immediately they were going to battle the dragon, they made an ambush, they got very lucky and actually killed it (Young White Dragon). All other parties ran and lived. After this quest they get help and the masters of their guild take on the dragon while the party (possibly with new faces) go off on an urgent, far away quest and on this road trip it is then I ask them to think about and share some back story to give flesh to the character to get them attached. I also encourage the party to have hirelings and a roster of alternate characters that change in and out at their will so the death of a character isn't as devastating and does not stall the game for the player, but I digress.
Wow! Your adaptations and style are highly admirable. I like how you make the backstory secondary so players can get a feel for their characters before going "all-in". This is a great idea. The swapping out of characters is also a novel way to decrease a player's attachment to their character. NICE!
@@dnd-and-philosophy ultimately the goal is to have fun. Some players want to just play one character, and that is fine, but others just enjoy playing any character and they like being able to mix things up. On my side I enjoy being able to use their benched characters for narrative stuff, sometimes forcing a swap or a team up for story reasons.
As DM before the existence of the CR system I never adopted it when it came around. It just didnt seem to make any real sense to me but i was already a very experience DM by the time it rolled out.
Because the world isn't "balanced" or fair... and isn't a video game, where everything is rated by "Zone Level." I don't "balance" the world for the PCs, they need to think strategically and know when something is too risky for their situation.
This. Also the sheer fact that cr is COMPLETELY unbalanced across the monsters. Intellect devours and shadows alone can tpk an "appropriate" level party. Beasts of certain CRs are waaaay less dangerous compared to undead or other types of the same CR. So wtf is the point of CR if it's beyond unbalanced. You literally have to eye ball everything tbh.
I have to disagree. CR is a useful tool if you know how it's calculated. CR tells you what average party level (a party is assumed to be 4 players) needs to be to be an even match mathematically against a monster based on its damage per round and effective Hit Points for at least 3 rounds. If your players are doing around 50 damage average per round, and have each around 100 hp, throwing a monster that can deal around 300 damage per round, divided among each player with a multiattack, and has 150 hp will result in a mostly even match, not accounting for random factors, which are the true deciding factor not accounting for player actions (which can tip the scales in either direction). People don't know this, but CR is divided into Offensive CR and Deffensive CR. The Final CR is the average you get when adding both up. A creature that can withstand a lot of damage but can deal only a little has about the same CR that a glass cannon creature. Using said creatures is ill advised however because a mismatch OCR and DCR leads to either "whomever rolls initiative first wins" or a stalemate. You cannot balance an encounter based on what players will or will not do, or what the dice will land on. All you can do is base yourself on averages and allow randomness to do the rest. If you want a high CR creature on a lower CR, you can modify it to that point. CR Is just the way in which you know, on average, how much DPR and EHP a creature has relative to an average 4-character party. Once you know this, you can use that knowledge to infer further information based on your players. Maybe you don't use CR but you can still use DPR and EHP to balance things. Either way, the system works to classify creatures and effectively gives them a "level". Not using CR is definitely an option, but I don't think you argue well enough for why CR is not needed. You only argue why you prefer your own method, which... duh. Everyone prefers their own methods. CR is mostly a tool for evaluating overall statistics, and for content creation. It is not a tool for playing itself. How do you measure what creatures a player can summon without CR? With tables limiting their options to specific creatures like 3e?
I remember my first DM said exactly that... we stop playing with him after our 4th TPK. It made me step up as DM and babyproof the world so my friends could experience D&D. And even that, we have a lot of stupid, but very memorable close calls. It made me understand that level zones exist for a rason in videogames. Yes, life is unfair, but this is a game, we came to have fun. And yes I got a reputation as a mommy DM, but at least people want to come back to play at my table.
I love this! You tried something, it didn't work as expected, and you made changes. Bravo. I think this is how everyone should play. Thanks for sharing your story!
In general this is true if you are running a sandbox campaign. But for a specific storyline you may need to check CR so that you can create the right balance of challenge and entertainment.
Very true. Thanks!
I have an intro to D&D campaign I have run several times now that starts at level 1-3 (I let the individual players pick their difficulty, 1 for hard and 3 for easy) and goes into the teens. I specifically tell them to not make a backstory for the character yet, just make the bones and play them some and get a feel for the character. The climax of the second quest (to investigate the unexpected silence of a higher level druid), at levels 2-4 puts the players against a dragon with enough head start that if they are not stupid and they run then their characters can escape unharmed. The purpose of that is to teach the lesson early that the world can be dangerous and that they should not expect to be able to easily win all battles and if they do a dumb and fate is not on their side then I absolutely will kill their characters. I have mercilessly dumped a whole breath weapon on a single level 4 ranger that thought the party should fight even though everyone else ran. One especially brave (and foolish) wizard tried to sneak up to the still sleeping dragon to get some of it's modest hoard and the last thing the party saw as they abandoned him was him being torn in half for breakfast. One party decided immediately they were going to battle the dragon, they made an ambush, they got very lucky and actually killed it (Young White Dragon). All other parties ran and lived. After this quest they get help and the masters of their guild take on the dragon while the party (possibly with new faces) go off on an urgent, far away quest and on this road trip it is then I ask them to think about and share some back story to give flesh to the character to get them attached. I also encourage the party to have hirelings and a roster of alternate characters that change in and out at their will so the death of a character isn't as devastating and does not stall the game for the player, but I digress.
Wow! Your adaptations and style are highly admirable. I like how you make the backstory secondary so players can get a feel for their characters before going "all-in". This is a great idea. The swapping out of characters is also a novel way to decrease a player's attachment to their character. NICE!
@@dnd-and-philosophy ultimately the goal is to have fun. Some players want to just play one character, and that is fine, but others just enjoy playing any character and they like being able to mix things up. On my side I enjoy being able to use their benched characters for narrative stuff, sometimes forcing a swap or a team up for story reasons.
As DM before the existence of the CR system I never adopted it when it came around. It just didnt seem to make any real sense to me but i was already a very experience DM by the time it rolled out.
Page 248 the monster is a otyugh
Yes CR is not done very well in 5e. I go by experience and use a lot of bandits with levels in different classes.
Because the world isn't "balanced" or fair... and isn't a video game, where everything is rated by "Zone Level."
I don't "balance" the world for the PCs, they need to think strategically and know when something is too risky for their situation.
My Page guess is 248.
@@VMSelvaggio Thanks for the entry. I won't reveal the correct page or monster until a later video so others can guess too.
This.
Also the sheer fact that cr is COMPLETELY unbalanced across the monsters.
Intellect devours and shadows alone can tpk an "appropriate" level party.
Beasts of certain CRs are waaaay less dangerous compared to undead or other types of the same CR. So wtf is the point of CR if it's beyond unbalanced.
You literally have to eye ball everything tbh.
I have to disagree. CR is a useful tool if you know how it's calculated. CR tells you what average party level (a party is assumed to be 4 players) needs to be to be an even match mathematically against a monster based on its damage per round and effective Hit Points for at least 3 rounds. If your players are doing around 50 damage average per round, and have each around 100 hp, throwing a monster that can deal around 300 damage per round, divided among each player with a multiattack, and has 150 hp will result in a mostly even match, not accounting for random factors, which are the true deciding factor not accounting for player actions (which can tip the scales in either direction). People don't know this, but CR is divided into Offensive CR and Deffensive CR. The Final CR is the average you get when adding both up. A creature that can withstand a lot of damage but can deal only a little has about the same CR that a glass cannon creature. Using said creatures is ill advised however because a mismatch OCR and DCR leads to either "whomever rolls initiative first wins" or a stalemate.
You cannot balance an encounter based on what players will or will not do, or what the dice will land on. All you can do is base yourself on averages and allow randomness to do the rest. If you want a high CR creature on a lower CR, you can modify it to that point. CR Is just the way in which you know, on average, how much DPR and EHP a creature has relative to an average 4-character party.
Once you know this, you can use that knowledge to infer further information based on your players. Maybe you don't use CR but you can still use DPR and EHP to balance things. Either way, the system works to classify creatures and effectively gives them a "level".
Not using CR is definitely an option, but I don't think you argue well enough for why CR is not needed. You only argue why you prefer your own method, which... duh. Everyone prefers their own methods.
CR is mostly a tool for evaluating overall statistics, and for content creation. It is not a tool for playing itself. How do you measure what creatures a player can summon without CR? With tables limiting their options to specific creatures like 3e?