Challenge Rating | Running the Game
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- Опубликовано: 22 авг 2017
- Episode 44: What even is CR?
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"My right answer is not necessarily your right answer."
I think this is the best piece of DM advice.
Blatsuura that advice also works for parenting.
Only in specific situations. Be careful not to generalize this to all truth.
So the undead video is to help us find the wight answer.
Get out of here.
Pronounce it in a British accent and it'll make perfect sense
I hate you
I adore this
a long time ago i used to ask three questions when building an encounter
"is this cool"
"does this make sense"
"will this wipe my group"
yes
now beware there are DMs who want the answers to be yes no and yes
@@solalabell9674 i want the answer to be yes, yes, and yes.
i love building painful encounters. My last session the rogue went unconscious twice, and the party found a mimic ring that left the ranger at 1 hp. Idk why i love doing this shit, i just love it. The players do NOT trust me anymore, and will be super cautious about opening any door or chest or whatever they might be opening. Even looking at certain things has them hiding behind cover.
And i love it.
@@Eniroth my group of 6 new players and 1 old player has had 2 sessions with me so far.
In session 1:
- I downed a character
- I reduced one to 2hp with a specter attack but he passed his save
- I reduced another to 1hp with the same attack but he failed his save
Session 2 ended with 5 unconscious but stable PCs out of 7 total.
I'll tame it back in future for some combats, but holy shit was the fear of death exhilarating for the players.
@@shanekayat3217 i know, rolling dice is fun and all, but with no consequences or repercussions to poor play or bad behavior the impact of every die roll is that much lesser.
When my players now roll their dice, the tension in the air is so thick it can be sliced.
"the (CR)code is more like guide lines than actual rules"
GM Barbossa
Lmao
I watch this channel while feeding my one year old. She has begun to nod her head every time Matt makes a point.
Omg that is adorable
One of Matt's bonus languages is Baby.
r/thathappened
r/nothingeverhappens
@@tuptastic304 fugoff
I used cr for a while. once my level 4 players took on an encounter that was considered deadly for a 10th level party and managed to win without a single death, one week later they tpked to an easy encounter. I no longer use cr.
0:31 The moment when he points to his left but the box appears over his face will forever fill me with delight. Comedy!
My 5-man level-3 party defeated a Young Green Dragon, which I believe is CR-9. They just planned really well.
Conversely, they fought a Black Pudding last week (CR-4) at level 4 and almost got wiped.
Sometimes there's no telling what will happen! Much cooler to overpower and encounter and nerf it on the fly by playing them suboptimally or lowering their HP. Or maybe the party lands a good hit and removes a piece of armor to lower the AC.
Justin Z Two of my 6th level PCs almost got killed by a Gelatinous Cube hahaha
The thing about challenges is that sometimes even if a challenge should be easy or fair, the dice can betray you and screw you over
This past Friday, my party of six level 4 (though, each of them have some buffs to make them feel more like level 5 in power) players just fought a Wyvern Queen (see: Adult Green Dragon without legendary actions and 18 AC instead of 19) and six wyverns, with the aid of one wyvern and one level 11 warlock, who was a bit of a failure in combat anyways.
They went into this knowing it was going to be crazy hard. See, they needed the necromantic heart of the Queen to revive a recently deceased partymember in lieu of any other means of revival. They were told by the clans that hunt these wyverns that this is something rarely done, due to it's insane difficulty. But yet, they wanted to try. The alchemist artificer was able to create five potions of poison resistance, and another potion of poison immunity was obtained, which ended up being an enormous help during the fight. They got a clan to take on the majority of the wyverns while they fought the Queen and her closest wyverns.
At the end of the fight, only three partymembers were left standing, all with very low HP (one had 1HP), and no one had died. The partymember was revived.
The thing with a dragon is quite common. In Lost Mine of Phandelver, you also kill it on level 3, and it's made to be killable
@@ondrasukdol6654 The green dragon is supposed to flee at 50% health in that encounter, actually.
I would totally wear a shirt with "peace" on the front and "out" on the back
Hey, here is an idea: a video about the "useless" skills/proficiencies. Making them useful and/or fun.
Come up with that yourself.
Garrett Stewart Yeah. Fuck people for making requests. Who do these clowns think they are? Fans?!
Bjorn Wild if you're a DM, you should give your players some skill challenges for what you want to test. Althetics isn't used alot, give your brutes some athletics tests, try to have enemies shove them.
If someone isn't perceptive but better at investigation, give them things to investigate. These skill challenges exist for a reason, have players use them.
Keffington Bear in my game, medicine is connected to making potions, (a potion is just a fantasy drug so some medical knowledge is probably involved) and to knowledge checks based around identifying an illness. I've called for the check in a few other situations as well, but it remains something of an edge case skill.
At a stretch, Medicine could be used to judge the psychological state or health of an individual, though insight could be used similarly.
my player might ask "do I believe her?" I would have him roll insight,
"She seems to believe her statement"
"Is she crazy?"
This would be a situation for medicine as you are seeking info on illness.
The skill probably has more use in some campaigns than others, but honestly you will seldom use it more than other possible skills.
One medicine fix I am considering is 1) you need it to use a healers kit. 2) you need to use healers kit charges to use hit die to heal (ala DMG options)
Ahh, when I color correct a video, it undoes the positioning of the images. Got it figured out now, sorry for the weirdness.
The colour correction is very nice
At least your hair is cute ;)
Lol did you just heart your own comment. Love it!
Great videos keep up the good work
Where are the stronghold rules Matt?
I thought it was hilarious, and intentional!
4:45 you mention using monsters tactically. This is one of the most common things I've seen with players. Players expect all enemies, be they L1 pigs or L20 wizards, to just blindly walk forward and attack. How dare my npc bards and clerics buff themselves, or rogues utilize sneak attack, or Liches cast spells...!
Yeah definitely know that feeling! Especially with monsters that have high int they know who the squishy spellcaster is. They know that the cleric is the one who keeps healing everyone keeping them alive. They would also want to win shouldn’t they fight with some level of basic tactics? Let alone a lich or archdevil or demon with 25 int or something who is above genius level intelligence?
Yeah, this is definitely something to keep in mind. Sometimes the issue is that monsters come with so many extra rules, when you add them on the spot, or when you have a bunch of different ones it's hard to use them all correctly. Sometimes the best things to do is to modify the special abilities of some creatures to something that's easier to understand and to put in practice and that you know will have some impact on the players
I did the thing you told me not to do. I threw an ogre at my players, at the end of a long hallway, plenty of time to run away. They decided to set up a rope trap and fight the 20 foot tall ogre in a small cramped hallway, and well, our Monk is pink mist now. Colville leason learned, don't throw things at your players that you don't want them to fight.
breaking the same rule, the DM of a game I somewhat recently played threw a giant crocodile at the party to speed them along and get them to advance further into the dungeon... They ended up spending *three* sessions taming it instead.
20 foot tall ogre!? How many puberties did HE have!?
Have to use a giant boulder next time.
I've been DMing for maybe around a year now, and I've found that I actually do my best work with the bare minimum preparation and the pressure of on-the-spot improv. You've been a massive help and inspiration. Keep it comin'!
Hi! Six years late to the party but first time DM coming up this Sunday. I just wanted to say I found this discussion very comforting, so THANK YOU!
At 10:23 I went to wipe something off my screen at the exact place that Matt recoiled from and it actually scared me.
*HOLY CRAP* I was *JUST* thinking about my next encounter's CR problems, Matt! This is *VERY* timely! Thank you, and keep doing what you do!
On my end, I use an alternative CR chart I grabbed from a redditor's homebrew. *HOWEVER,* I don't compute CRs on the fly, but rather I've created several preset encounters weeks before I ran the campaign. In cases when I needed to run a truly random encounter, I go with what monsters make sense in the current location, despite character levels! If there's a dragon there, I say they see it in the distance flying or sleeping, to give them enough time to decide whether to flee or fight.
I was fortunate enough to DM for the first time with a group more experienced than me, and when I mentioned CR they all pretty much immediately said not to use it and just build encounters I thought would be fun. Worked pretty well for us!
As a new DM (I've only run maybe 10ish sessions) I use exp calculators like Kobold Fight club and the such to get an idea of what to send against my players. But I have taken a liking of adding legendary actions to relatively mundane creatures whom could be bosses or leaders.
My most recent example was a revenant I had the party fight where I gave it 3 legendary actions:
1 action to punch
2 actions to "call soldiers" as he was a long dead general who would call his skeleton and shadow soldiers from their graves.
I ran the fight pretty poorly, I screwed up a few places, and they were noticed by the players. but other than those mess-ups, they enjoyed the fight and thought the mechanics behind it were pretty good.
I like to build my own monsters quite a bit already to fit narrative and make cool and meaningful encounters and story elements so I say to hell with the people that say I must follow the CR system until I'm more experienced, my players (who are mostly way more experienced than me) are enjoying what I'm dishing out and only felt cheated when I did actually cheat them in the revenant fight by doing something I shouldn't have.
I enjoyed the video and liked that you gave different views on the system rather than just saying use this or do that like some other channels do at times.
I find "Kobold Fight Club" is a good start to setting up combat encounters.
My players don't know how much they can thank Kobold Fight Club for not being tpk'd during the first few sessions i ran.
Still use it as a check to see if i might have missed something or if my thinking in an encounter is wrong.
That's actually a really cool idea for a boss! Mind if I steal that for a campaign I'm gonna start running soon?
I think that CR is great to get you started, but once you start to get the feel for what the CRs mean, you can start to build on instinct. At least, after years of DMing, that is how I have come to do it. As Matt says, do it the way that works best for you!
Leonardo Mendez Go for it, I'm glad you like the idea.
That Undead video looking like Half-Life 3 status right now.
Bro have I ever let you down?
Matt go to bed it's 3 am (love your work)
Matthew Colville, Nope. Not yet!
I came to this video wanting to know how the CR works.... I left wanting to just throw monsters at my PC's and just see what sticks. This was a great advice video. Thanks Matt!!
6:30 I'm not sure I like the idea of randomly deciding on the amount of enemies the party should face based on their current state (As you put it, well rested or having good intel). The reason is that I think it punishes the party for planning ahead, conserving their resources and/or trying to discover something about their enemy.
If they know you'll give them a fitting amount of enemies based on how prepared they are, then why would they bother preparing? I feel it discourages planning ahead and maintaining spell slots/abilities, and actively punishes the party when they think ahead, which isn't something you want as a DM.
I tend to agree with you. I think Matt is more into fudging die rolls and selling the players an illusion, because he finds the results more fun. But I'm more the type to decide what makes sense for an encounter area completely independent of the party. I throw away CR but I dont weigh the scene based on the current party state or readiness. Therefore any encounter may be easier or harder than might make the encounter an epic scene; but that's ok. Our group is more simulationist in style.
This really does seem like a matter of preference and GM style, a battle between simulation and story. I'm pretty sure I've fudged HP in every battle I've run, I find it more entertaining and satisfying if every fight(within reason) is a winnable struggle. But some people prefer occasionally mopping the floor or throwing themselves at impossible odds, but personally if I feel the GM has a responsibility not to waste peoples time, to me it should be short or epic.
@DM Blackwall I think that's a pretty good and seamless way of making an encounter easier, at least compared to directly adding/removing enemies, but personally, as a player, I'd feel a bit cheated if the DM was contriving an easier encounter for me because I acted rashly or got bad rolls. I prefer to feel like I've earned my victories fairly, and I think making an encounter easier just cheapens the whole thing.
Still, to each their own. I totally get why you'd change a situation to suit a party's condition, and why it might even be beneficial in some cases to do so.
It won't punish any one because you don't punish in game and you don't tell them (manipulation is the best tool a game master have in entertaining).
I think a good counter argument is that you could adjust encounters if you believe they haven't prepared enough (or reward them for preparing a lot). So if the level of preparation is good and they've been very smart -- you can reward them for that. But if they haven't prepared much and you get the feeling they are getting lazy, you can reasonably 'punish' that behavior
"No ad here at the end for my books..." That is an ad Matt lol.
This was the best video thumbnail in a while. Keep up the gesticulations and facial expressions, Matt!
"On the fly" is where I live best. I enjoy a healthy amount of prep work, but as you say, just in bullet point form. At times I've had to create a scenario out of thin air because I just simply did not have time to prep the week before. I wouldn't recommend this all the time, however, they turn out to be some of the most memorable and empowering sessions of the year. Cheers.
just ran my first session as a dm thank you Matt for these videos to help make that happen
One of the things I really enjoy about your videos is that you encourage not necessarily listening to you. I see a lot of people on Facebook who hate your channel because they don't agree with you, but for me that's part of why I like it. Of course I don't agree with everything but most of your advice is solid, including this, I never used CR because it seemed like a lot of tedious work especially balancing for a 10 person party.
I used CR in 5e for a year and a half. I never felt comfortable with it, and I never felt it was accurate. Some 'deadly' encounters were over in a few rounds with little damage to the party, and other, simpler encounters were grueling and dangerous.
But, in using it, in questioning and investigating it and my encounters, I became much more familiar with the bones of 5e. Now I'm confident that CR is garbage, and I'm confident in my ability to read the powers and stats of a creature and make my own decision about what and how many enemies belong in an encounter. I needed that time with CR to teach me the questions I need to ask myself about what makes a good encounter.
There's still plenty more for me to learn, though.
As someone who started with 5e and started DMing after only a couple sessions as a player I found the xp guidelines in the DMG very valuable. Not for making the best encounters but for really getting to know some important aspects of the system before messing around with things myself. Stuff like breaking up the day into 5-7 encounters with 2 anticipated short rests led to some very railroaded adventures at the start, but teaches attrition and how important it is to various classes. Stuff like the adjusted xp table teaches how important bounded accuracy is and how powerful groups of enemies can be. Once you got the hang of the basics it's much easier to create adventures that focus on the situation as opposed to the encounters.
Also learned that many creatures in the MM have poorly calculated CR ratings when compared to the build a monster guidelines so it got me into the practice of editing each creature's stat block manually, which has come in handy a lot at the higher levels because it's made choosing the creature first and editing the stat block to make it more level appropriate really simple in most cases.
I love the idea of planning possibilities instead of results. That's how I DM and I feel more confidence having someone else say it! Thanks Matt!
all tools are great, but Matt is completely right that you need to change for players. start will the basics and the tools and you will learn from there what to do. the stress will be much less as well
I swear I've noticed a trend where you open with "So I was in the middle of working on X video when I had an idea for this video".
It's... interesting to see.
I love you Matt. Your Videos are fantastic in every way. Please never stop making content.
I started playing D&D coming up to 2 years ago, I was 27 and had always played tabletop wargames. I wish I had started with DnD sooner.
I have been DMing for a little over a year now and absolutely love your videos. So often I totally agree with what you say or find that I do these exact things without thinking. Your videos are a hugely useful resource. Thank you
Thank you for this. I spent 30+ years playing AD&D, and have only in the last year converted to 5e. In AD&D, I could put together an encounter easily by feel and experience. Trying to learn the CR system was tough, and my encounters always came out much easier than I intended.
I'm gonna try your looser version, which is closer to my AD&D approach. And your idea of having enemies in reserve will help me control the difficulty a little better. Thanks!
I used to use challenge rating quite a bit in my earlier DMing days, but after watching your videos I decided to, just as an experiment, just throw it out and see what happens and use encounters that made sense. I DMed for a party of 3 lvl 1 characters and they ended up fighting a young Black Dragon along with like 6 or 7 Lizardfolk. Obviously an encounter that wouldn't ever happen witht he CR 'budget'. They however, managed to recruit some goblins (just like 3 members of a tribe that had been kidnapped by the Dragon for a meal) and used stealth and tactics to be able to actually kill every single creature including the Black Dragon itself. Granted all the goblins died in a single breath weapon and I believe one of the players were taken down during the fight but still it's easily the most memorable encounter yet and its thanks to you Matt, so thanks ^^
TL;DR 3 lvl 1's killed a black dragon and half a dozen lizardfolk and they only fought them because of matts videos and twas awesome.
I just wanted to stay thanks. I played a long time ago and wanted my kids to enjoy their imaginations more than playing video games; your videos help stir my imagination to in turn stir theirs. There are a lot of good channels out there, but you are a breath of fresh air; when it seems that everyone on RUclips is trying to go to patreon you are still here. P.S. I think 2, 3, 5 years ago when people first started getting views on RUclips they were probably happy, now most are just out for the money.
Great video! I've been DMing for a month now, and this series has helped me a ton. More than anything, it's taught me to focus on making each session fun, challenging and dramatic, rather than following every rule, roll, and procedure to a t. I think having bullet point rather than scripted encounters is a perfect example of player-focused thinking.
"I have a lot of wrong answers in my head." - Sums me up perfectly regardless of the question.
I gave up the CR system in the 2nd or 3rd session of 5e. When my group came across some orcs I ended up just going with 1 orc for each player + a couple of extra orc warlocks. I did this primarily because the group size could change session to session so it was just easier to use my gut and throw down a bunch of enemies that I figured would be around about decent challenge for the PCs at the table.
First, I love your work! This series is awesome. Regarding this video, I would add that encounters should not always be at the same level of difficulty for a given party. I build some encounters to be easy, some moderate, some very hard, and some impossible requiring retreat. I mix them to tell a story and make the world more real within the fantasy setting.
I used the CR rating system to build the encounter with the goblin shaman in one-shot you designed at the start of this series. It was going to be a bugbear, the goblin shaman and a goblin boss, came out as a "challenging" rating. But this didn't take into account they had been through the two encounters prior with no long rest. The ranger tried to lure them out of the room but wonderfully failed their deception check so the bugbear attacked them instead, taking the injured ranger down. It became obvious that had I continued with the encounter I designed it would've been a tpk. So as they hadn't actually looked into the room before trying their deception and didn't know how many goblins they were dealing with, when the door opened the goblin boss never came into existence. The bugbear and the paladin duked it out while the shaman and the wizard had a magic duel. It was close, but the remaining players won, the ranger sadly perished failing all 3 death saves and another pc failing a medicine check. The lesson, until the players actually see what they are fighting you can monkey with the combatants to your hearts content.
Matt, I just want to thank you so much for making these videos. I really appreciate all of your words of advice as well as opinions and encouraging new DM's to think for themselves. I started DMing for my friends (none of us had every played before this) a few months ago (also I homebrewed the whole campaign and setting) and I watch all of your videos and they have really helped me be a free-thinking DM! I have borrowed some ideas of yours and come up with other really cool ones that my players love! I owe a lot of it to you and your dedication to making really well thought out videos that explain how to think for yourself rather than just use the exact ruleset and everything. Thanks so much!
I got an incredibly useful piece of advice from Web DM, and that was that once your players reach 5th level, it doesn't really matter much what you throw at them.
At that point the number and power of tools that your players have at their disposal is so great that there are few problems that they won't be able to find some way to deal with. This obviously isn't 100% true, and I would never throw something like an arch devil or ancient dragon at my 5th level players, but what is true is that the reliability and usefulness of the CR system begins to fall apart around 5th level, and only gets worse as the players level up.
I still like to use the CR system (I like the one in Xanathar's guide) as a guideline, but I'm no longer terribly worried about throwing something a few levels above my players' recommended CR in front of them. When that does happen it's usually an incredible fight, but my players still manage to pull through it.
I also recommend to new DMs that if you have a larger group like I do (5-6+ players) it is a good idea to give your key big-bad guys max HP. This is a simple way to ensure that even if they roll poorly on initiative, they'll still get to last at least one round to get to use some of their abilities or have a chance to escape, rather than just getting screwed by the players' action economy advantage.
Another recommendation I'd give is that if you want to throw some harder encounters at a party below 5th level, then consider trading some of their offensive power for defensive power. That way you're less likely to have a TPK on your hands, but still have an enemy who can stick around long enough to have a fun and interesting fight. My favorite example of this is when my 4th level players faced a Drow Wizard who was the BBEG of that story arch. I decided to make the Wizard 5th or 6th level, but instead of giving them a really powerful offensive spell that could easily TPK the party (like fireball), I gave him Blink, which was very effective and made the fight harder and more interesting without the threat of the huge damage power spike that normally comes with 3rd level spells.
I love your channel, have played/DM'd since the very box back in 74. I took a eight year break but now running a new group in 2e. It is really good to see you purting this out for new DM's, and there is still so much intrest in tabletop RPG.
Ran my first game Saturday. The party almost died to zombies but they all survived by a hair. It was really epic and this video helped allot thanks Matt.
Hey Matt, just wanted to thank you for doing this series. I've actually been following it for some time but now that I am actually sitting down and starting my first campaign its become invaluable to me. It also helped me to realize that certain things I wanted to do that many old school players see as to "video gamey" such as having sandbox quest hubs and larger conditional quests that grant things like new classes, archetypes and special items are actually perfectly acceptable things to do in your campaign. Despite not having run a game since 2nd edition (I used to run Dragonlance alot) I am really excited to show my players this new world I created from scratch. And I think without this series on what tools to use (such as hexographer and dungeonographer) I would have been really lost.
I also want to encourage other DM's out there to not be afraid to create new classes and archetypes. Alot of people think of that as a potential nightmare for balancing but what I ended up doing was basing alot of my abilities and spells around things that exist in the game already but maybe with another class. So the only real danger is giving that player too many tools, not tools that are too powerful. The important thing is that it made my players feel so excited to try out stuff that was made just for them. Basically, be a river to your people.
I think exploring typical characteristics for Brutes, Controllers and Artillery might make for an interesting episode. "What are you looking for in a good artillery type monster?"
One thing I've learned when using the challenge rating system is that you have one important variable that you can use to tweak the challenge rating on the fly: HIT POINTS. If it looks like the enemy is doing too well against your players and you want them to survive, then nudge his hit points closer toward the minimum. Too easy: then raise it closer to the maximum.
You covered a lot. I agree that CR can be used to identify a creature group; however, that still is only one factor in encounter difficulty. Another thing to consider in encounter building is how long the encounter may last in real time. I've come to target a number of enemy creatures equal to the party size + or - 2 to keep the encounter relatively short. I then use the Daily XP in the DMG to scale the encounter. I've built experience in this process to get a good idea of how my players address some encounters and how well I run the enemy such that I know of a minimum daily XP value I want and I have a rough idea of a maximum daily XP value for any one encounter. These encounters are setup on the map and documented with Excel. It's then up to the players to determine how they want to address the encounter when given a decent amount of foreshadowing.
Matt, been an on-and-off DM since the early eighties and I agree with many of the things you point and counterpoint. One of my long-time friends and a player in my current 5E campaign has life advice that applies to almost anything, including the debate going on here..."Everything in moderation--including moderation." He wasn't the first to say it, but dang, have I found it to be true. Keep the great content going. And thanks.
I'm 90% with you here. I also ignore challenge rating, and I've every old-school in that I see all the rules outside of character creation as optional. (In my last game I didn't even give monsters HP, I just wrote down the damage they took and decided by fiat when they were "bloodied" and thus at half HP) To counterbalance this, I offer the player 5 extra feats at character creation, under the assumption that "you're going to need them." If they want to fudge their stats, like for some reason in their character backstory, that's fine as long as it applies to all players at the table. I care about balance among the players, so no one is more powerful than their fellow adventurers. As for the monsters, I can control them, and the challenge rating can [insert obscene gesture here].
I've never understood those GMs who complain that their players are overpowered. If the players are curb-stomping the encounters, just add more enemies. That's what rituals, summoning spells, and wandering monsters are for. If the encounter is too much for the team, they always have the option to flee. The villain will mock them for doing so, but they get to live.
The one area I disagree with you is in your love of 3rd edition. Sorry, I'm very much a 4th ed fan, as I hate having to babysit my players at the low levels. Every system of D&D before 4th made 1st level characters too weak for my taste. (I know that's personal taste, and thus entirely subjective) My philosophy is to give the players as much power as they need to fall in love with their character, and then throw things at them that offer a challenge at their power level.
I also believe one should force the PCs to interact with the world on a more personal (rather than violent) level, with a private estate, a list of friends, family, employees, pets, etc. I'm considering writing up a set of rules for D&D for social class advancement, "leveling" your relationship with the various factions in the game, and building a power-base (mansion, castle, floating island palace, etc.) where your family and various employees (maids, butler, gardener, farm-hands, etc) all live and work, to draw the players more into the non-dungeon crawling parts of the game.
Actually, come to think of it, maybe I should get off the internet and start writing it.
Matt had a video though where he specifically said almost all players will die fighting rather than retreat in his experience. I think that is true as well.
In 10 years of running games, players have only ever completely avoided combat (record is 6 sessions in a row), or died to the last fighter, retreat isn't really an option. I've even started campaign with the header of, "remember, retreat is always an option, so you can always use it", just to have them wipe themselves on a BBG they hunted down too vigorously.
Also, the 5th ed. DMG has rules for renown/relationship advancement stuff that actually gives a very solid guideline in my experience.
I bought your books, currently about halfway through Priest. It's very good so far! I love the little twists that separate the world from others.
Our DM has stepped up creatures in encounters, because our party/parties work well together. So we tend to exceed CR-system setups. Throwing more at us allows our DM to push us, rather than us typically not being challenged as much. We are all fine NOT dying (unless it serves the story), but the threat is always there that one of us may not come out well on the other side. And that makes it feel better than if he gave us a straight challenge rating.
Most of us have played various RPGs for decades, so we know the subjects very well...and feel more badass when winning when we know we might not.
I dropped using CR for anything than the KFC index search, like Matt. My husband and best friend are quite good at tactics to the point where deadly encounters by the book were straight up trivial for them. I tried experimenting to see if there was some calculation I could use instead. Like double deadly encounter (Nope), triple ( /handwaggle), encounters for groups 1, 2 or 3 levels higher (nope, nope). Double-Double was too much. I wasted so much time on figuring out a system. Winging it is the way to go.
New dm (and player) here, I just had vastly different outcomes for two encounters "of the same adjusted value". I like the on the fly this creature makes sence here and is cool style. If it's too difficult, the players can run away. They had to in the first encounter when reinforcements showed up and they were at 3 hp each. If you find an encounter is going to easy just bring in a few stragglers to add to the opposing force, if it's too hard bring in an ally to aid the party or a third party to distract and divide the enemy or give them a mysterious plot reason for some to leave that the players may want to follow up on. Thank you for your take on CR and encounter crafting and difficulty estimation.
hehe, me an accounting major listening to this and thinking, What? Using a budget to create an encounter sounds amazing! Then he mentioned that only accountants would enjoy that. Guess this confirms I made the correct career choice lol
Curious to see the length of the undead video when even Matt calls it beefy. Looking forward to a 9 hour undead master's class!
Another great video! Thanks for all the help. Started playing with the family. With your videos, I have the confidence to facilitate an enjoyable family game time. I'm still learning the rules but because of you, I don't let the rules get in the way of having fun. Thank you very much.
I have this whole playlist downloaded to my phone via the youtube app and I continually rewatch videos on the way to and from work. Listen to, really. But either way, it spurs my creativity and keeps my brain occupied while doing the mind-numbing work I have to do. Thanks Matt!
I have a suggestion for newer GMs that don't know how hard an encounter to make. Plan for three outcomes. In the early stages of a given fight, foreshadow something. Announce that a shadow passes above, or that there is a rumbling sound, or a scratching, or whatever, perhaps every turn or two reference it. If the heroes are doing way too well, to a degree that you believe they would find unsatisfying, then that foreshadowed thing can represent "reinforcements," an add-on you planned ahead for to up the challenge slightly (without making it unfair). The "rumble" was a second beast moving into position. If the players are really messing it up, if they will die in an unsatisfying manner and hope seems lost, maybe the rumble is helpful. Maybe the floor drops out beneath some of the enemies, killing or weakening them. Maybe they set off a trap (that never existed before that moment). Maybe some bigger monster comes in and east one before wandering off. So long as it's a fun event, the foreshadowing earlier should make it palatable to players, you set up that something was going on, and something happened that turned a bad situation into a fun one. And if the players do just fine, not too dominant and not too defeated? The rumble just foreshadows a later encounter, or maybe _after_ they win it an event happens as a dramatic flourish, like a wall explodes, exposing a secret room.
CR is pretty useful for new DMs, but I agree that it's something you can put down and pick up as you get more comfortable. I was a rather nervous person and downright anxious about DMing, so it was nice have something to hold on to as "it's in the rules!" As I got more confident (and eventually medicated) I learned to read the encounter and my players on the fly. Honestly, fudging monster HP is a great way adjust an encounter without ruining immersion. "Why did those shades die so fast?" "Oh, they weren't TRUE shades, merely distant echoes of a greater darkness. Bum bum bum!" *foreshadowing!*
One important thing to keep in mind is that even going strictly by the CR won't give you a good estimation of how hard the fight will actually be. In my recent campaign probably my hardest encounter was with a CR5 boss and 2 CR2 minions while my 4 players were level 6. The players walked into this fight not having rested in a while so 2 of them were pretty low on health. It ended up being a pretty close fight. Meanwhile one of the easiest encounters happened when they were level 4 and fought a cr5 water elemental. Both encounters occured in a narrow hallway without a lot of room to fight. The difference? One encounter had multiple threats to watch out for while the other only had one. In 5e the amount of enemies being fought matters a lot more than the cr system takes into account. Strictly by the cr system, the water elemental should have been a pretty tough fight. But because they only had to worry about one, they could just perpetually run away from it and chip away with cantrips and ranged weapons. The action economy is very important in 5e and it's very important to keep in mind.
Another great video. I gave up on the CR system beyond the broadest of ideas of how deadly a creature is a long time ago. At this point I just run the world where things are where they make sense and then give my players the tools to know what they are getting into and decide if it's worth the risk.
No book ads? Am I the only one worrying about Matt now?
Eh I don't want folks to get burned out with that stuff.
It's been a few videos now.
It's either he forgot, he was too lazy to do it, or he decided not to plug his books every time.
Matthew Colville man, I think people understand that a living needs to be made. You're not being like "if you guys buy 10 books this week, I'll put out another video!" You just nicely remind people in a no pressure way "hey, if you like this thing I do you may like this other thing I do". No problem with that.
+Matthew Colville Love your books, and I can't wait for fighter to come out. I even made d&d character based on the green order knights. Plus I gave a friend of mine your books for his b-day and so far he is liking it. Sorry for the Fanboying.
Just going to say - I've never had a problem with your book ads at the end. They're never demanding, always friendly and polite, and makes it clear that this is a thing that goes both ways - we pay money for a book we may well enjoy, that money goes to you and you use it to make other things we may well enjoy. No objections here.
watching this in 2023, him talking about Brutes, Controllers, and Artillery, is like listening to historical sources predict events that actually go on to happen. Like someone predicting mobile phones in the mid 20th century.
Quite honestly, from skimming through the encounter-building section of the DMG, I accidentally used CR's as a range and completely skipped over the more strict system. It's been going well, but I've quickly figures out that using them as a range can limit the types of encounters you make. Not in a bad way, but if you pull a CR 5 monster from the book, your instinct is to pull more CR 5 monsters, and like you explained in the video a more interesting encounter comes from using the Infantry-Captain idea. The only thing I really struggle with is passing intel to the players.
Matt, I coach a college forensics team. The best competitors have everything memorized, but also can adapt.
I got so freaking giddy when you called it forensics and then called it speech and debate. My team made that transition in branding a while ago. Haha
Matt, you touched on this in a recent interview and I'm glad you went into more depth in this video. I have a big episode coming up for a campaign I've been running for 20 years now. I'm running this session for my friends that run the convention this weekend in Los Angeles. I'm going to steer away from my xp budget system and run my encounters more loosely like you described, buy I'll also use more of your teachings by giving the players clues ahead of time so that they can plan for tough encounters.
I think that I will let the group know that the encounters ahead will be tougher and I also plan to have an important NPC reiterate this within the game just to make sure they aren't surprised when the time comes.
Great advice and I look forward to more stuff like this from you in the future.
Deciding which monsters to use and then punching the numbers to figure out how many to include in the encounter is fun for me. (And I'm not even an accountant.) With everything that's going on in a session and everything I need to keep track of, I'd rather not try to wing building an encounter on the fly.
I definitely agree: there is no right way. Different things work for different people.
I learned how off CR can be through our first campaign. For 1, having 5 instead of 4 players totally skews things, which is fine since CR is advertised as being for 4 players.
But things can get thrown off by other variables too. My players were constantly punching above their level. We just finished the campaign, they went to fight Yeenogu at level 11, the martials low on health and the casters somewhat low in resources. They beat him, 1 death, I even doubled his health. It was fun though! I learned a lot throughout the campaign in how to plan fights for them.
Right now I'm running an Aliens campaign based off, you guessed it, the movie Aliens. Basically the ENTIRE thing is juryrigged. There's an obscure book that I pull slightly from but I hand made the character sheets and enemies, and most of the weapons. Since most of the enemies are very weak and the guns very strong, it makes it so much easier to create encounters. Granted there are different enemies, such as tanks and long range units, but it makes it simple. It's also probably my second favorite part of running a game.
And I never used CR, I always just decided to make an encounter that could be dealt with not just by brute force but by tactics and planning.
The xp budget has actually got exactly how well rested the characters are in mind, but that's hidden just a couple of pages further in under "The Adventuring Day," where you have another budget. The easy-medium-hard-deadly scale actually has this other budget in mind, which you find out pretty quick if you go throwing a deadly encounter at a freshly rested party after about level 3 or so.
Rather, the game expects about 12 easy encounters, 6 medium encounters, 4 hard encounters, or 3 deadly encounters, with two short rests thrown in there, before the entire day counts as easy/medium/hard/deadly. 3 deadly encounters between long rests will have a pretty high probability of killing one or more characters while 6 medium difficulty encounters between long rests will stretch party resources just enough.
6 combats in a day probably sounds crazy, but actually plug in the numbers and a medium encounter is just gonna be a couple of wolves or spiders and such a weak encounter won't even deal any damage half of the time... but six in a row would probably beat the fighter up too much to safely push on.
That said, I really like that "I'm not beholden to the encounter building rules, so if the fight is too hard just run away from the monsters" style, and I'm trying to get comfortable enough with just guessing how hard to make fights so that I can start doing that.
I've ditched the Challenge Rating system many, many years ago. It's working fine in my campaign. I set up an encounter, I choose monsters and let the monsters at my players. (.....and I have DM'ed just as long as Matt)
I tend to use a CR budget for the first session of every campaign - I'll have an encounter of each difficulty as stated in the DMG, normally going from trivial to deadly. I find it's a very useful way to gauge how capable my players are. After that, the only thing that CR determines for me is the amount of XP I award them, and to give me an idea of what kind of monsters to throw at them. Currently, I have a party with two highly experienced players who know how to work together in a thematic and character-driven way, and they crush any encounter I throw at them. I regularly set encounters with CRs way above what would be considered "deadly," and often they breeze through as a result of them knowing full well what their characters can and would do, as well as a knack for interacting with my environments to skew fights in their favour. I really can't praise them enough, but the point I want to make is that I wholeheartedly agree that you should not feel that you need to stick to 'rules' on CR and encounter building. It's all situational.
Besides, they're more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules.
I've created a few encounter and I like the idea to modify the monster stats. Yesterday there was a flesh golem for an inexperienced level 3 group, so I weaked him (fewer HPs, fewer + attack, change immunities to resistances). But then a 4th friend joins the group for a one shot and he was experienced. So the weakened flesh golem was now an original one and it was perfect timed. CR is for me just an orientation (oh a cool looking bone devil...ok, he is CR 11, maybe use them in a "more epic" scenario later) and not a formula to use.
Thanks for the video =)
I like how Matt saying "no ad for my books" is inadvertently an ad because it makes you more curious not being told about that kind of thing.
I agree with you. Really good DMs develop their own brand of DM Horse Sense and their own instincts for what's doable and what's too difficult.
I just watched your video on creating PCs, and it dawned on me that the way you have your players roll ability scores is also going to impact how prepared they are to face a creature with a CR that the book says they're suited for. Not quite as much as fighting an enemy immune to spells level six and below, but there's enough variability that CR is really just a best guess.
Also I'm happy this video came out today as I actually just caught up on all of the "Running the Game" videos yesterday after only recently finding them.
I love the advice this guys gives. I would love to game at this table. Personally I shoot encounters from the hip many times and I found this works really well and makes the game fun. When I used the encounter system, I found my group was able to fight up a proverbial weight class more than they came up short. At the end of the day, what I love about this series of advice, is have fun and change things to fit your group
I just discovered your channel recently and I love it! I've applied a lot of your ideas in my campaign notes and I can't wait to see how it goes.
On another note, when I started watching your videos I swore up and down I recognized your name and then you mentioned TRS. I work in the industry and spent some time with Evolve. Small world I suppose!
If you aren't sure, you can always give a quick estimate, guess low, and have a surprise flank assault if things seem to go too quick
I love both ways. When prepping an adventure or writing a DMs Guild module I manually use the Challenge Rating/XP Budget to designate a "this is the standard version of this encounter" but I do throw it all out the window when actually running a game, using the CR only as a gauge, especially when players initiate a fight that wasn't in the notes. I think knowing how the CR system works is helpful because now I can draw up encounters on the fly.
While many others will probably disagree, and that's fair, I have to agree with this point of view. I'm still co-DMing my first campaign and I recently planned a ship encounter which according to the calculations gave the attacking ship a certainty of winning and the possibility of even reaching a TPK, but we still went ahead with it anyway. However looking back, while the battle was tense in the moment, the party was in no danger at all, aside from drowning, because of how they act as players in their tactics and party composition. Even after saying that one of the party was killed out right by a single lightning bolt spell that another player thought would be a good idea to kill the remaining enemies, which it did. However he didn't expect to roll so high on the damage which was then doubled by the water, going over the then swimming players hit point maximum, killing him without any death saving throws. In my opinion stories like this go to show that no matter how many calculations you do to plan an encounter, they don't account for player actions. So for me it shows that you should plan around your group and keep the math as a more insignificant tool.
I like this video Matt. With the game I'm running now I have two barbarians and a warlock. Some encounters with only using the CR system would be a cakewalk for the barbs but deadly to the warlock. I think its best just to tweak it with how you see fit.
Hey Matt. I am a new DM and have played about 5 sessions (thanks for your inspiration I love it so much!)
I have found it really helpful to use the CR as a basis for helping me develop encounters but then I always adapt them on the fly depending on what will be the most fun/realistic for the players.
But I also really like your challenge to us at the end and will look to give it a go soon! :)
Love your work though mate It is some of the most helpful and enjoyable Dnd content on the internet!
I really enjoy your videos, thank you for making them. I would also enjoy seeing an animated video of your campain.
I threw 4 chuuls at my lvl 4 party where there was a lot of room and they saw them coming and it was a cake walk, then I threw 1 gelatinous cube and 2 oozes in a narrow hallway where they were surprised and it was almost a tpk. Environment and preparation determine a cr more than anything. That's why I play it loose and on the fly
Good video. I think this goes for more experienced DM's however. I've been DMing for about 8 months now and I use the CR system as a basic reference. For instance I know my group really wants to slay a dragon, however the CR for a dragon is still a good deal above even a deadly rating for them, so I just hold off. My biggest thing is, I don't want to present my party with a cool enemy they're excited to slay just to find out they're totally out matched, because there is no win there. Either they all die, super bummer, or I use a 'scene' to bail them out. The floor collapses, an NPC shows up to save the day, etc. Neither is the outcome they want, they want a battle that ends in them bleeding but victorious. So I don't use CR as a strict rule, but more of a guideline. Something that's 10% above a deadly rating for my party I typically turn down as an enemy for the dungeon. However, my issue is there is no scientific proven method to get a CR rating, so home brew creatures can't get a valid CR assessment but neither can official monsters. I haven't run a Mind Flayer yet, but I've had a number of more experienced DM's tell me they're a lot nastier than their CR represents, meaning other creatures with the same CR aren't nearly as nasty. I wish there was an entire book from WotC just dedicated to a official method of how to qualify and quantify a creatures CR, HP+AC+Stats+# of Attack per turn+Powers=CR. But Powers would be the big problem, especially with Home brew creatures. It would have to be super comprehensive and would need to break down powers by their function(offense/defense/utility), their power/damage, the re-usability, etc etc. But it would be worth it just to solidify the CR system as being concrete dependable. Of course, in the end, an experienced DM could just run the creature multiple times to assess the real CR of the thing.
Player: this fight isn't legal
DM: I will make it legal
I usually use the CR system to calculate the encounter level and always worked for me. Hard encounters are hard and medium encounters are medium. The problem comes when the players are fighting only 1 creature.
I've had this problem too. The experience of having that one menacing and scary creature as a boss, is something that I think a lot of DM's want to give their players though, and it feels like, based on the CR system in 5e, that you're always putting something more lethal in front of them than you actually are, and thus it always feels too easy.
Love the speech and debate comparison. Its useful to think of dnd as a debate because you don't know what the opposition is bringing and you don't know how you are going to respond. you need to keep your notes clean and still able to adapt to what the players or the opposition puts in front of you.
Yep, yep, and yep. Tried CR a couple of times, took me longer than I wanted, and ended up changing it on the fly anyway. Makeup of the party and the magic items make a big difference I think. I like the idea of infantry, captains, and boss though; will use that. Thanks Matt
Matt, you are a natural teacher. "Running the game" makes me a little bit better every day.
I never played D&D before but . . . I wanna play a campaign with this guy.
This is how I have been doing encounters in 5e.
The main boss will have a CR rating a few higher than level of the players, then a lieutenant or two that have CR rating roughly equivalent to the players' level or a little lower, then a bunch of goons that are only dangerous in aggregate if ignored.
The players have all said they enjoy these encounters more.
Building encounters is probably one of the hardest things i've learned as a new DM, because a deadly encounter could be a cake walk if you aren't using the right enemies, which CR doesn't take into account.
For example, I have a cleric who has 22 AC at lv 4. Why? He has full plate, a shield, and shield of faith. CR assumes the monsters will hit once and a while, but if they only use attack rolls, they pretty much need to crit to hurt this guy. CR doesn't account for that. I'm learning just how important casters are to add in every encounter. There are other things too, like party fomation. CR doesn't take into account whether or not you have flanked the party and ruined their formation.
I have been inspired by the way Nicholas Meyer wrote "Wrath of Khan." Basically he was given a list of demands and wove them into his script. I see adherence to the CR to be similar to this, a top down method if you will. I had an encounter in a story where the PCs were facing dogs that were being transformed into fish, surgically, crudely. Making that work was not happening within the CR. Then I came across the Scarecrow. Man that story got crazy and way more interesting. Anyway, was hoping to add to the conversation.
CR is one of the reasons I'd recommend any new DM use a published campaign book to start with. The budget thing works well enough, but those premade things give you a really good idea of what encounters look like, and if you play through them your players will show you how each one, well, plays out. -Fuck it we'll do it live!-
For 5E I got two of my friends together and recruited one's mom with some basic pregenerated characters and tried the budget with ice mephits and then kobolds just to get a feel for the new fighting system, and what little experience 4E's Keep on the Shadowfell and Thunderspire Labyrinth gave me allowed me to build balanced fights just on instinct.
Thanks for this video, it's a topic very close to my cold, barren GM-heart :) I ran a Pathfinder group for years now and somewhere during that time I came to use pretty much the same eyeballing method Matthew's advising here, because of all the obvious reasons and also because nobody's got time to waste on CR systems that break down at each individual gaming table half the time.