Topic: Encounter Levels??

[Ecthelion]

true, but the odds of being killed from behind for that 20th level fighter? They're the same odds for a 1st level fighter, or a 100th level one being attacked at 35 OB from behind with a shortbow, as at that point only AT matters. . ."The great leveler of being shot in the back"

If you don't know if either side is going to be surprised, until you're actually playing, how can you put an encounter into play, and call it CR5? If the party surprises it, it might be CR0, and if they get surprised by it, it might be CR20. . .so how exactly was it pointfull to establish that it was a CR5 before rolling for surprise made the pre-calculation moot?

Sorry, but for an estimation of the average strength of an encounter this variation you talk of simply does not matter. Of course, if you want to explain the concept of the CR to a new GM, then it is important to stress that the CR is only an average and that factors like how smart the GM plays the creature, whether one party can attack from behind etc. can severely affect how tough the encounter gets. But it's still good to give a rough estimate.

[markc]

 I think you could take Rasyrs average party above and use the stats and skill provided in the book and run computer sims and see who wins. The  say if the group beats the encounter 75% of the time it is of equal challenge level. You can adjust the % up or down depending on your liking. Also then once you have a baseline you can estimate the other types of encounters by again testing the skills of the average party vs the encounter to see if they defeat it.
MDC

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

Guys, even games like DnD, which DO have guidlines for encounters, aren't even close to being precise. The best way to balance and encounter is experience. A beginning GM will over and underpower an encounter a lot. A very experienced one will do so rarely.

Yes, experience is the best method of balancing an encounter. What I was originally asking for here was suggestions regarding how to come up with a way that can be used as a guide of sorts, a way of preventing unintentional TPK or an encounter that is a cake-walk until a GM can get experience.

There has to be a solution out there, a way to, at least, roughly gauge things so that the extremes can be avoided.

[rdanhenry]

The best way to prevent TPK is to avoid outnumbering or ambushing the party. The strength of the opponents is relatively less important, to the point where it should be obvious even to a beginning GM that he is using overly powerful opponents. If a GM flips through C&T and thinks "Oooh! Dragons! I'll have them fight some dragons!" when preparing his adventure for the freshly minted 1st level party, I don't think any advice is going to help.

Some guidelines to help a GM choose appropriate (not "balanced") encounters is a good idea. Trying to pigeon-hole encounters into mythical Challenge Ratings D&D-style? Bad idea. The emphasis of the advice should be on the lethality of RM combat and the importance of tactics that exploit combat modifiers to shift advantage.

[Marc R]

Sorry, but for an estimation of the average strength of an encounter this variation you talk of simply does not matter.

I disagree. . . .statistical analysis where the variation (modifiers) exceed the average (OB+DB) tends to give you an answer you can use, but only for statistical analysis of large populations. . . .i.e. you can say "Americans, on average, are of above world average wealth" but you cannot say that any specific american is wealthy. Similarly you could establish a CR of 5 for a group of 5th level fighters, but it would be CR 5 +/-10. . . .if you drop the margin notation and call it CR 5, it's deceptive. . . .so you can compare a 3rd level orc to a 20th level fighter and say 3 +/-10 vs 20 +/-10 and see that in most situations, the orc is screwed, but when the orc gets a 13 day vs the fighter's 10 day, the fighter loses. . . . .

Presumptively, the deviation isn't linear, so Group A pulling off +10 while group B pulls off -10 is not going to happen often, so beating someone 20 levels over you will be rare. . . .but 5 levels? 10 levels? If those happen often, then you end up in a situation where CR 5 = CR 10 and CR 10 = CR 15, but CR 5 < CR 15. . . .you get into very "fuzzy" territory there . . . I'm not claiming that any system would need to be "Always True", but offering a concrete number, it should be true most of the time, and my experience in RM says the average deviation is going to be high. (How many times have you taken down an opponant you'd swear was out of your league? How many times have you had a giant hassle with should have been a dinky encounter?)

The best way to prevent TPK is to avoid outnumbering or ambushing the party. The strength of the opponents is relatively less important, to the point where it should be obvious even to a beginning GM that he is using overly powerful opponents. If a GM flips through C&T and thinks "Oooh! Dragons! I'll have them fight some dragons!" when preparing his adventure for the freshly minted 1st level party, I don't think any advice is going to help.

Some guidelines to help a GM choose appropriate (not "balanced") encounters is a good idea. Trying to pigeon-hole encounters into mythical Challenge Ratings D&D-style? Bad idea. The emphasis of the advice should be on the lethality of RM combat and the importance of tactics that exploit combat modifiers to shift advantage.

I agree here. . . .there's loads of good advice, lots of it already in this thread, that would offer constructive tools to build encounters, without getting caught up in a points based model that might end up being more deceptive than informative.

[Ecthelion]

Sorry, but for an estimation of the average strength of an encounter this variation you talk of simply does not matter.

I disagree. . . .statistical analysis where the variation (modifiers) exceed the average (OB+DB)

I don't see that the typical modifiers in a combat situation exceed the OB+DB value of the typical RM monster. Perhaps this is the flaw in your calculations?

tends to give you an answer you can use, but only for statistical analysis of large populations

Would a combat simulation program, which could simulate thousands or millions of combats, in your opinion help to give us these answers?

. . . .i.e. you can say "Americans, on average, are of above world average wealth" but you cannot say that any specific american is wealthy.

It is not the aim of the CR to give a 100% prediction how a specific combat encounter will turn out (in your example whether "any specific american is wealthy")! Instead it is meant to say that a given encounter is challenging but the group will, in the average case, win it (i.e. in your example the knowledge that the average American is "above world average wealth").

Similarly you could establish a CR of 5 for a group of 5th level fighters, but it would be CR 5 +/-10

If the deviation would be that high, then the CR would indeed be useless. But then I'd like to hear your explanation why experienced GMs are well able to gauge the strength of an encounter? From my experience, and also from what I have seen as results from the Rolemaster Combat Tester program I wrote, I can say that the deviation seems to be much lower, such as CR 5 +/- 1. And then it is useful to have such a CR value. An experienced GM nowadays has gotten a feeling for the CR and therefore can estimate what is the right encounter for his group. For the unexperienced GM it would be good to have the CR in written form in the rulebooks.

. . . .if you drop the margin notation and call it CR 5, it's deceptive. . . .so you can compare a 3rd level orc to a 20th level fighter and say 3 +/-10 vs 20 +/-10 and see that in most situations, the orc is screwed, but when the orc gets a 13 day vs the fighter's 10 day, the fighter loses. . . . .

As above, you assume a much too high deviation and this leads you to IMO wrong results.

[pastaav]

I think that the right way proceed is not to try to specify Challenge Ratings. The CR work in D&D because it is useful to know an encounter is CR5 +-2 depending on rare circumstances. In RM you would get results like CR5 +-5 depending on typical circumstances and +-15 depending on rare circumstances.

A more useful approach would be to make guidelines that speak about what the expected benefit is of surprise, flank, tactic, support spell user casting buff spells, spell caster casting combat spells etc.

These guidelines would of course not give the same kind of information as CRs, but they could give the new GM the tools to learn. The point is that if we are not speaking about the general case, but just showing by example how much the group that lacks perception will suffer from the surprise compared the same group that discover the ambush then it becomes much more easy to give information.

[Ecthelion]

I think that the right way proceed is not to try to specify Challenge Ratings. The CR work in D&D because it is useful to know an encounter is CR5 +-2 depending on rare circumstances. In RM you would get results like CR5 +-5 depending on typical circumstances and +-15 depending on rare circumstances.

As mentioned above, if that were the case why can experienced RM GMs quite well gauge an encounter? The answer is that the deviation of the CR is not that high. If it were that high as you and LM state, then in the end this would render RM quite unusable.

A more useful approach would be to make guidelines that speak about what the expected benefit is of surprise, flank, tactic, support spell user casting buff spells, spell caster casting combat spells etc.

The most useful approach is IMO to specify Challenge Rating plus give the GMs some guidelines on the effect of surprise, tactics etc.

[Arioch]

It just came to my mind: monsters in C&T have a bonus XP code which, I suppose, is linked to their power/danger level. On which basis was it assigned? Could it help designing a encounter rating system?

[pastaav]

Similarly you could establish a CR of 5 for a group of 5th level fighters, but it would be CR 5 +/-10

If the deviation would be that high, then the CR would indeed be useless. But then I'd like to hear your explanation why experienced GMs are well able to gauge the strength of an encounter? From my experience, and also from what I have seen as results from the Rolemaster Combat Tester program I wrote, I can say that the deviation seems to be much lower, such as CR 5 +/- 1. And then it is useful to have such a CR value. An experienced GM nowadays has gotten a feeling for the CR and therefore can estimate what is the right encounter for his group. For the unexperienced GM it would be good to have the CR in written form in the rulebooks.

I have not looked very close to your Combat Tester program, but if it cover more than arena fighting between groups of melee character then you are a genius. The tricky thing that LM and I are talking about is all the thing that is not in the arena situation.

Suppose the level five group is commanded by a leader with a good tactics skill suiting for the situation. This means his side can have up to +30 on their OB using the rules from School of Hard Knocks. Assuming level five characters has about 12 ranks the other side need about 24 ranks to even the ods. In reality increase in stats may perhaps cover some of the difference, but it would take 6 levels to cover it with ranks alone.

The same kind of argument can be applied to surprise, flank and rear bonus. Each single round when one of the sides can claim such bonus means their CR changes lots. What does your CR +-1 really mean if a character with simple maneuvering that uses standard rules can change his current CR with much more?

Furthermore...what kind of logic does your combat tester apply for support spells? How much is the spell user that cast bladeturn worth for the CR? How much is the spell user that casts Haste on the fighters worth for the CR? What is the illusionist that covers his comrades with illusions and invisibility worth for the CR?

If we go even further we also need to consider the CR of the cleric that cast spells from the Channels spell list. Does depend awfully much on the resistance against channeling that the opposite has, doesn't it?

I could go on, but I think my point is clear. A challenge rating that does not reflect the situation the players will encounter in actual play is something that is essentially useless. In D&D the CR capability of the player mostly depends on the stack of feats used to build the character so the combat capability of the character is mostly static, this means CR gives information. In RM the combat capability is much more dynamic and level, OB,DB and AT is far from enough to tell if effective OB will higher and lower than the opponents OB, thus a static CR value for the enemy give close to zero information.

[Arioch]

In D&D the CR capability of the player mostly depends on the stack of feats used to build the character so the combat capability of the character is mostly static, this means CR gives information. In RM the combat capability is much more dynamic and level, OB,DB and AT is far from enough to tell if effective OB will higher and lower than the opponents OB, thus a static CR value for the enemy give close to zero information.

d&d 3 CR were also badly designed AFAIK. I remember seeing a lot of discussions about creating HR to make them work, so while the idea in general could work, I wouldn't look too closely at how 3.x implemented it for inspiration.

[Ecthelion]

pastaav, if the variation is so horrible, then please answer my question why experienced RM GMs can quite well gauge an encounter? Or are you not able to do so?

[Marc R]

Ecth,

Modifiers exceed usual OB not only due to the already discussed mods on the OB and DB tables, but also due to the fact that shield/parry DB is foe specific, meaning that someone else can attack you from a flank or rear negating those (and DB negation = OB bonus). So before you even start applying mods, you have two DBs in play, dependent on position and maneuvering, and your parry can be "avoided" via maneuver, in combat. (i.e. "It sucks when 2 orcs jump me from opposite sides"). . .Simple surprise, which can also "just happen" can toss most of your bonus out the window in round 1. . .missile combat, especially parry, adjudicates completely differently than melee, negating or modifiying DB. . .Bolt or ball attacks may sidestep DB completely. . .an unseen enemy among the foe can enter combat unexpectedly, not as nasty as flatfoot surprise, but still a totally different set of factors. . . .

Combat is not a generic OB/DB vs OB/DB comparrison, it involves pairings of attention as combatants declare on each other, and tactical maneuvering to attack someone who is declared on someone else, from the flank or rear if possible, is a basic element of RM combat resolution. . . .your effective DB of 60 vs their effective OB of 20 might seem good, until the guy you didn't declare on flank attacks you, negating your DB down to 10 and getting a flank bonus to boot.

Morale can have a giant impact. . .a fight to the death vs kill a few and they run. (for either the PCs or the "monsters").

the human factor involved, i.e. tactical sense, has a vast impact on results in RM. . . .

We all know people, who if you put a character in their hands, will proceed in a straight line toward the nearest combat, confront it head on, and engage in no tactics more complicated than OB/DB split.

We also know people who love to play it obliquely, never approach a situation directly, sneak and peek constantly, and are inclined to avoid combat until they can make a surprise attack, or initiate combat from behind cover.

We know people who avoid combat entirely if possible, either via sneakiness, or social skills.

We know casters who love to cast and will use magic in any combat. . . .we know casters who horde PPs like lifeblood and wait until the last possible moment to cast.

It's chaos. . .and you know your players and their characters in fine detail. . . .your specific party is not a generic group of arbitrary professions of identical levels. . .they choose a different mix of weapons than someone else would, they use different tactics, they pick different lists, and they have different equipment. . .every party is as unique as a snowflake, and a good GM knows them in fine detail. You know them to a far better margin of detail than any "generic party" could cover. . . .and your party is not +3 levels or -2 levels from this average concept. . .odds are they vary in power level from the generic in different ways in different situations. You also know the players, and have a feel for their tactical sense, and how they will leverage what they have on paper. . .combat monsters, sneaks, avoiders, sneaky tactical dark knights of doom?

So, in actual play, you have far more input data on your party than is possible to quantify. . .and much of which you probably can't express but know on a gut level.

Then you choose how smart/tactical to play the opposition, an encounter can be vastly stronger or weaker depeneding on how you choose to play the monsters. . .and GMs vary as much as players, some vary the opponants intelligence/tactical sense a lot, some are very straight up combaters, and some are usually very tactical, where the enemy is often quite nasty. The difference, in a game run by me, of how a goblin group will fight, depending on how smart and experienced they and their leader are, is enormous.

It's an art, with a huge chaos factor on one hand, and hard to quantify human factors on the other. . .I can see plenty of advice to offer, but considering how differently things can play out it's really rough. . . .

You run your numbers through a combat simulator X times. . . .does it factor in "orc 1 plows straight in on you, while orc 2 maneuvers to the flank and attacks"? Does it account for "The orcs all execute a fighting retreat through the next doorway, then surround the space on the far side with the spear orcs in the back, so they can execute 6 on 1 attacks on anyone who follows them."?

Those are just 2 examples of maneuvering and tactics that differ from "In a flat featureless plain extending to infinity with no cover, the two groups engage in combat where everyone accepts straight pairing of opponents without any attempts of tactical finesse, maneuvering for effect, use of terrain/cover or anything other than direct face to face combat." . . . .

the CR differs party to party, it shifts with immediate situational effects like surprise, and bounces around round-to-round based on tactical choices. . .the human mind of the GM keeps juggling moving factors in play and works it. . .you don't just mentally go to "OK, this is around a CR 7" and stick there.

That's where it's art, not science, and advice, not a misleadinly simple single number, are more helpful in actual practice.

[Ecthelion]

Modifiers exceed usual OB not only due to the already discussed mods on the OB and DB tables, but also due to the fact that shield/parry DB is foe specific, meaning that someone else can attack you from a flank or rear negating those (and DB negation = OB bonus).

IMO the parry is not a modifier but a usual tactical assignment during combat, which leaves things such as flank bonus, a good tactics roll etc., which are - unless way talk about "monsters" like a house cat - usually far lower than the OB+DB of the monsters. But probably for determining a CR assignment this discussion might not even be important, since in this case the average case of a 1:1 situation or 1 monster vs. the "typical group" is being considered. This again makes things much simpler since you'd basically ignore things such as surprise or an exceptional Tactics maneuver etc. and instead concentrate on the standardized case of a monster and a party where both parties are not surprised, have no special bonuses for superior terrain etc.

That's where it's art, not science, and advice, not a misleadinly simple single number, are more helpful in actual practice.

And I think we can help GMs to have a steeper learning curve in learning the art/science of creating combat encounters by giving new GMs some more guidelines in the form of e.g. the aforementioned CR. Of course this should also include information that other factors like surprise, attacks from the flank etc. heavily influence such a CR rating, but the existence of such factors does not make a CR useless.

[Arioch]

Guys, it's useless to keep arguing about the feasibility or usefulness of something that doesn't exist and hasn't been attempted yet.
Why don't we wait until someone post at least a draft of a possible solution to the problem? At least we'll have something concrete to talk about...

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

It just came to my mind: monsters in C&T have a bonus XP code which, I suppose, is linked to their power/danger level. On which basis was it assigned? Could it help designing a encounter rating system?

No idea how those numbers came about, and there isn't anybody who would fully remember available either.


Also --as Arioch points out, Forget about arguing feasibility (if you want to discuss feasibility, take it to another thread please, the idea here is to discuss options and ideas for trying to build a system).

The ONLY options or modifiers or factors that should be considered are those that apply in every single situation (OB, DB, AT, # of foes in the encounter, perhaps a few others). If it isn't something that happens every single time, then forget about it, when the final result gets written up, then go back to those conditional and situational modifiers and talk about them there and how they can skew things.

There isn't going to be any sort of perfect system because there is no predefined increases in OB every single level (like there is in d20). The best we can hope for, IMO, is a general guide, with some explanation about how certain factors can really change the odds drastically.

[pastaav]

pastaav, if the variation is so horrible, then please answer my question why experienced RM GMs can quite well gauge an encounter? Or are you not able to do so?

Obviously the main reason experienced RM GMs can do so is because they don't ignore what they know about RM mechanics when they plan the encounter.

The GM has a plan when he starts to look for suiting creatures for the encounter. If he choose a "weak" monster then he make plans for how circumstances can work to its advantage. If he choose a "strong" monster then he looks at circumstances that can aid the players. In both cases he need to consider what he should do if the players has a bad day and risk running into a TPK.

I readily admit that I very rarely plan encounters that has the wrong CR for my players. On the other hand I firmly believe that this is because I have a good grasp of CRs of different types of tactical encounters and not because every monster has some kind default CR that tells how it will perform in combat.

That I know the exact player group also helps, but mostly it is about knowing what tactical options are available in the terrain used for the encounter.

[pastaav]

And I think we can help GMs to have a steeper learning curve in learning the art/science of creating combat encounters by giving new GMs some more guidelines in the form of e.g. the aforementioned CR. Of course this should also include information that other factors like surprise, attacks from the flank etc. heavily influence such a CR rating, but the existence of such factors does not make a CR useless.

What more information would this provide than the straight level of the monster?

If you ignore positioning, spells, special powers, skills the players will use, surprises etc then you could as well IMHO just tell them to look at the level of the monster and be done with it. Your version of CR would not match how the monster is used in actual play so how can it be more useful than the level of the monster? 

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

I readily admit that I very rarely plan encounters that has the wrong CR for my players. On the other hand I firmly believe that this is because I have a good grasp of CRs of different types of tactical encounters and not because every monster has some kind default CR that tells how it will perform in combat.

Save if you tell me you firmly believe that, given the exact same tactical situation, a group of 1st level orcs are as dangerous as a group of 20th level balrogs, sorry, but itis because "every monster has some kind default CR that tells how it will perform in combat", to which you merely add CR modifiers (such as "when in native lair, adds +1 to CR", or "if ambushing, adds +50% to CR")

That I know the exact player group also helps, but mostly it is about knowing what tactical options are available in the terrain used for the encounter.

See above: you merely apply CR modifiers due to terrain.

What more information would this provide than the straight level of the monster?

If you ignore positioning, spells, special powers, skills the players will use, surprises etc then you could as well IMHO just tell them to look at the level of the monster and be done with it. Your version of CR would not match how the monster is used in actual play so how can it be more useful than the level of the monster?  

Because a monster's level is not a direct indication of its effectiveness in combat (though it's probably tied) but rather of its resistance to external influences (since a monster's level foremost matters for resistance rolls consideration).

[Emaughan]

Sorry, but this make me smile everytime I read it: do you think that art is not methodical? That it has no rules? You couldn't be farther from truth.

They way I do art - yes to the first question and yes - no rules - to the second question .

It's an art, with a huge chaos factor on one hand, and hard to quantify human factors on the other. . .I can see plenty of advice to offer, but considering how differently things can play out it's really rough. . . .

HA! He said it to...