Talk:Player Equivalent CR (5e Variant Rule)

CR to PECR

Seeing as mixing the two isn't really possible as is, I was considering a sorta way to transfer between the two. Haven't done any serious math for it, but maybe ×1.5(rounded down) would work, going from PECR back to CR? Dividing for the opposite.

Have any other ideas come through for this stuff? This is really just a random thought. --SwankyPants (talk) 15:35, 12 December 2021 (MST)

Wording

I find the explanation of the math to be very confusing. It's not clear what "the way 5e intends creatures to be," as 5e gives a range of difficulty levels from "easy" to "deadly;" what would be the vanilla equivalent to the 3 monsters vs 4 PCs? Also, I find the level adjustment to be difficult to parse. Is it saying that one 5th-level enemy gives the same challenge to four 1st-level adventurers as three 1st-level enemies? Because that doesn't seem quite right, a 5th-level fighter seems like they'd lay waste to pretty much any 1st-level party of 4, barring extreme cheese on the players' part; ditto for every other class. Meanwhile a 16th-level party would not really consider one 20th-level enemy to be a significant challenge, unless that enemy is something truly broken like a moon druid. More explanation would make this a lot more usable. — Geodude (talk | contribs | email)‎‎ . . 13:30, 13 December 2021 (MST)

The current calculations were always intended as a temporary solution, as number crunching on this scale has never been my forte, but I wanted there to be something there. I'd much rather have a simpler solution, but I have yet to find an exact numerical value for 1 action economy. If you have any better ideas, I'd love to hear them (maybe something percentage based or an exponential equation on-page with an input box for quick calculations?), otherwise we're working with the best we have.--Ref3rence (talk) 09:49, 14 December 2021 (MST)

Although not perfect, I do have an idea for a new scale, but it does involve using a decent bit of math. My idea is for you to apply a level modifier to a pc's level for each tier of play and to add up the total levels of each side to see whether it is balanced. The first tier of play would have a level modifier of 1 or really no modifier. For the 2nd tier of play, realistically, it probably needs to have a decimal point modifier of somewhere between two and three. For now, I will go for 2.5 for easier math. I do not know for sure whether this prototype will be balanced, but I will try and go ahead and show what close to equivalent fights this system comes up with.

• 3 3rd level pcs (9) vs 5 2nd level pcs (10)
• 4 4th level pcs (16) vs 5 3rd level pcs (15)
• 5th level pc (12.5) vs 4 3rd level pcs (12)
• 3 7th level pcs (52.5) vs 4 5th level pcs (50)
• 2 10th level pcs (50) vs 4 5th level pcs (50)
• 3 10th level pc (75) vs 5 6th level pcs (75)

Without actual testing I am unsure of how this will play out as in regular 5e, encounters were not designed with pcs in mind (are encounters only balanced in what is effectively pvp when the enemies are weakier/the same strength/stronger as party), but I overall believe the scale does a decent job balancing encounters in the 1st and 2nd tier. In addition, the scale seems to better take into account having more creatures on one side of the fight equaling that side being much stronger. --Blobby383b (talk) 14:10, 14 December 2021 (MST)

This sounds like a good start. Would it be just as effective to simplify it as the multiplier doubling every 5 levels? Once I get around to, I do want to adapting official creatures to play similarly, but fit this system, which necessitates a 21st level+ variant rule for anything above CR ~5, of which I don't believe any widely-regarded tiers of play have been created for.

Alternatively, maybe difficulty should be determined by party level percentage, where a DM divides the creatures' combined CR by the players' combined level to determine a "challenge score". A CS of 0-0.5 is easy, 0.5-1 is medium, 1-1.3 is difficult, 1.3-1.5 is near-impossible, 1.5+ is impossible (numbers could probably be adjusted). This could lead to some miscalcs like throwing a ton of low-level creatures against high-level players (maybe a "cut-off" difference where if a creature's CR is X less than the players or vice-versa, it isn't counted), but otherwise could be simpler to adjust later on.--Ref3rence (talk) 16:07, 14 December 2021 (MST)

For the math scale I mentioned above, you would likely need to have custom modifiers for each tier of play as a 2nd tier pc (5-10) is more than twice as powerful as a 1st tier pc, however a 3rd tier (11-16) pc is less than twice as powerful as a 2nd tier pc, etc. Based on your comment about adopting official creatures, I believe you are underestimating just how powerful many high levels pcs may get. Just to note, the archmage is a CR 12 creature that exists which is effectively a 9th level spellcaster or 18th level wizard without a subclass.

Besides that, I believe perhaps combining the two ideas may lead to the best result, as you sort of need the level modifiers to adjust for pcs sudden power spikes. In addition, given the fact that a party is likely to have multiple fights in a day and not be at full strength for every fight and other factors such as if you are fighting a party that is around the same strength as you, you may lose a fight around ~50% of the time, I would initially like to scale the difficulty way down. Here are my initial suggestions for difficult scaling so far. 0-0.2 is considered to not have any impact. 0.2-0.4 is an easy fight. 0.4-0.6/7 is a medium fight. 0.6/0.7-0.9/1 is a hard fight. 0.9/1+ is a deadly fight.

Overall though these are just nonsense numbers and suggestions. I do believe that actual testing is needed for this kind of system as is pretty obtuse and we are just making up numbers without knowing exactly how this all plays out. If this can be achieved, the more info gathered the better. If not we will just have to run with what we got.--Blobby383b (talk) 15:11, 15 December 2021 (MST)

I don't really get the point of this variant rule. It seems like a lot of work to... fix CR? But how does this fix CR? The primary problems with 5e's level/CR balance (in my opinion at least) do not appear to be considered here. (a) The game as a whole does not factor in action economy as much as it should.(b) The DMG suggests 6-8 combats a day whereas most DMs these days do something like 1-3. If it was just about CR not being high enough, then you could just use higher CR monsters.
     So then is the point to... make levels and CR equivalent? They kind of already are, though. Player-characters' capabilities vary widely from one to another; even with just a 5th level rogue and a 5th level paladin the gap is immense, let alone when adding in subclasses, higher levels, feats, multiclassing, magic items, minmaxing, etc. But if we just stick to the basics, when using the official guidance for deciding CR (DMG page 273) many classes given a CR have that CR end up being surprisingly close to their level. Player-characters tend towards offensive CR, but so do some SRD creatures like the archmage. There's a reason some spells/features use CR and level interchangeably; because they kind of already are interchangeable.
     And, yeah, as everyone has pointed out one can't just "add levels together." (If you added proficiency bonuses together you'd be a bit closer to functionality but it's still just not going to work.) - Guy 23:20, 8 February 2022 (MST)

The main point of this variant rule is that I take issue with 5e putting players on a separate scale to monsters. No matter what features a player gets, they will never become a lich or adult dragon statistically and permanently. While that works for the kind of world and tone 5e typically represents (fantasy adventure, unknowable world), it starts to fall apart in settings that allow players to directly rival powerful creatures (thus why I've primarily used it for a variety of anime-based campaign settings). To that end, I am not necessarily trying to fix CR, but remove it as a system entirely. Whether or not that's the solution you would have done or if it "seems like a lot of work" doesn't really matter to me, I'm doing the work bit-by-bit, and this is a solution to my issues with it, not yours.

In terms of just comparing numbers, it's just weird for players and creatures to be put on entirely different scales, even if the scales intersect at times. While I acknowledge that there's some power disparity between classes, so what? To say that some classes vary in power at certain points in their power growth, so none of them are even comparable would be grounds to throw out the 5e Class Design Guide as a whole, but clearly that isn't true.

Traditional 5e CR is supposed to be roughly equal to a party of four players (CR 1 = 4 1st level players, CR 1/4 = 1 1st level player), but as you say yourself, certain features do use it interchangeably, and certain levels and CRs intersect. However, where exactly that line is drawn isn't very clear, and that makes traditional CR as a whole incredibly frustrating to use. Additionally, while just adding levels together has its flaws, that's why the actual difficulty is chosen by percentage instead of difference, and there's a cutoff percentage. As I said before, I'm really not trying to fix 5e's CR, I'm trying to remove it. A fix doesn't have to cover every problem in existence, and if this doesn't do it for you, maybe a different variant rule will, but for me it does.--Ref3rence (talk) 08:28, 9 February 2022 (MST)

Oh, I see my initial impressions were inaccurate. So this rule is endeavoring to remove CR? Or... replace CR with levels which are generally... less consistent...?

I still don't really understand, but I'm getting the impression it's not for a player like me in any case. Nevermind me. - Guy 11:00, 9 February 2022 (MST)

Sorry for the extended absence, things have been a little hectic for me offline. While I acknowledge the limitations and issues of using levels as a scale instead of CR, it works better for me personally, and at the end of the day, not everything is gonna be for everyone.--Ref3rence (talk) 11:06, 12 February 2022 (MST)