Effortless ... Easy ... Moderate ...

chamalscuro · Post by **chamalscuro** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 6:53 pm

Anybody got the various challenge levels (Effortless ... Easy ... Moderate ...) charted out as to how they relate to your character's level? There seems to be a method to this, but I'm unclear how they all relate.

Khaelindra · Post by **Khaelindra** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:00 pm

see the manual...

CL=characterlevel...

CL-6 or lower: Effortless
CL-4/5: easy
CL-2/3: moderate
CL-1/0: challenging
CL+1/2: very difficult
CL+3/4: overpowering
CL+5 or higher: Impossible

Marleh · Post by **Marleh** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:01 pm

Page 36 in the original manual lists out the color chart, which is basically this -

Purple - Impossible - 5 levels and greater
Red - Overpowering - 3 & 4 levels greater
Orange - Very difficult - 1 & 2 levels greater
Yellow - Challenging - same as your character or one less
Blue - Moderate - 2 or 3 levels less
Green - Easy - 4 to 5 levels less
White - effortless - 6 levels or more less than your character

But this does not show the CR rating, this only shows the characters lvl. Depending on how they are built - what feats and skills the creature has, among other things - sets the CR rating.

Sapperken · Post by **Sapperken** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:05 pm

Oh, I thought the CR and CL were the same. So is there a way to tell CR without opening up the toolset?

I'm guessing no.

slave_of_emotions · Post by **slave_of_emotions** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:06 pm

Marleh wrote:Page 36 in the original manual lists out the color chart, which is basically this -

Purple - Impossible - 5 levels and greater
Red - Overpowering - 3 & 4 levels greater
Orange - Very difficult - 1 & 2 levels greater
Yellow - Challenging - same as your character or one less
Blue - Moderate - 2 or 3 levels less
Green - Easy - 4 to 5 levels less
White - effortless - 6 levels or more less than your character

But this does not show the CR rating, this only shows the characters lvl. Depending on how they are built - what feats and skills the creature has, among other things - sets the CR rating.

Actualy you are wrong, you will notice that if you create a monster with the toolset; When you increase a creatures str, hitpoints etc, they chalange reting increases and lowers. And your level is related then to this CR when you examine a monster.

Khaelindra · Post by **Khaelindra** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:08 pm

A Red Dragon can be sorcerer1 but still have a CR much higher than 1.

Actually i think what it shows is the CR as related to your CL, and not the creatures CL like Marleh says. I know some dragons have no classlevels and still show impossible to lowlevels, meaning it's the CR that gives the colorcode/typecode?

Anyways, there you have the chart.

Khaelindra · Post by **Khaelindra** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:08 pm

Lol, SoE got there before me...

slave_of_emotions · Post by **slave_of_emotions** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:09 pm

sapperken wrote:Oh, I thought the CR and CL were the same. So is there a way to tell CR without opening up the toolset?

I'm guessing no.

CL = Here your Character Level; CR = Monsters Challange Rating. A PCs Chalange Rating is same as Character Level. A Monster NPCs CR is normaly higher then his CL.

Marleh · Post by **Marleh** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:11 pm

slave_of_emotions wrote:Actualy you are wrong, you will notice that if you create a monster with the toolset; When you increase a creatures str, hitpoints etc, they chalange reting increases and lowers. And your level is related then to this CR when you examine a monster.

But the creator of these monsters can also artifically change the CR rating up or down as they wish, so it is not a valid indicator in all instances and should not be relied on to determine CR.

Also, the CR does not take into account any specialized weapons or armor the monster might be given by the creator, which can change the outcome of a fight dramatically.

slave_of_emotions · Post by **slave_of_emotions** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:13 pm

Marleh wrote:
slave_of_emotions wrote:Actualy you are wrong, you will notice that if you create a monster with the toolset; When you increase a creatures str, hitpoints etc, they chalange reting increases and lowers. And your level is related then to this CR when you examine a monster.
But the creator of these monsters can also artifically change the CR rating up or down as they wish, so it is not a valid indicator in all instances and should not be relied on to determine CR.

yes especialy on higher levels... there evrything is effortless, even if it can beat you to moon and back. There the CR of monsters would actually need to be raised because the engine expects a character to have best items for his current level.

Rhissaerk Jalesh · Post by **Rhissaerk Jalesh** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:18 pm

The toolsets default CR caculator is utterly nuts. Adding a few poisons to a weapon can raise the CR by 10, even if the DC is a merely 14. Suffice to say, it's not reliable. The best a builder can do is make an educated guess about what the CR should be and adjust it to that.

Sapperken · Post by **Sapperken** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 7:29 pm

slave_of_emotions wrote:
sapperken wrote:Oh, I thought the CR and CL were the same. So is there a way to tell CR without opening up the toolset?

I'm guessing no.
CL = Here your Character Level; CR = Monsters Challange Rating. A PCs Chalange Rating is same as Character Level. A Monster NPCs CR is normaly higher then his CL.

Cool, thanks.

I thought a monster's CR was based off it's CL. Didn't think it was based off of attributes, abilities, and such. Did know that it could be adjusted in the toolset, though.

pincushionman · Post by **pincushionman** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 8:11 pm

I've seen a Bandit Cleric in Mikona buff his rogue comrades and they all went from Easy to Moderate. So it does take into account some character tweaks (at least in real-time)

chamalscuro · Post by **chamalscuro** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 8:38 pm

Thanks for all the replies everybody. Didn't even think to look in the NWN manual... usually computer game manuals are worse than worthless!

Veilan · Post by **Veilan** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 1:49 am

chamalscuro wrote:Thanks for all the replies everybody. Didn't even think to look in the NWN manual... usually computer game manuals are worse than worthless!

Please, please send me your HotU manual then!

I lost mine somewhere in my room, and I am entirely sad I still couldn't find it *sniffle*.

PlasmaJohn · Post by **PlasmaJohn** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 2:09 am

Veilan wrote:Please, please send me your HotU manual then! I lost mine somewhere in my room, and I am entirely sad I still couldn't find it *sniffle*.

look in C:/NeverwinterNights/NWN/docs

anodynes · Post by **anodynes** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 12:11 pm

In addition to the users manual that comes with the game, I have been using this reference for years: Lord Xyphus' Neverwinter Grimoire v3.00 but its at least 2 years old.

Actually, there are alot of good guides here:
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Other.HOF

Elong Singalong · Post by **Elong Singalong** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 12:33 pm

I had a discussion about this once.. cant remember with who.. Still i think it would be nice to hear the opinion of other people.

The discussion was about if the challengerating you see when you examinate a monster is oocly or icly. I thought it was icly, but the other person thought it was oocly.

According to that other person the challengerating is oocly and that is because you cant know IC if you could defeat that monster or not. Besides that people will look at the challengerating first before attacking.

On the other hand I think, you can see if a monster is strong or not. Some people are IG specialized in fighting certain kind of monsters. If you look at the challengerate it is that you look at a monster from a distant and think: yeah i think i can handle that one.. doesnt look so strong..

But you know looks are deceiving.. Yesterday i saw someone getting killed by for me a moderate creature.. i mean.. that other person was overpowering for me, so i think that creature must have been easy or effortless for him...

Alphonse · Post by **Alphonse** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 12:37 pm

Elong Singalong wrote:But you know looks are deceiving.. Yesterday i saw someone getting killed by for me a moderate creature.. i mean.. that other person was overpowering for me, so i think that creature must have been easy or effortless for him...

yup. DM buffed creatures keep their rating but can be dramatically changed

gwydion2 · Post by **gwydion2** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 2:03 pm

Challenge rating can be misleading, as it may have been adjusted in the toolset when the creature was created.

Also, some creatures are easy to kill for fighters and not for mages. Some the reverse. The challenge rating will not reflect that.

Finally, it becomes less of a relevant guideline, the higher level the PC.
Just to give 3 examples of enconters that rate effortless

a) A level 7 PC vs CR1 creatures. Obviously the PC could easily handle a huge number of these, even if a DM spawned 30 on him without warning. Just think how many crop rats or fire bettles you could have handled at lv7. Given a couple of healing kit stacks and shop bought gear, probably a ridiculous amount.

b) A level 12 PC vs CR6 creatures. Enough of these could be a real threat and the PC would have to take them seriously, though he could probably still handle a lot if properly prepared.

c) A level 30 PC vs CR24 creatures. In this case, if someone dropped 10 of these creatures on the PC, he'll probably either get smashed up rapidly or run / cast sanctuary. Even fully prepared and knowing what he's up against, 10 of these would be a serious threat and hard to take out.

Although the difference is 6 levels in each case, the threat level is a lot different. In example A, the PC is 7 x the power of the creature. In Example B, the PC is 2 x the power of the creature. Example C the PC just has a 25% advantage over the creature. It's not quite that simple of course, but that's closer to the real threat level.

So basicly, even if you want to look at a creatures CR, it may not help you much

mighty_alcibie · Post by **mighty_alcibie** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 4:26 pm

This is a very interesting, because I've wondered if there is a way IG to tell if you're capable of dealing with certain NPCs. Of course that also implies knowing if you can handle certain amounts of them at a time. I guess the only way is to wing it.