Why Challenge Rating v. Hit Dice?

[Hafeal]

Here is my idle Tuesday thought, why did Turbine only provide a CR level (Challenge Rating) and not HD (Hit Dice) info for BOTH creatures and quests from Day1? To refresh your recollection, here are some definitions:

From the d20 SRD:

[Hit Dice] This line gives the creature’s number and type of Hit Dice (the die rolled to generate hit points), and lists any bonus hit points. A parenthetical note gives the average hit points for a creature of the indicated number of Hit Dice. A creature’s Hit Dice total is also treated as its level for determining how spells affect the creature, its rate of natural healing, and its maximum ranks in a skill.

From Prima's Official DDO Guide:

Every monster has a Challenge Rating (CR), which is displayed at the top of your Focus Orb when you target one. Challenge Ratings signify a monster's strength in relation to a party of four adventurers. (For example, a monster with a CR of 1 should be a worthy opponent for a party of four first-level characters.) A monster’s CR is a valuable resource, use it to determine how much of a fight the monster is likely to put up.

The funny part is, for casters in particular, you need to know Hit Dice, not CR level. And for all players, CR level seems to be wildly inaccurate, especially at lower levels. While CR level is nice to know when entering a quest, inside the quest I would like to see the Hit Dice creatures have.

This is not game-breaking but one of those annoying little things that take away from my old D&D experience when the term Hit Dice meant something. The new world of CR levels seems ... unnecessary, inaccurate and mis-leading. Great players solo and duo high CR quests while casuals get slaughtered in seemingly “doable” CR rated quests. And it does not seem that there has been a lack of consistency in the system through the Mods either.

I would like to see the players get HD info and then let the players play, they will quickly and easily figure out which quests have a high or low CR level. Has anyone else ever had thoughts on this?

[Hafeal]

I cannot seem to get the formatting from my table to work well but the columns are as follows:

Creature Level, Recommended Levels for Party of 4, Recommended Levels for Party of 6, Avg CR Rating of Party of 6 v. Party of 4

1 4 3 0.44
2 8 5 0.88
3 12 8 1.32
4 16 11 1.76
5 20 13 2.20
6 24 16 2.64
7 28 18 3.08
8 32 21 3.52
9 36 24 3.96
10 40 26 4.40
11 44 29 4.84
12 48 32 5.28
13 52 34 5.72
14 56 37 6.16
15 60 40 6.60
16 64 42 7.04
17 68 45 7.48
18 72 48 7.92
19 76 50 8.36
20 80 53 8.80
21 84 55 9.24
22 88 58 9.68
23 92 61 10.12
24 96 63 10.56
25 100 66 11.00
26 104 69 11.44
27 108 71 11.88
28 112 74 12.32
29 116 77 12.76
30 120 79 13.20
31 124 82 13.64
32 128 84 14.08
33 132 87 14.52
34 136 90 14.96
35 140 92 15.40
36 144 95 15.84
37 148 98 16.28
38 152 100 16.72
39 156 103 17.16
40 160 106 17.60

My quick calculations, based on the Prima guide explanation, on what a party of 4 v. a party of 6 should be able to get done. If my math is off, please let me know!

[Hafeal]

reserved

[HumanJHawkins]

<cut>The funny part is, for casters in particular, you need to know Hit Dice, not CR level. <cut>

I think the answer is best illustrated by the following:

DM: You see a tall blue creature just over the horizon. It appears humanoid, but has horns sticking out from most of it's joints, as well as from it's cheek-bones.

PLAYER: I look more closely. How many hit dice do I see?

DM: Um... Yeah. You see 14 hit dice. Clearly your Banisher will work. Let's just skip the red tape and assume you killed it. What do you want to do next?

No offense intended by the sarcasm. I just wanted to make it really clear how this would be a detraction for some players, as well as to show how DDO comes from a pen and paper foundation where players don't get any info that they have not experienced via their senses.

Cheers!

[Angelus_dead]

DDO comes from a pen and paper foundation where players don't get any info that they have not experienced via their senses.

Yes, and that's also why players can't see enemy hitpoints or other useful numbers.

However, that raises the question of why they even get to see the CR number. But there's an answer for that: Because in D&D, the DM adjusts things so that the CRs you meet are appropriate to your party.

[Phidius]

I think the answer is best illustrated by the following:

DM: You see a tall blue creature just over the horizon. It appears humanoid, but has horns sticking out from most of it's joints, as well as from it's cheek-bones.

PLAYER: I look more closely. How many hit dice do I see?

DM: Um... Yeah. You see 14 hit dice. Clearly your Banisher will work. Let's just skip the red tape and assume you killed it. What do you want to do next?

No offense intended by the sarcasm. I just wanted to make it really clear how this would be a detraction for some players, as well as to show how DDO comes from a pen and paper foundation where players don't get any info that they have not experienced via their senses.

Cheers!

That's just awesome - thanks for the laughs

[Hafeal]

LOL - I almost put the response to this in my original post but I wanted to wait see if anyone brought it up. No time lost.

Yes, yes, it is true that the pnp DM may (or may not) share the info with you. It is also true, at least in many campaigns I was in, players often had the Monster Manual available. Or at the very least had read through it and had a very good idea of what they were up against.

As has been pointed out - why do they give us a CR level then? And, in my experience, the CR level is not at all necessarily indicative of the HD or difficulty of the creature.

Further, for spell and spell effect purposes, HD plays an important roll yet they give you precious little way to feret that information out. Turbine has in fact gone out of its way to state that CR does not equal HD.

I think the answer is best illustrated by the following:

DM: You see a tall blue creature just over the horizon. It appears humanoid, but has horns sticking out from most of it's joints, as well as from it's cheek-bones.

PLAYER: I look more closely. How many hit dice do I see?

DM: Um... Yeah. You see 14 hit dice. Clearly your Banisher will work. Let's just skip the red tape and assume you killed it. What do you want to do next?

No offense intended by the sarcasm. I just wanted to make it really clear how this would be a detraction for some players, as well as to show how DDO comes from a pen and paper foundation where players don't get any info that they have not experienced via their senses.

Cheers!

[joker965]

In DDO at higher levels the HD number is not real in a pen and paper way.

Especially on hard or elite the CR number VS the HD number is really misleading if you try to shoe-horn it into D&D rules.

So that CR26 giant has about 3000 hit points? Are those d100 hit dice and a 50 Con?

The real problem is that so many spells and effects that are totally useless because they are based on hit points or HD. How many effects\spells are totally bunk because everything is scaled crazy in DDO and the effects are right out of the book?

And... the 2000HP CR23 dude is smoked in 5 seconds buy some WOP rapiers? Just silly!

[Hafeal]

Which almost leads me to believe that while HD is inflated (which everyone knows anyway) why can't they help out some of the non-damaging spells accordingly?

With damage spells they have compensated for HD inflation by forcing casters to use metamagics and magic items to "max out" their spells.

I say, the gig is up, we all know. Get us some actually useful info - 'cause inquiring minds want to know!

In DDO at higher levels the HD number is not real in a pen and paper way.

Especially on hard or elite the CR number VS the HD number is really misleading if you try to shoe-horn it into D&D rules.

So that CR26 giant has about 3000 hit points? Are those d100 hit dice and a 50 Con?

The real problem is that so many spells and effects that are totally useless because they are based on hit points or HD. How many effects\spells are totally bunk because everything is scaled crazy in DDO and the effects are right out of the book?

And... the 2000HP CR23 dude is smoked in 5 seconds buy some WOP rapiers? Just silly!