Understanding Challenge Rating, treasure, and balance

[Legacy_BenJPas]

               Hi all!

I have it in my mind to create an epic hack 'n' slash campaign, similar in style to Champions of Norrath or some such thing. Linear and streamlined, good for multiplayer. I'm talking a long, 1-40 campaign here. Call me too ambitious, go ahead.

Anyways, one of the main issues in creating such a campaign is the need for consistent balance. As such, I've been trying to nail down how to deal with treasure and challenge ratings. I've done a bit of exploring and fiddling around in the toolset, but have still ended up with a few questions.

First, how does challenge rating really work in NWN? I'm familiar with the system in PnP, but as Neverwinter is frequently a one player ordeal, I don't completely understand how a single level 4 player and a CR 4 NPC should match up. To make it more confusing, a level 1 fighter in the toolset is given a CR of 1/2. So I'm really confused as to what a CR should signify. How many CR 4 npcs should a level 4 character be able to take out before resting? How about if he's level 8? what about two or three or four level 4 characters? I know this is a bunch of questions, maybe someone could link me to an article?

And then the second question is like the first: Is there a system of balance regarding treasure? Is there a table somewhere that shows, like in PnP,  "By level 2, a character should have x amount of wealth on average, etc. etc." I do appreciate that the toolset will give you a price for custom items, which I assume is a good estimate of its power. But how much should a character get in one level?

Anyone who can answer any part of those immensely confusing questions or can link me to an article will have my deepest thanks '>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Squatting Monk]

               CR in NWN is essentially just a way to figure out how much XP a player should get for defeating an enemy. It really has no bearing on how difficult the monster is to beat. With that in mind, the key is to create a monster that is of the appropriate level of difficulty, then set its CR manually so it gives the amount of XP you want. If you want the player to fight more monsters each level, give less XP. If you want them to fight less, give more. For fine-tuning of XP, I suggest checking out PWFXP or a similar package.

You may also find this link helpful in building challenging monsters.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Squatting Monk, 09 novembre 2011 - 03:41 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_ffbj]

               These are important question to consider. I agree withe Squatting Monk, btw, one of the old timers about PWFXP.  Also there are treasure systems on the vault like Silicon Scouts, and others.  In addition there are spawning systems you may want to take a look at. Basically sort of like Goldilocks with treasure, not too much, nor too little, but just right, is what you want.  How to achieve that?  Well it's more of an art than a science.
I like monster drops with a small % chance they drop something based on the level difference between them and whatever killed them.  That is if you are close in level to the defeated monster they will more likely drop something for you.  That's one approach.  It's sort of like making a 3 course meal, you mix and match various ingredients to create the perfect meal.  So that's what's making a module is like: a pinch of this, a dash of that, a smidgen of the other thing. Voila!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               I will try to provide a bit more detailed info.

While in PnP the creature's CR is also used for determining loot, in NWN loot is determined differently. Loot from creature is automatically pulled from "low" loot category unless there is a "monster treasure" system chest in the area where NPC spawns. In that case the loot is determined from there but a builder have to put it in there manually. CR isn't involved into this at all.

In NWN CR is by default used in the default bioware XP calculations. But also in some custom XP systems like already mentiones PWFXP which I also know and used to be user of.

Secondary and not so know usage is that the creature CR also counts in bioware spawns. If there is more creatures with different CR then the spawn will spawn that one that is closest to the player' level. The same applies for creature counts in spawns. Unlike custom spawns, the bioware ones doesnt spawn random between MIN and MAX creatures, but rather fixed number calculated from the creature's CR and player character level. Somehow this is a connected with encounter's difficulty but I don't know how exactly because this calculation is hardcoded.

An of course you can freely re-use the creature's CR for any purpose you want via scripting.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_SHOVA]

               well said ShaDoOoW. I'll take it a step further of course, in terms of balance, I tend to make the monster 2, to 3 levels higher than the PC. The default CR, could well be "normal" in terms of difficulty, but unless I or my players is playing a "untried" Character class, a normal CR, is too easy.

For the actual spawn in for monsters, I use NESS, and the standard Bio trigger. I tend to put the treasure on the monster via the toolset, and only put extremely low end treasure in the default chest treasure XP1 system.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_BenJPas]

               Okay, thanks for the replies thus far. A few follow ups.

I'm not awfully concerned with the scripting aspect right now. I did enough java in high school and have fiddled around enough with the toolset to understand more or less how it works. For simplicity's sake I'll probably end up using or modifying an existing treasure script.

Much harder is understanding the complex interplay between the power of a PC's level and the amount of treasure they have. It's somewhat disappointing that NWN doesn't better correlate treasure, level, number of people in a party, and CR, but I suppose that's life.  It seems to me that I just need to find a way of doling out treasure and stick with it, and then adjust the challenge of the encounters accordingly.

What I'd really like, then, is a treasure system that hands out treasure on the basis of the CR of the creature, like in PnP. Could you all recommend one?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               The reason why NWN doesn't use such treasure system is that the majority of the treasures in NWN campaigns is stored in treasure chests or other placeable. And these object doesn't have a Challenge Rating. The loot from creatures contains mainly consumable items like scrolls and potions, some gold and thats all in fact. Simply the loot from creatures wasn't appropriate to be better and it is not even in most custom fan modules.

For example, In multiplayer environment the creature re-spawns and player can kill thousands creatures if he would wish to. In the extreme case a high level player character could go into a lower level dungeon, mass all creatures in there and then kill them in few seconds via whirlwindattack/great cleave or some spell with large area of effect. The chance that he finds something in loot would be in this case 100% which is definitely not appropriate.

I understand that in your environment it might be appropriate but I dont think this feature generally "missing" in NWN. Neither I know of any custom loot system with loot determined from creature's CR.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 12 novembre 2011 - 01:22 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_SHOVA]

               Short answer, none that I have found.

The thing is, PnP, and standard NWN are way out of whack. The reason, well computer game that you play for a few hours, and your done, vs, PnP campaign, that takes months to finish. Your going to be dependent on your item level allowances. What that means is, at some point with anything we offer, your going to say that's to "godly" for my mod. that's why most use some hybrid of several systems to hand out treasure.

I use the standard XP1 chest system, where I put items I allow in the mod chests of low, med, high, unique, and monster race. The system then on death of a monster looks for the chest, takes 1-3 items from it, (race first, and if not found the low) and adds it to the corpse/remains. I also put some items on each creature I make in the toolset. The chest system uses the standard script, NW_O2_CONINCLUDE. this script has various tables in it that it looks for, level, class, and has various rolls for other standard bio-made treasure it can also add. It spawns by resref of the item, and I switched each item out with a custom one, except for scrolls, and gems. I also use the NESS spawn system to bring in my components for my potion brewing system. And, I use Sunjammers custom forge for all items. What this means is, all my items are normal, until the PC adds a property to it. Properties are found via the medium, high, and unique chest spawns, and to add, take gold. lots of gold.

But others have a more liberal attitude. There is nothing wrong with that. Some give magic away like its available at wal-mart. Some give it by DM drop. Some make it available only by crafting it. and some, do a mix of all. I am sure there are others who have ways I have not encountered, or even thought of. Perhaps if your a bit more specific on what you actually want to do, we can be even more vague.. I mean helpful!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               Removed
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Pstemarie, 12 novembre 2011 - 08:07 .