Issues With Dungeons&Dragons: A Comprehensive CRT

[Xulrev]

This CRT is going to be focused upon 4 major issues I have found with our current ratings for the D&D verse, namely Challenge Rating-scaling, Elder Evil calcs, Dragon calcs, and Elemental Prince calcs/Region Effect calcs in general.

Issue #1: Challenge Rating and You
To begin, we are presented with the first glaring issue in the Dungeons and Dragons(heretoafter referred to simply as D&D) profiles on our wiki. The term 'Challenge Rating'(heretoafter referred to simply as CR) is used, broadly, to describe a monster or group of monsters and contextualize the difficulty an average party of 4 Player Character(heretoafter referred to as PCs) adventurers should expect in a fight with said monster/group (Dungeon Master's Guide 3.5E page 48) . Simply put, the monster's CR=the average level of a group of 4 Players; a CR 17 Monster can be a reasonable challenge for 4 17th level Characters. The Dungeon Master's Guide is pretty explicit on the point that CR=Party Level is a 'Challenging' fight (Dungeon Master's Guide 3.5E page 49), and it is also noted that an average adventuring party can handle at least 6 such 'Challenging' encounters per adventuring day (Dungeon Master's Guide 5E page 85) .

Now, where does an issue come in from this simple basic set of guidelines? The answer is as simple as the guidelines: our wiki presumes that a PC's Level is directly equivalent to CR.

Anyone astute will immediately note a problem here from the basic definition of CR; CR is used to measure monsters, for one, and for two it's measuring a monster against FOUR PCs. How could a Level 17 PCs reasonably fight 4 Level 17 PCs and consider it a 'Challenging' fight?

They cannot, and the Dungeon Master's Guide actually states as such. Explicitly, a group of monsters add their respective CR together to equal their Effective Level rating to determine their collective CR (Dungeon Master's Guide 3.5E page 49). So now we are at quite the impasse: per our wiki, a single level 17 PC is equated to a CR of 17, meaning they can reasonably challenge 4 Level 17 PCs (which would be 4 CR 17 monsters), so let's plug these numbers into some CR calculators and check the results shall we:

From edition 3.5e

From edition 5e

Oops.

This simple illustration demonstrates the most basic, inherent flaw in our system of measuring relative power for the D&D verse: we presume that if a character's profile lists the character as Level 17, they can reasonably 'challenge' a CR 17, when they provably do not scale at all. If you don't believe this is wrong based on the logic and calculators, I am at a loss at this point.

Pre-Emptive Arguments

• Well what's to say Drizzt couldn't fight 4 copies of himself, he absolutely could reasonably 'challenge' them!

Firstly, no, that's irrational, not a single being exists that can fight 4 flawless copies of itself and challenge them barring absurd outliers using certain Chinese Light Novel Verses' 'skill' feats. Secondly, by feats he has fought a person who was his own level and skill (Artemis Entreri) and their duels have always lasted several minutes with both becoming severely wounded and nearly unable to move afterward. A single person on Drizzt's precise level is a 50/50 coinflip as to whom wins and takes his entire concentration just to fight the single individual; 4 of them would kill him in seconds.

• Using the rules the way you are is going against the spirit of the game itself!

As is using the rules the way the wiki does, explicitly so; the Dungeon Master's Guide is more in support of me than the way this site uses CR. Further, the 'spirit of the game' allows for any roll of a Natural 20 to hit anyone regardless of Armor Class, meaning a Level 5 PC has a 5% or greater chance of hitting the 6-C Drizzt Do'Urden with every roll, thereby allowing almost any PC to gain a 6-C Rating per how we utilize it on the wiki. Arguing for spirit of the game is a point in my favor of altering the wiki's guidelines for D&D, not the other way around, since tiering in this manner is essentially bunk(note: I do not believe a Level 5 PC should scale to Drizzt without feats, the point is that utilizing the rules of the game in this manner is simply atrocious for a wiki such as this).

• CR is just a benchmark placement and people below don't scale to people above!

Except for when they explicitly do in canon lore, such as when the magic-armorless King Obould Many-Arrows, a Level 9 (Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book page 134) Orc,fights Drizzt Do'Urden to a standstill with such power and skill that Drizzt likens Obould to his own Hunter state (Book: The Two Swords) . For those wishing to call this PiS simply to further the plot: well, the entire plot of this trilogy of books relies upon 'Nobody can kill Obould Many-Arrows in combat due to how brutal he is'. For further proof that couldn't be PiS since it's not the protagonist engaging Obould, Obould brings the Frost Giant Jarl Dame Gerto Orelsdottr to the ground with a single charge (Book: The Lone Drow), when her canon stat block indicates she should obliterate him utilizing our current system (Epic Level Handbook page 294). If this is not enough proof, how about the time Drizzt was meaningfully injured by Spined Devils(Book: Neverwinter), creatures with a CR of 4 in 3.5e and 2 in 5e? Or, if he is so superior, why must Drizzt take his time with two CR 3 Legion Devils(Book: Gauntlgrym) since he reasonably is multiple tiers above them by current standards? Or what of the time Drizzt was heavily struggling against two Marilith demons(Book: Timeless) , both CR 16 in 5e, the edition out at the time of this book's publishing? Or what of Bruenor Battlehammer cleaving Yvonnel Baenre's head in two(Book: Siege of Darkness) , regardless of her being a level 25 cleric and his being a level 13 fighter? Essentially, why is it that almost every. single. canon. feat. from the Forgotten Realms is antithetical to the idea of CR=Level, since so many characters consistently cannot keep up with severely lower CR creatures quite often? At a point we must accept that Argument from Incredulity only carries us so far in the wake of a flood of evidence.

• Well what do you propose we do then, we already have this set and you're just arguing Rules Lawyer methods of skirting our guidelines!

I propose we hold D&D to the standard we hold literally every other verse on the wiki: we measure them from objective feats, not from some circuitous and recursive methodology that is blatantly and HILARIOUSLY flawed since I can scale Drizzt to 4x his own power (fighting 4 17th level PCs) and then 4x again since he would scale to fighting 4 PCs of that level innately, ad infinitum based on how we currently utilize CR.

For an illustrative example highlighting the entirety of my Issue #1: Drizzt's current profile states he is 'Comparable to Imix', an Elemental Prince who rules over the Plane of Fire, and is therefore 6-C. He's not, at all, remotely. The only thing that scales is his Level is around Imix's CR. They have never interacted. Drizzt has never demonstrated a feat of the level Imix is at, except by utilizing a powerful magical scimitar that destroyed the soul of demons (conveniently for Drizzt). Drizzt has busted no Islands. Drizzt has failed to kill nameless Orcs in combat with a single hit, Drizzt has consistently struggled to even meaningfully wound a Level 9 Orc (Obould) in single combat and been near-fatally wounded by him in return, yet is Island-Busting. Measure by ACTUAL FEATS, not by meaningless drivel that scales in a nonsensical manner.

We need a rehaul of the D&D verse or else we are simply, woefully, inaccurate as a wiki and are patently abiding the spread of misinformation.

In summation: CR is an awful litmus for measuring characters against one another, it allows for recursive infinite-scaling when applied on the wiki, it is not meant to be applied to PCs and still maintain accuracy at all, and would result in practically anyone from D&D to scale to Level 20 PCs due to Natural 20s.


Issue #2: Elder Evils Calcs
For my second issue, I am going to evaluate the currently-accepted calcs that a wonderful Calc Group member, Mr. Bambu, has created. Please note, this is not an attack of his personal person as I immensely respect him as evidenced by our extended discourses on the wiki.

For starters, this blog: https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:Mr._Bambu/D&D_Calcs:_Elder_Evils_and_Steamy_Bois has numerous issues in its presumptions and how it handles the calcs, as well as this separate one for Ragnorra: https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/U...and_Dragons_Calc:_Ragnorra,_the_Blazing_Death

• Zargo - 'Zargon can cover the entire planet in a storm' per the blog and calc, and then the math is pretty sound. Easy, right?

The bit that is interesting here is twofold: Zargon is a CR 16(therefore weaker than Drizzt) yet Bambu claims he should only reasonably scale to archfiends, demigods, demon lords, etc(all of whom are planetary to multiversal), and also the entry itself is explicit in that "The worship of Zargon causes unrest among the gods, which is made manifest with strange weather", bold emphasis mine.

Zargon is not manifesting the weather. Unrest and imbalance amongst the gods is. The storm calc does not scale to him, and even if it did it would upgrade everyone of his level by an entire tier (Tier 6 to Tier 5) or higher to Tier 4. At worst, it's just mistaken. At best, it's an outlier. Even if we ignore this objection of mine, the calc factually does not take into account every previous level of weather before hand, specifically the neecssary Stronger Sign that is continental+ in size (Elder Evils page 145)

• Father Llymic - The good Father is presumed to instantly coat the entire world in a solid glacier of ice upon his awakening, thus we calc'd an instantaneous global glacier.

Alright this one has a completely different issue from the first one, since it does scale to Llymic directly somewhat. However, first thing to note: the thing causing the temperature plummet is actually the sky darkening to pitch black (Elder Evils page 33) over the course of a Level 7-17 adventure. Second thing to note: the sun going dark is not Llymic's power directly, rather it's a power of his prison drawing in more and more light to keep him imprisoned (Elder Evils page 33) as he gains more followers and thereby power, a prison made by ancient elves of immense power to secure the Far Realms monstrosity. So immediately, the calc is immensely out of whack since it outright ignores the huge temperature changes caused not by Llymic but by his prison and the sun's going dark. Per the scans given, the only reasonable presumption would actually be for Llymic to cause a global decrease in temperature of 1 degree per 24 hours under the Overwhelming Sign, but even that can actually be attributed to the lack of an actively-heating sun. Nowhere in the adventure for Father Llymic does it state a glacier spontaneously covers the globe; in fact, just the opposite is stated, since under the Moderate Sign the alleged glacier has ice already spawning from a mountain and coating the land (Elder Evils page 34).

Essentially, for Father Llymic the presumption of 'instant global glacier' is pretty asinine when analyzed in-context. There are several temperature changes prior to his awakening, and the cold generated comes from his body's explicit physics-defying interaction with light (Elder Evils page 32). Note that it's cold he generates, not even pure ice. The calc as-is literally is not usable for him, at base, unless super heavily re-worked.

• Ragnorra - Ragnorra, having been tossed into the skies and taken on an elliptical arc around the universe as a giant comet, plummets into the earth

Ragnorra's is pretty straightforward: she's a large mass that slams into a planet. I don't see that how scales to her AP however, since this is an absurd outlier wherein she was cast into the skies eons ago and just-so-happens to encounter something at high speeds. I simply don't see a powerful argument for 'I was thrown up high and fell back down, therefore I can hit as hard as I fell down' holding up, especially when the text itself outright states almost all of her 1-mile-diameter mass was destroyed in the impact, reducing her to a Gargantuan size (20 feet in 5e), indicating her ability to hold up under such power is outright nonexistent. For super quick math, a 1 mile diameter sphere being reduced to a 20 foot diameter sphere is a reduction to 0.0000000544% of her mass; put another way, 99.9999999466% of her original mass was destroyed by that impact she scales to in one blow.

• Mephisto - Standard feat, amped Chosen of the god Mask curbstomps an Archfiend and the guy's distress causes his realm to start crumbling

No qualms with this feat at all, actually. Arguably it's the result of the Master of the Realm being harmed causing this destruction, but meh.

• Phaetho - These Abominations heat the cores of some planets, explicitly.

Very few qualms with this feat or math. The only thing I'd encourage is we re-evaluate the feat for a more accurate Low-End since Phaethons can be gone from the core of planets for, explicitly, an entire season without the cores going cold. A Low-End presuming at least a week or two would be wise for accuracy.

In summation: Zargon's calc ignores how he's not actually the one generating the feat; Llymic's calc ignores all the buildup context and cannot be directly attributed to Llymic himself and even allowing for that, he explicitly defies physics so measuring it is weird; Ragnarro is obliterated by the feat she allegedly scales to; Mephisto is fine; Phaethon is fine but should include a more reasonable low-ball imho.


Issue #3: Elemental Princes And Their Calcs
For starters, the link given as proof to support the claims made in the calcs is broken, c'mon Bambu (I trust the quotations though), but here is the blog in question being analyzed: https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/U...D_Calc:_Elemental_Princes_and_Terrain_Effects

• Imix's Desert Drought - Imix, the Prince of Fire, creates a huge AoE desert over time with a heat wave

I actually am a bit confused by this entire calc; the calculation presumes an entire sphere 10 miles in radius, which would presume Imix heats the ground 10 miles down into the ground uniformly in accordance with the heat on the surface. That is a massive overinflation of the calc, firstly.

Secondly, the heat wave takes a total of 20 days to reach Sahara-like temps wherein water sources are fully dried up; at the first stage, grass still exists but simply browns. I see no reason whatsoever for this calc to be taken at face value since it utilizes the highest-end temps of the Sahara from the word 'go' for Imix's power. It is massively exaggerative and ignores timeframes as well as reasonability in low-ends.

• Ogremoch's Terrible Tremors - Ogremoch creates earthquakes in a huge AoE over time simply with his presence

This one is straightforward, but simply forgets that Ogremoch's effect takes 2d12 hours to take effect. A lowball of 24 hours and highball of 2 hours for that much energy to be produced need to be implemented to be accurate. Simple, and simply refuted.

• Olhydra's Drowning Downpour - Olhydra creates a violent storm in a huge AoE around his lair

Same issue as Ogremoch's; the effect explicitly takes 2d12 hours to come online. I can't reasonably accept the calc as-is without accounting for that.

• Yan-C-Bin's Whirling Winds - Yan-C-Bin creates gale force winds in a sizeable AoE around his lair

My only qualm here is that it shouldn't be a sphere, but rather a cross section on the land; nothing indicates the gale forces go 5 miles directly up, and why on earth would we presume gale force winds affect the earth beneath his lair? Further, the idea that lair effects follow the user is not accurate whatsoever per the Monster Manual for 5e; they're Regional Effects, not moving effects, or else every Adult and older Dragon encountered would have a storm/blizzard following it and this simply is untrue.

As a final point not related to any individual princes' calcs: every single prince, per the Princes of the Apocalypse descriptions for them, necessitates being either in their Home Plane (Fire, Water, Earth, Air) to gain a Regional Effect or must be inhabitating an elemental node of immense power already (for example, Yan-C-Bin inhabiting the Howling Caves in the adventure, which already explicitly possess immense elemental power prior to his being summoned into them [Princes of the Apocalypse, several pages, listed under each Princes Regional Effects, page 222 for Yan-C-bin])

In summation: Almost all of these calcs either have an issue with a sphere being presumed with zero reason for it to be so since it's affecting only the surface of the planet around each Prince's lair thus should be a short cylindrical prism, and most of the calcs downright ignore that the effects are over time and take quite some charging up. I do have one more issue with lairs in general but will save that for my final issue:

Issue #4: Dragon Calcs and Lair Effects
My qualms here aren't necessarily in the calcs themselves, by and large, but rather the presumptions on the creatures in question actively outputting energy such that the calc is sound. As always, blog here: https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:Mr._Bambu/D&D_Calcs:_Dragons_in_Dungeons and let's dive in

• White Dragon Blizzard Ballad - A white dragon's lair has a perpetual, 6-mile wide freezing precipitation that turns into a blizzard on occasion

For one, we randomly presume the temperature that is altered starts at 16 Centigrade, when the lair's regional effect explicitly states the area is perpetually under freezing precipitation, so it ought to be 0 Centigrade as a baseline as a high-ball for the temperature change. Secondly, that'd give us a specific heat of 1003 J, not 1012, but that's super minor.

• Blue Dragon Stormy Sonnet - A blue dragon's lair has constant thunderstorms raging around it in a 6-mile radius

I actually have zero problems with this calc at all. What I do take issue with is what follow:

Regional effects of Lairs are not an active, AP-scaleable effect. Regional effects of Lairs are an over-time thing that generate due to the latent magic of a powerful being spending much of their time in said lair (Monster Manual 5E page 11). Further supporting evidence of the Regional Effects not scaling to AP is that they can end over time upon the death of the being in question (Monster Manual 5E page 11); if it were an active power and active energy being pumped out by the creature in question, how on earth would it take 24 to 240 hours for them to stop putting forth that energy when they're dead? As proof, the blue dragon's storms take explicitly 1d10 days to abate (Monster Manual 5E page 92)and the precipitation, not blizzard, of the white dragon takes a full 24 hours to do so as well (Monster Manual 5E page 103) . No, it simply does not scale to potency since the creatures in question demonstrably are not willfully manipulating nor creating the effects. In fact, such legendary creatures do have specific Lair Actions that are entirely unrelated to the Regional Effects (Monster Manual 5E page 11) and are things they ca manipulate, further proving the point of a stark difference between the two. If Regional Effects were a thing the creature in question was outputting constantly, they would follow the creature; this is not the case, as if they did it would be included in the Monster's stat block in the Monster Manual, which it factually is not. The Princes also suffer from this demerit, since as noted above they must inhabit specialized elemental nodes for their regional effect to come into play, and all their own regional effects fade after 1d10 days post-banishment or defeat.

In summation: Regional Effects from Lairs are bogus to use for AP since it does not reasonably scale in any way, shape, or form and is a direct result of latent magic seeping into the area over an indeterminate time, and the White Dragon's calc is missing major context.

Conclusion And Propositio
At the end of this absurdly in-depth CRT, we find ourselves presented with an overwhelming mass of evidence that shows the D&D verse to be woefully inaccurate on the wiki and in dire need of revamping to make the claim of accuracy.

CR is dreadfully messy and not a good indicator of scaleable potential in any reasonable way, and utilizing it as such results in demonstrable infinite self-recursive scaling at worst, with exceptionally gross exaggeration of ability at best.

Elder Evils are fanciful and powerful but only at the height of their power and then only due to circumstance, not direct ability from themselves.

Elemental Princes are absurdly good at influencing the world around them, but only when given time to ramp up.

Dragons are potent lizards capable of massive magic influence, and this will always be a fact because it's Dungeons and Dragons.

Regional Effects are bunk and scaling from them relies on ignoring the context of how they work.

I propose a massive overhaul of the system for D&D since I have highlighted the several flaws of it herei, namely by utilizing solely objectively quantifiable feats for named characters similar to how Ao or the Lady of Pain or Zeus are treated. Divine Rank is still a completely fair system for scaling, but CR is inherently flawed. For an example of how flawed it is, one can easily look to Tucker's Kobolds, with Kobolds being a 1/4 CR yet being able to seriously wound and threaten a party of 12th level adventurers. Yet we presume it is sacrosanct and cannot be assailed.

Almost everyone who is not a deity or above needs to be looked at with much scrutiny and re-evaluated. For instance, we can scale persons such as Drizzt to the feats he and his companions possess, such as Wulfgar's hammer toss or Taulmaril the Heartseeker's boulder-splitting.

Thank you for reading, and I want to personally thank Mr. Bambu for all the hard work he has put in for this amazing Universe so far, by helping flesh out how strong beings are. This CRT is made out of a desire for accuracy, not made from animosity.

 

[Qawsedf234]

Would defaulting to spell scaling be simpler then? The high tier non-Outsiders being 8-C seems more realistic than 6-C considering feats vs lore.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

PC level isn't inherently equatable, but nearly comparable. Your ability to consistently overcome an entity of that power depicts you being somewhat comparable, even if you're a bit less powerful. Speaking from experience, a good PC can absolutely take down multiple creatures of a CR equal to their level, but that's just me. The point is, your group of 4 level 17 creatures are fully expected to defeat that CR 17 creature consistently, thus giving a fair fight. It also doesn't help that depending on the edition, level outright IS CR. So no. Our system does not inherently assume a level 17 is equal to a CR 17, it points out that it can harm it, tank hits from it, and thus would scale albeit be lower on the totem pole. This bit of information is outright incorrect as it isn't how the wiki works.

Zargon has lore reasons to be higher and we currently don't scale to him regardless. Lore > Game Mechanics. Using "Well Zargon is a CR 31" would essentially be like me claiming Dragonslayer Armor from Dark Souls 3 would be 4-C since you fight him after several other 4-Cs, those 4-Cs have lore reasons to be above everyone, you can't just scale because of how the game's stats put them. Otherwise, go nuts.

Father's feat is fine in that it is using energy to keep him down, that would still reasonably scale to Father himself. I can redo the calc again if you truly like, it'll still be fairly huge results. Consider that these were done in something of an early age as far as my (what can generously be called) calculations go.

Since she survived? I don't get the argument for disregarding Ragnorra's feat, honestly.

The quotations are from Princes of the Apocalypse, apologies if the support links are busted but the book is pretty easily acquirable if for some reason the internet hates my guts on any particular day of the week.

It does, because the game states it that way. This is keeping in mind that this effect can happen in any locale in D&D such as, say, oh I dunno, an entire plane of existence comprised of air. Also wrong on the 20 days thing, it reaches the temperature immediately and the effects themselves take 20 days to manifest.

Can you get me scans for the "Takes X amount of time"? I can't reach my copy right now (different city, table is moving, etc) but I seem to recall only using the effects that happened immediately. There was grander fruit for waiting but would ultimately yield lower results.

Again, a sphere works because these are creatures (especially for Yan-C-Bin of all people) that work in the air. Specifically from the Plane of Elemental Air.

Is it not under perpetual freezing because the great big dragon doing literally just that?

We discussed the regional lair things already. Azzy was there, I believe. You're free to go find the thread this was already tackled in, but this bit of your argument has actually had a fully fledged debate to some extent. So I will be ignoring this in favor of the other walls of text available.

I can happily calc any feats you like should they become relevant. D&D isn't my favorite verse and it's a great big bastard to handle but I suppose I'm the D&D voodoo man forever now so I may as well have some fun in the position.

 

[Qawsedf234]

I can get the Elemental Prince scans now I guess

 

[Xulrev]

@Qaw

Honestly, spell scaling is likely more accurate and simpler. However, even spell scaling has its own faults:

1. Almost every single elemental spell is simply the caster borrowing power from other planes (from Tome of Magic pages 109/110) so they themselves aren't even embodying that power, they're simply utilizing an incantation via which the spell's power is unleashed from one place to another.


2. From page 187 of the Plyer's Handbook in 5e: "[Mortals] make use of a fabric of magic, a kind of interface between the will of a spellcaster and the stuff of raw magic. The spellcasters of the Forgotten Realms call it the Weave and recognize its essence as the goddess Mystra, but casters have varied ways of naming and visualizing this interface.

Whenever a magic effect is created, the threads of the Weave intertwine, twist, and fold to make the effect possible."

This further showcases the it's simply the Weave making the effect, and the caster is essentially pushing a button to make it happen

 

[Xulrev]

@Bambu

>Our system does not inherently assume a level 17 is equal to a CR 17, it points out that it can harm it, tank hits from it, and thus would scale albeit be lower on the totem pole. This bit of information is outright incorrect as it isn't how the wiki works

Per gameplay mechanics, any PC can scale to any other leveled PC then since they fit all these criteria. Lower-level PCs can survive hits from higher-level ones, and can harm them. It's pretty pointless to use CR as the arbitrator here.

Father's feat being fine in your eyes seemingly just....ignores literally everything I said since I gave proof, in the book, of how it's vastly different than portrayed.

Ragnorra's feat is something that doesn't innately scale to her since it obliterated over 99.9999% of her mass that she had spent hundreds of years building up. It's a prep-feat, and damn near an anti-feat at that since it destroyed so much of her.

As to the 20 days argument: I couldn't find that when I perused but could have been mistaken. I still believe it wouldn't affect a sphere, but rather a squat cylindrical prism, sicne there's no reason to believe Imix super-heated the ground for miles and miles into the earth.

As to Yin-C-Ban, considering he has to be utilizing the magic of the Plane of Air, which has perpetual gale-force winds, or an elemental node of especial power on the Material Plane, that's why I dismiss the sphere idea; he's not generating that power on the Plane of Air, reasonably, and on the Material Plane he needs pre-existing conditions to gain that regional effect.

Even if regional effects have had their own thread, I still would enjoy re-visiting them due to the reasons mentioned in my OP.

 

[Qawsedf234]

Elemental Prince quotes

• Fire

• Water

• Earth

• Air

This further showcases the it's simply the Weave making the effect, and the caster is essentially pushing a button to make it happen

Guess if we keep the scaling, it would be more about withstanding the attacks rather than producing them.

 

[Xulrev]

Thank you @Qaw

So it requires elemental nodes,which the book describes as areas of already-potent power , and the effects take time to ramp up by and large.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I can't really get to this yet but the spellweave is manipulated by stronger mages for stronger effects. Equating it to pushing a button doesn't explain the limited-uses-per-day or why a level one wizard can't outright push the wish for all the goodies button.

 

[Xulrev]

That's fair Bambu that you're limited for time, and apologies for that.

But: higher-level knodes require more in-depth knolwedge and incantations to unleash that knode of power, essentially.

 

[Qawsedf234]

Take your time Bambu, no need to rush.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Yes, in the sense that greater knowledge = greater power, and considering that manipulating the Spellweave is quite a lot like Reality Warping (in that you basically push and tug on this universal force to achieve various ends), pretty much no matter what you'd scale to it. How you do it doesn't matter so long as you're packing the same punch.

Now for the big long wall of text.

Your first point is heavier game mechanics than I'd like to think of. Yes, in D&D it is theoretically possible that the 9-B goblin instantly beheads a Low 7-B dragon because lol, but the CR is the actual in-game scaling chain.

Father's feat is fine in the sense that it is still caused by him one way or the other. As I said, I can recalculate it using one degree for whatever arbitrary reason but the result won't be much different.

Prep time, then. I'm fine with that. It doesn't matter much. The logic applied is the exact same logic as, say, the Michael Bay Transformers being 8-B and 8-A, in that a much larger bit of themselves carried their true selves and smashed into the planet, leaving only their true bit, but hey.

Why cylindrical? The game allows that it occur in the air, meanign a sphere should work considering I only account for said air.

Even if he's using pre-existing conditions to empower himself, that's still his potency causing it. Another random elemental couldn't strut in and perform the same feat, At least, not to our knowledge.

The reasons mentioned in the OP are the same though.

 

[Xulrev]

I'll break down the points and refute them individually if that's acceptable?

Point 1. How magic works

Alright so your claim is that how one produces a spell doesn't matter so long as the effect is measurable. While I agree, I think it's fundamentally important to point out that it does not reflect a Durability rating of the same tier as the spell's AP; for an analogy, just because a General can push the button to launch a nuke, does not give him Tier 7 durability. Spellcasters are much the same unless they've taken the time to cast specific shielding spells, and even most of those don't scale to their offensive counterparts.

Point 2. Game Mechanics

I don't believe any of this in any way meaningfully negates the point I make in my OP, which is to say: we ought to use feats, plain and simple, for each major character. Presuming they can hit as hard as something within a huge variance of their level is fallacious and more often than not downright wrong.

We have three options: Gameplay mechanics, CR scaling, or feats.

Mechanics is a clusterfuck since everyone scales to everyone. CR scaling is a clusterfuck because it artificially infaltes everyone and outright ignores canon. Feats are the best option because they're canon and actually happen.

Point 3. Father Llymic

I feel you're being dismissive of my point by insinuating it's arbitrary? I don't see how on earth what the book itself outright states is arbitrary, Bambu. In fact, you're also glossing over the timeframe the feats take place in, the entire calc as-is really hyperinflates the AP of the Father by orders of magnitude since it presumes instantaneous glacier-forming, and also doesn't factor in the temperature drop from the sun's lack of light.

At base though, I am getting the feeling you either don't care or just don't like the evidence I provided in my OP, since I also point out the prison is the purpose of the light's disappearance.

Point 4. Ragnorra

I'm also pretty fine with prep-time, since it was hundreds of years in the making and is only usable as a feat for when she hurtles into a planet.

Point 5. Prince Effects

For Imix you had included the ground in the calc, which makes no sense, which is why I say a squat cylinder since the text also seems to imply only the landscape if effected. But a half-sphere perhaps works too.

Point 6. The Nodes

Channeling the powers of the Elemental Plane each Prince is in charge of to accomplish the feat in a place of already-immense power isn't applicable to them, though. It's a prep-feat as well.

Point 7. Regional Effects

And somehow people concluded that Regional Effects scale to AP? Holy cow, that's absurd and defies how the game itself works, as well as how the creatures work!

General Overview

Really, I brought an enormous amount of evidence that hasn't been direcly engaged or refuted, and the game mechanics favor my side. I'm a bit curious as to the flippancy with how some of my points are just being handwaved, truthfully, especially without proper backing. Sure we disagree but at least I've done the proper research into the topic to fully prove my point.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

1. Incorrect, since you are generally expecte to survive more than a single blast from a wizard's spell. Rather than assigning it the missile analogy, consider it a firearm. The higher your rank, the better access to firearms from the arsenal you may use. However, other higher rank beings are capable of accessing better armors to endure it. Not scaling to magic is incredibly questionable.

2. We do in the case of such feats existing. If a major character lacks their own feats, powerscaling it is, that's a major point made by the site itself and to ignore it ignores a good portion of how the wiki works. CR fundamentally works as a basic scaling since it doesn't actually inflate anything unreasonably (see above debunks, it still denotes some amount of "you're comparable but you should still gang up on this bugger to assure victory" and thus you're able to actually harm and kill him and tank his attacks to some extent), lore is used elsewhere. By going by "lolfeats" a high-ranked enemy might be considered 9-B for no other reason than he lacks his own feats and scaling outright just gets thrashed for no good reason.

3. No, I'm dismissing it because it won't change the result much if we use one degree or seventy. Trust me, I know the calculation. As is the calc was lower than what it should have been. It can be redone, by glossing over I assume you mean "concluding" since this point isn't contested nor actually incredibly important.

5. Ah, no I do remember why I included the ground, because the entire place was transformed into a desert, the desert largely being the ground bits. I'm basing a lot of this off of memory but this seems like a relatively important factor.

6. No it isn't. No preparation is required. Just being in a place where they can access their power.

7. That's how the wiki works. Causing effects creates energy, to ignore that is to outright spit in the face of a fair amount of the work here. End of story.

8. No, you really didn't. You've brought a lot of screenshots, but very little of it demands that we go against wiki policy to ignore 99% of scaling chains and feats because "well I think it shouldn't count if they made a storm" when that's quite unironically a major feat.

 

[Xulrev]

1. Wizards don't physically increase in power as their access to greater spells increases, though. This is even directly reflected by their weaker hit die and the consistency of such characters having weak physical scores as well. But I do have qualms with the claim that you're 'expected' to survive several spells; once you get to 7th level+ Death From Massive Damage is a terribly consistent thing.

2. Alright so you agree with me that Drizzt needs scaled back down since he lacks Island-Tier feats, as is the case with several other major profiles on the wiki since they have demonstrable feats and you yourself do agere that feats are the best way to go? Simply because nobody has compiled feats does not mean we overinflate them.

3. I feel you're not acknolwedging the huge timeframe the feat takes place in, even by the Adventure itself; it's a Level 7-17 adventure and would take several days even in the in-game descriptors since it outright states it's noticeable day after day that the sun is dipping lower in the horizon. The temperature amount alters, as well as a timeframe being introduced. It'd be 1 degree of temperature change over a 24 hour period per the Overwhelming sign, for example. That's objective, quantifiable numbers given to us and should be utilized.

5. That makes sense, but also per the scans Qaw showcased the topography turns into a desert over the course of 20 days. Plus it'd be odd, to me, to presume that the earth turns into desert 5 miles deep.

6. What? They can't just show up any place in the Material Plane and have a regional effect, that means it's the very definition of a Prep Feat Bambu; 'just in a place where they can access their power' means preparing a place to be connected to their respective Elemental Plane, with the Plane's energies providing the source of that power.

7. The regional effects aren't an active ability of the creature so it's NOT how the wiki works; it's ambient energy that affects the region over time. If it were an active ability, any time a dragon slept anywhere for a night they'd spawn a miles-wide effect. They don't do this for a fact, so it's not tenable.

8. If you read through the OP and don't believe I pointed out a lot of factual misgivings with how we treat Dungeons&Dragons, I'm going to very strongly agree to disagree. I have a lot of evidence to support my position, as opposed to conjecture.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

1. Well actually yes they do. Your health increases and your stats can increase. And, yes, it could be, but you can tank it. We're not going to actually propose scaling to literal stats like this is some sort of Undertale situation, are we?

2. I agree feats are the way to go if they are available. Your "feats" are actually feats for the lower characters who somehow inexplicably harm a character that game rates as much, much stronger than them.

3. So Father is literally doing... what? Slowly draining the sun after, say, 20 days? If you can believe it I got Father's feat from someone else. Like I said in my very first comment. I will recalc whatever to get an objectively correct point of view for the verse since I'm already knee-deep in the piss and might as well go scuba diving.

5. Yes, immense temperature change wouldn't automatically shift it to desert landscape, otherwise we'd be looking at large scale reality warping. And... well I mean I dunno what to say other than the game said it does with the word radius.

6. No it doesn't? A prep feat is increasing one's capability via time, resources, and equipment. The location in which you fight is irrelevant, this would essentially be like saying Ao only having power in his sphere is a prep time feat.

7. That isn't the Dragon's Lair. So no, it wouldn't. Unless your DM really wanted that in which case go nuts I guess.

8. Like I said. There is a vast departure between evidence and scans. You provide a lot of information and I can respect that fact but not all of it actually relates to the issues at hand, at least not in the way you believe.

 

[Xulrev]

I think it's fair to say we agree to disagree and further input may be warranted, since we will keep circling around the same points.

I'll message a few other persons for further input. I have zero clue who is really knowledgable beyond yourself, Qaw, and Azathoth. So I'll message a few staff randoms, seem fair?

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Udl would have been but he's been banned after a slight outburst. Can still contact him if you'd like his input though.

Dragonstitch may be a good choice? He's a 4e player.

 

[Xulrev]

Getting others banned to amass further power for yourself, eh? I like the cut of your gib

Alrighty I'll contact Dragon, and I'll just play darts with Admin names see if anything sticks or if they know further persons.

Maybe we should also ask Qaw to give a definitive opinion one way or the other since he seems fit to just interject with (well-received of course) further scans?

Sidenote: thank you for engaging this thus far, but I do get the notion that you're somewhat not fully engaged, especially based on a few of the flippant remarks. Any reason why?

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Udl wanted Lady of Pain to be High 1-B, I kept back the upgrades

If you want admins that may be good, Monarch has played D&D before. Dunno about the others who aren't terribly busy with their own verses (Weekly and Dargoo with SCP, Wok with Destiny, Matt with TES, etc etc). Andy is always a solid choice as far as reasonable ears go.

Speaking of Qaw... why 8-C? For the first comment, I mean. There's no calc at 8-C that I'm aware of. Even the at-will high-tier spells cap out at 8-A from Weekly's blog and the automatic terrain effects for that big-ass elemental was High 7-C IIRC.

If you mean me, I mean as little offense as possible but I find a lot of the points somewhat pointless to actually engage fully. Several of them just outright ignore how the wiki works.

 

[Xulrev]

That's fair, but the points themselves point out how we utilize some fairly arbitrary reasoning, and the only defense given when shown feats that eschew such reasoning is 'PiS' thus far.

I wouldn't have gone to all this effort if it were frivolous, to be fully honest.

But I'll message those persons for sure!

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I do believe you mean it. I more was referring to the lack of knowledge on the actual scaling system. Just as an arbitrary example before I go to bed, the spells-shouldn't-scale-because-it-is-just-pushing-a-button.

Who cares? It is potency they can exert on the enemy and the enemy can survive it, if wounded. The same can be said about a gun user and that scales.

Again, just one example. I'll be going to bed now so best of luck boyo.

 

[Xulrev]

I don't believe I lack knowledge on the scaling, though. My point is that gun user has [X] AP, but they outright should never have [X] Durability as well to go along with it, which is blanketly how we've treated D&D, for a start.

Enjoy your rest, and thanks again

 

[Qawsedf234]

For Verlux's general points I do find the current calcs used for Tier 7 and tier 6 (barring the Phaethon) to be flawed. Dragon lairs seem unreliable to use and I find the points about the elemental nodes/time makes the island level stuff questionable.

So barring a recalc I think people sub-Demigod level should be shifted down.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

When they can tank that same AP, why? Why would that be fact? Why would their durability never scale? That doesn't make sense.

As for Qawsed, recalcs can be done but can you get any more specific aside from the dragon lairs thing since we literally discussed them at the time of their feats being used and it was decided by the lot of us that those were usable?

 

[Qawsedf234]

recalcs can be done but can you get any more specific aside from the dragon lairs thing since we literally discussed them at the time of their feats being used and it was decided by the lot of us that those were usable?

I didn't realize the lairs were separate from the Dragon's normal strength. Instead being a weird byproduct of them just living in a particular area for awhile. I thought it was more like the Hurricane/Blizzard Abomination basically, rather than a slow regional thing.

 

[Qawsedf234]

Also, to add another issue I guess. Lets say that the mods Verlux got all agree with you, I still think there's something we need to address. Imix is only CR 19 in 5e. In 3e he's CR 22 and the lowest Elemental Prince is CR 21. So I feel it would be a bit strange to scale people (like Drizzt I guess) to him by using his 3e CR when said CR is actually much higher in the same edition.

If you bring up his 4e level of 21, then Imix is CR 32 in that edition

 

[Dragonstitch]

sorry I am late to this. for 4e my knowledge is mostly from player stuff, as well as a few High-6A, Low 2-C, and 2-C things. but for pre demigods the Earthquake Dragon found in 4e Monster manual 3 might be good to go off of. As they apparently can make earthequakes that destroy cities with the adult version starting at level 14.

Though if we are willing to scale to D&D video games. characters like Elminster, and Drizzt could arguably scale to the PCs of neverwinter online who have killed an Aspect of Orcus, and could take hits from an Avatar of Tiamat, and Aspect of Demogorgon.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

we could quietly ignore the bad video games, alternatively

 

[Qawsedf234]

So either way we need to adjust the 6-C and 6-B stuff. Some profiles like the Modrons scale to Imix when they shouldn't when using the CR from the same edition.

 

[Andytrenom]

This verse still confuses me so I'm probably not going to be much help here, but that said

Is the issue with the CR scaling just that it doesn't show what single character a monster is comparable to but rather what group of characters it is comparable to? Because if it is then scaling does seem fine, since having a small group of characters fighting a single monster would still require every single character who engages the monster to be capable of harming him and the characters to be individually capable of withstanding the monster's attacks. Otherwise ranking a monster based on what group it can challenge would be based on the assumption that every group the monster faces will perfectly avoid every single one of the monster's attacks (Once again, total stranger to DD so if turns out there's no dodging mechanic don't @ me) or that every group who faces them can only harm the monster by bringing out a power far above their individual tier which they can only bring out when they're together

Main point is that a system like this not assuming individuals from a group can harm the monster with their own power or take its attacks seems like a very odd thing, but if it's something that makes sense within the context of DD then don't mind me

 

[Qawsedf234]

Is the issue with the CR scaling just that it doesn't show what single character a monster is comparable to but rather what group of characters it is comparable to?

CR indicates that the thing in question is a challenge to a group of 4-6 people of equal level to the CR ranking. For example, a CR 14 Dragon is considered a challenge to 4-6 level 14 people. A single level 14 character however would find fighting a CR 14 Dragons to be Very Difficult or outright impossible under the system.

 

[Xulrev]

Main point is that a system like this not assuming individuals from a group can harm the monster with their own power or take its attacks seems like a very odd thing, but if it's something that makes sense within the context of DD then don't mind me

I appreciate you giving some input, and by and large your point is very accurate Andy so thank you!

As said, you're largely correct here; a group of adventurers of 17th level reasonably can harm a CR 17 creature, yes. My main issue comes in when we recognize that, per game mechanics as well as literally dozens/hundreds of canon feats, persons who are severely under such a level can consistently and DO consistently harm persons of said level (Drizzt being level 17 and hurt by orcs, goblins, fishfolk from the sea, random nameless dark elves, etc).

So essentially our current 'scaling' system ignores all canon evidence in favor of 'well by gameplay mechanics a level 17 can hurt a CR 17 so they scale directly' when by gameplay mechanics, a Level 3 can roll well and notably wound that exact same CR 17 as well as luck out and dodge its attacks for a short bit.

My argument is simply: scale by feats and not a wonky system that ignores its own minutiae

 

[Xulrev]

Also, what Qaw said; by presuming a Level 17 is equivalent to a CR 17, we get an issue of the system itself telling us 'This fight is Impossible' when you put a Level 17 as a substitute for a CR 17.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

But Xulrev, we really don't assume that. Like I said in the past, that super low level guy that was shown to harm Drizzt would scale to Drizzt regardless of his level because lore takes precedence over plain game mechanics any day. We already do that.

 

[Xulrev]

We don't seem to do that on the wiki, based in the fact that Drizzt possesses zero feats anywhere near what the wiki's tiering asserts him to be capable of performing.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Did you not just read what I said or...?

 

[Qawsedf234]

We don't seem to do that on the wiki, based in the fact that Drizzt possesses zero feats anywhere near what the wiki's tiering asserts him to be capable of performing.

To clarify, I do agree with you general points still. But we do take lore scaling over game scaling. For example despite being rated much weaker than the rest of the Abominations, the Infernal used to be Tier 2 until the scaling was found to be incorrect.

The second point is better. As even if we don't scale Drizzt to 6-C I'm going to wager that he also has no Tier 7 feats. At least while unamped.

 

[Mr. Bambu]

Having his own feats isn't incredibly material though. The scaling would basically be the game states this character to be comparable to these fellows, and this guy beat him up, ergo despite the game's rating the latter guy would be comparable to those high tiers.

It's literally the same thing we used for Hecaton. His feats put him comparable with 2-As, ergo he scales to 2-As. We don't downgrade the 2-As for being killed by a normie.

 

[Xulrev]

His own feats are pretty important when he is critically wounded or challenged by things that are Tier 8 or Tier 9, and we claim that gameplay scaling means he is Tier 6, especially when paired with his utter lack of feats on that level, is moreso my explicit point.