Hey guys, Im running a HB campain and honestly ... i got trouble with calculation my next Boss. They need to collect 5 "god-weapons" and they´re going to get the first one soon. A bow. i got 5 Players lvl 7 + a lvl 6 npc fighter. The Boss they will encounter is a LvL 20 Arcane Trickster Half-Elf Rogue with 3 Magic Items: "Wings of Flying" + "utility Armor (no combat purpose) and the "god-Bow". The Bow got the following stats : +3 Atk and Dmg, all arrows fired with it deal force dmg, each time you fire an arrow you can split the arrow into 2 1d4+8 arrows wich will hit targets next to each other, or you can choose to let the arrow deal extra 2d8 Force Dmg on medium or bigger target. And the Bow can shoot once per Day a pure Energy Arrow with a Disintegrate Spell attached to it. Players already know, that the bow can do the Disintegrate part - and got a trapped "Temporal Shunt" spell to counter it. - so i guess the Disitegrate part is up to be ignored. So the relevant Stats are : AC 18, prof mod +6, Speed (flying60) 240 Hp, Str. 8; Dex 20; Con 18; Int 20; Wis 12; Cha 12. ; Sneed Attack 10d6 + all lvl 20 Rogue and Arcane Trickster Features. Saving Throws : str -1; Dex +11; Con +4; Int +11; Wis +7; Cha +1 Bow : Atk +14; 1d8+8 Force Dmg Rapier : Atk +11; 1d8+5 piercing
The Boss has Legendary Actions : 1. Teleport to a space in 60ft. the Boss can see; 2. Cast a Cantrip; 3. fire an Arrow and 1 Legendary Resistance. Spell DC 19; Spell Atk +11 Spells are : Mage Hand, Message, Minor Illusion and Mind Sliver
..... so.... i tried to calculate the CR, described like in the DM- Guide.... but honestly.... i dont get it. It varies from CR 9 to almost 25.... and yeah ... i want the encounter to be good- hard but doable. Maybe add one or too Minios. The Group is really good balanced- they beat a adult white dragon at lvl 5 so .... i guess they´ll be fine. But could you guys help me calculate the CR the right way? Thanks a lot for your Help ;)
I would not necessarily say nobody but there is a lot going on in your opening post to digest.
I read this as your next boss battle: "5 Players LVL 7 + an LVL 6 NPC fighter. The Boss they will encounter is a LvL 20 Arcane Trickster Half-Elf Rogue " and to me, this seems like an unbalanced battle and I can see your boss with all the bells and whistles you listed afterward will mope the floor up with this party. My question really is, why is the boss Lvl 20? Why not level 10 or something slightly higher to at least give that party a challenge but not obliterate them.
What I would recommend is play with the encounter builder and set up a new encounter with the players in the Manage Characters section to set up what you have. It's basic enough with your own knowledge of the party's abilities to give you a starting point and start adding Monsters of Different CR to see what you can really throw at them.
I also used this tool https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/calc/enc_size.html (Donjon has some great tools to play with) and with a party of 4 at 7th level you are pretty limited to the number of creatures per challenge rating at the higher ranges. (see table below)
Agreed with BK. It would make your first post more readable if you had put spaces between paragraphs and double checked that you had used proper spelling, grammar, punctuation, etcetera. More readable posts means it's more likely you'll get a reply, and yours is a little tricky to get through.
It does a good job. The only thing I'd add: Rogues have the Evasion feature. This website and the DMG call this feature "Avoidance" when it's applied to NPCs and monsters. So make sure you check the "Avoidance" box.
And it sounds to me like the trickiest part of this will be calculating the damage per round. Here's how you should go about this:
Calculate how much damage the creature will deal in three rounds of combat.
Assume it uses the most damaging abilities, not the abilities that may be more tactically useful (e.g. they'll Attack each turn, not taking the Dodge or Disengage actions, even though they actually might do that in certain situations).
I'll assume you're using a longbow, which deals 1d8 + Dex damage typically. With the given enchantments, it'll probably be 3d8 + 8 force damage on a hit. Sneak attack requires advantage or having an ally next to the target, so we'll assume you give the guy minions and that they'll be next to the party. That increases it to 3d8 + 10d6 + 8 force damage on a hit, and he can probably only make one attack per turn. That calculates to 56.5 damage on a hit.
With 3 legendary actions, we'll assume again he goes with the highest damage output. Casting mind sliver would deal 14 (4d6) psychic damage on a hit, while another arrow would deal 21.5 (3d8 + 8) force damage. There may be tactical reasons to use mind sliver over shooting another arrow, but we assume straight damage numbers for this calculation, not tactics. With 3 legendary actions, that means your rogue is dealing 64.5 (9d8 + 24) force damage with his legendary actions each round, if they all hit.
So per round, assuming all attacks hit, your rogue would deal around 121 (56.5 + 64.5) each round. If he uses disintegrate, that would increase that round's damage to 139.5 (75 + 64.5). But because we already know the characters will probably be able to counter the disintegrate spell, we'll assume 121 damage per round.
From a tactical perspective, given that this guy is much stronger at a distance than up close (bow is has a higher To Hit bonus and deals much more damage than his rapier), he will probably try to stay as far away from the party as possible, while still keeping them barely within distance to attack them with his bow, while his low level minions go up and swarm the party. Them being next to the party ensures the rogue can use his sneak attack damage, and it also makes it harder for the party to approach the rogue, as it takes an action to shove an unwilling creature to the side if you want to move through it's space.
So I was interested by this point and it was good practice for me, so I used that website to calculate the CR.
First of all, you said the HP was 240. Either you calculated it wrong, or you artificially increased it, or that utility armor you said has no combat use increases the guy's hit points.
Secondly, here's the features I checked as applying:
Avoidance (the NPC/Monster version of Evasion)
Legendary Resistance (1)
Nimble Escape (Can take the Disengage or Hide actions as a bonus action; comparable to Cunning Action, which lets you take those or Dodge as a bonus action)
I wanted to check one that replicates the Uncanny Dodge feature from level 5, but I didn't see a similar feature on the list. So instead, knowing that the guy is fighting 6 characters and that Uncanny Dodge makes you take half damage from 1 attack, we'll assume the guy gets hit by like 4 attacks, and that one of those is reduced by half. So end up being around a 12% increase in HP. So for the purposes of calculating CR, we'll increase his effective HP from 180 (20d8+80) to 200.
So in the end. Overall, the CR is 18 (20,000 XP). Offensive CR is 23. Defensive is 13. Effective HP is 200, while actual HP is 170. Effective AC is 25, while actual AC is 18. Average damage per round is 121. Attack bonus for this damage is +14, but effective attack bonus is +18 (we assume he'll use his bonus action each turn to take the Hide action). This CR drops considerably in the Offensive category if you take away his bow.
And given that he'll probably be attack from far away, his effective AC/HP/Defensive CR/Whatever is probably even higher than calculated, because he'll probably be able to stay pretty far out of reach (150ft) for most spells and ranged weapons (60-120ft, except for Longbow at 150/600ft, and some Warlock and Sorcerer abilities).
And now you know how to calculate complicated CR for yourself. :)
I would note that computing a CR for a one-off monster in a personal campaign isn't really necessary or optimal; CR is meant to reflect a generalized difficulty against the entire range of possible parties, but if you already know the specific party and it's abilities, you can measure against the capabilities of that specific party and get a better match on difficulty.
I'd just use a Character sheet. Using the chart in XGTE or the UA Encounter building(I'll put the link at the end in case you don't have XGTE), you can find the approximate CR of each level, so that may help if you want to lower the CR of the Rogue. I'd check how the +3 bow attacks compare to the other attacks that the rouge can make, as well as the Health of the Players. If the attack is about the same strength, it shouldn't modify the CR that much. If it is way stronger, then make the arrows in the bow need to be prepared as a action, slowing down the attacks. I'm not quite sure on the exact CR rating value them, but I hope this helps.
Hey guys,
Im running a HB campain and honestly ... i got trouble with calculation my next Boss.
They need to collect 5 "god-weapons" and they´re going to get the first one soon. A bow.
i got 5 Players lvl 7 + a lvl 6 npc fighter. The Boss they will encounter is a LvL 20 Arcane Trickster Half-Elf Rogue with 3 Magic Items: "Wings of Flying" + "utility Armor (no combat purpose) and the "god-Bow". The Bow got the following stats : +3 Atk and Dmg, all arrows fired with it deal force dmg, each time you fire an arrow you can split the arrow into 2 1d4+8 arrows wich will hit targets next to each other, or you can choose to let the arrow deal extra 2d8 Force Dmg on medium or bigger target. And the Bow can shoot once per Day a pure Energy Arrow with a Disintegrate Spell attached to it.
Players already know, that the bow can do the Disintegrate part - and got a trapped "Temporal Shunt" spell to counter it. - so i guess the Disitegrate part is up to be ignored.
So the relevant Stats are : AC 18, prof mod +6, Speed (flying60) 240 Hp,
Str. 8; Dex 20; Con 18; Int 20; Wis 12; Cha 12. ; Sneed Attack 10d6 + all lvl 20 Rogue and Arcane Trickster Features.
Saving Throws : str -1; Dex +11; Con +4; Int +11; Wis +7; Cha +1
Bow : Atk +14; 1d8+8 Force Dmg
Rapier : Atk +11; 1d8+5 piercing
The Boss has Legendary Actions : 1. Teleport to a space in 60ft. the Boss can see; 2. Cast a Cantrip; 3. fire an Arrow
and 1 Legendary Resistance.
Spell DC 19; Spell Atk +11
Spells are : Mage Hand, Message, Minor Illusion and Mind Sliver
LvL 1 : Hideous Laughter ; Absorb Elements; Unseen Servant; Find Familiar
LvL 2 : Invisibility ; Minor Image ; Mind Thrust
LvL 3 : Phantom Steed ; Hypnotic Pattern
LvL 4 : Greate Invisibility
..... so.... i tried to calculate the CR, described like in the DM- Guide.... but honestly.... i dont get it. It varies from CR 9 to almost 25.... and yeah ... i want the encounter to be good- hard but doable. Maybe add one or too Minios.
The Group is really good balanced- they beat a adult white dragon at lvl 5 so .... i guess they´ll be fine.
But could you guys help me calculate the CR the right way? Thanks a lot for your Help ;)
Nobody?
I would not necessarily say nobody but there is a lot going on in your opening post to digest.
I read this as your next boss battle: "5 Players LVL 7 + an LVL 6 NPC fighter. The Boss they will encounter is a LvL 20 Arcane Trickster Half-Elf Rogue " and to me, this seems like an unbalanced battle and I can see your boss with all the bells and whistles you listed afterward will mope the floor up with this party. My question really is, why is the boss Lvl 20? Why not level 10 or something slightly higher to at least give that party a challenge but not obliterate them.
What I would recommend is play with the encounter builder and set up a new encounter with the players in the Manage Characters section to set up what you have. It's basic enough with your own knowledge of the party's abilities to give you a starting point and start adding Monsters of Different CR to see what you can really throw at them.
I also used this tool https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/calc/enc_size.html (Donjon has some great tools to play with) and with a party of 4 at 7th level you are pretty limited to the number of creatures per challenge rating at the higher ranges. (see table below)
Also, the DMG has a good 'Create Monster' method (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/dungeon-masters-workshop#CreatingaMonster) that indicates how to calculate CR which may work for you as well with adjusting for your boss.
Maybe there is more to this than has already been mentioned but this may be a good starting point for calculating CR.
thanks for your honesty and ill consider this ;)
Agreed with BK. It would make your first post more readable if you had put spaces between paragraphs and double checked that you had used proper spelling, grammar, punctuation, etcetera. More readable posts means it's more likely you'll get a reply, and yours is a little tricky to get through.
I use this website: https://********/crcalculator.html
It does a good job. The only thing I'd add: Rogues have the Evasion feature. This website and the DMG call this feature "Avoidance" when it's applied to NPCs and monsters. So make sure you check the "Avoidance" box.
And it sounds to me like the trickiest part of this will be calculating the damage per round. Here's how you should go about this:
Calculate how much damage the creature will deal in three rounds of combat.
Assume it uses the most damaging abilities, not the abilities that may be more tactically useful (e.g. they'll Attack each turn, not taking the Dodge or Disengage actions, even though they actually might do that in certain situations).
I'll assume you're using a longbow, which deals 1d8 + Dex damage typically. With the given enchantments, it'll probably be 3d8 + 8 force damage on a hit. Sneak attack requires advantage or having an ally next to the target, so we'll assume you give the guy minions and that they'll be next to the party. That increases it to 3d8 + 10d6 + 8 force damage on a hit, and he can probably only make one attack per turn. That calculates to 56.5 damage on a hit.
With 3 legendary actions, we'll assume again he goes with the highest damage output. Casting mind sliver would deal 14 (4d6) psychic damage on a hit, while another arrow would deal 21.5 (3d8 + 8) force damage. There may be tactical reasons to use mind sliver over shooting another arrow, but we assume straight damage numbers for this calculation, not tactics. With 3 legendary actions, that means your rogue is dealing 64.5 (9d8 + 24) force damage with his legendary actions each round, if they all hit.
So per round, assuming all attacks hit, your rogue would deal around 121 (56.5 + 64.5) each round. If he uses disintegrate, that would increase that round's damage to 139.5 (75 + 64.5). But because we already know the characters will probably be able to counter the disintegrate spell, we'll assume 121 damage per round.
From a tactical perspective, given that this guy is much stronger at a distance than up close (bow is has a higher To Hit bonus and deals much more damage than his rapier), he will probably try to stay as far away from the party as possible, while still keeping them barely within distance to attack them with his bow, while his low level minions go up and swarm the party. Them being next to the party ensures the rogue can use his sneak attack damage, and it also makes it harder for the party to approach the rogue, as it takes an action to shove an unwilling creature to the side if you want to move through it's space.
So I was interested by this point and it was good practice for me, so I used that website to calculate the CR.
First of all, you said the HP was 240. Either you calculated it wrong, or you artificially increased it, or that utility armor you said has no combat use increases the guy's hit points.
Secondly, here's the features I checked as applying:
I wanted to check one that replicates the Uncanny Dodge feature from level 5, but I didn't see a similar feature on the list. So instead, knowing that the guy is fighting 6 characters and that Uncanny Dodge makes you take half damage from 1 attack, we'll assume the guy gets hit by like 4 attacks, and that one of those is reduced by half. So end up being around a 12% increase in HP. So for the purposes of calculating CR, we'll increase his effective HP from 180 (20d8+80) to 200.
So in the end. Overall, the CR is 18 (20,000 XP). Offensive CR is 23. Defensive is 13. Effective HP is 200, while actual HP is 170. Effective AC is 25, while actual AC is 18. Average damage per round is 121. Attack bonus for this damage is +14, but effective attack bonus is +18 (we assume he'll use his bonus action each turn to take the Hide action). This CR drops considerably in the Offensive category if you take away his bow.
And given that he'll probably be attack from far away, his effective AC/HP/Defensive CR/Whatever is probably even higher than calculated, because he'll probably be able to stay pretty far out of reach (150ft) for most spells and ranged weapons (60-120ft, except for Longbow at 150/600ft, and some Warlock and Sorcerer abilities).
And now you know how to calculate complicated CR for yourself. :)
Oh... My god
You my friend deserve some Cookies here... Uhm thanks thats all i needed and ill take this as a Guide to calculate my CRs in Future:)
Awesome thanks
This is some great stuff, KP. Much better than what I threw out.
Aww shucks.
I should become a YouTuber.
Honestly, i was looking for this as well.
Enjoy my magic items, spells, monsters, my race, and a few feats. And GIVE ME FEEDBACK... or else.
Like what I say?
⬐ Just press this little guy right here.
I would note that computing a CR for a one-off monster in a personal campaign isn't really necessary or optimal; CR is meant to reflect a generalized difficulty against the entire range of possible parties, but if you already know the specific party and it's abilities, you can measure against the capabilities of that specific party and get a better match on difficulty.
that might me true - but its my first time DMing - so i kinda need the CR rating to get an idea on what to throw at my players ;)
I'd just use a Character sheet. Using the chart in XGTE or the UA Encounter building(I'll put the link at the end in case you don't have XGTE), you can find the approximate CR of each level, so that may help if you want to lower the CR of the Rogue. I'd check how the +3 bow attacks compare to the other attacks that the rouge can make, as well as the Health of the Players. If the attack is about the same strength, it shouldn't modify the CR that much. If it is way stronger, then make the arrows in the bow need to be prepared as a action, slowing down the attacks. I'm not quite sure on the exact CR rating value them, but I hope this helps.
UA Encounter Building:
https://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/Encounter_Building.pdf