I wasn't sure if I should put this here or in the support forum, but I figured enough DMs have had to deal with this at somepoint.
I run my battles using the DND Beyond encounter builder, which is great for the most part until the encounter features an dmpc they are fighting against (the Rogue that was helping them turns out to be a double agent, the cleric discovers they stole a holy relic, etc.) The biggest issue being that it's hard to tell if the fight is balanced since the encounter builder assumes any custom npc is on the side of the party.
Any tips and advice for using the encounter builder with npc characters?
I haven't done this yet, but have you tried using the homebrew monster maker, identifying a stock NPC "monster" as a template and adapting it from there and dropping that into the encounter builder? Presuming you can drop homebrew into the encounter builder.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I've done things like that, the problem becomes converting character level into a cr rating. The other shortcut I use is to make the NPCs roughly equal to their level and remove one of them from the roster while I'm making in the encounter.
Have you looked at this? The DMG's creating monsters challenge rating chart. I apologize if I'm being redundant to your research so far. I also am not sure quite how you use the table, but I think you add up the CR associated with each column entry to get an entities total CR (there's also some additional fudge factors for class levels and the like). Hoping you get more feedback because I wouldn't mind to learn a bit in this area too.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The easiest way is to find a monster with similar damage, ac and health and just use the CR for that. The NPC's section in the Monster Manual and Volo's provide good examples for low and high level variants.
The more time consuming option is to use the monster CR chart in the DMG, and you work out the CR by doing this:
Lets use an example: I create a custom Dragon called 'Bob the Dragon', Bob has 100hp, 16ac and has 2 attacks: a breath weapon that does 14(4d6) damage and a bite attack that does 16(2d10 + 5). The bite attack has a +8 attack bonus and the breath weapon is a 30ft cone with a (5-6) recharge. He is also able to fly.
First off we calculate the Defensive CR, this is done first by going down to the table to see what the expected CR of a creature with 100hp is, which in this case is CR 2. You then look at what the expected ac of a CR 2 creature is, which is 13ac. Now for every 2 points of AC higher than the expected ac, you increase the CR by 1, as Bob's ac is 3 points higher, this increases his defensive CR by 1, giving a final defensive CR of 3.
Next we calculate the Offensive CR, this is done by calculating the average damage per round of the creature. This is calculated by working out how much total damage it could do in 3 rounds if it used its most powerful attacks. In this case Bob would use his breath weapon in the first round, if an attack is capable of hitting multiple targets, it's always assumed that it hits 2, so Bob's breath weapon is assuming to deal 28 total damage this round. Bob's breath weapon needs to recharge, so it's assumed he can only use it once every 3 rounds, therefore he uses his bite for the next 2 rounds, dealing 16 damage each time. Add up the damage across 3 rounds, in this case we get 60, then divide by 3 and round down to get 20 damage. By looking at the table, we see a monster that does 20 damage a round is expected to be CR 2. According to the table a CR3 creature is expected to have a +3 attack bonus (No idea why it's so low when Goblins have a +5), so you increase the offensive CR for every 2 points of difference with the attack bonus, giving Bob a final offensive CR of 4.
Now we perform the 'final' modifications. If a monster has a certain trait or ability, this effects its CR rating. Bob is capable of flight, which increases his defensive CR by 1. The DMG has a list that tells you what effects will change a monsters CR. Once you've done this, add up the Defensive and Offensive CR's together then divide by 2. This gives Bob an overall Challenge Rating of 4.
Now it should be noted that this process is time consuming, especially for any creature with spellcasting. As a joke I often work out what my parties character's CR's would be and it wildly overestimates how powerful Spellcasters, my friends lvl 6 Bladesinger works out at 5CR whereas the lvl 6 Monk and Fighter work out at 2CR.
I've used this from time to time getting a baseline CR calculation (https://********/crcalculator.html) is based on the DMG Monster Creation designmentioned above.
It's not super important to actually crunch the CR math, it's not like CR is all that accurate in the first place, but CR is typically around half level for classes that mostly rely on at-will or short rest abilities, closer to 2/3 for casters.
I wasn't sure if I should put this here or in the support forum, but I figured enough DMs have had to deal with this at somepoint.
I run my battles using the DND Beyond encounter builder, which is great for the most part until the encounter features an dmpc they are fighting against (the Rogue that was helping them turns out to be a double agent, the cleric discovers they stole a holy relic, etc.) The biggest issue being that it's hard to tell if the fight is balanced since the encounter builder assumes any custom npc is on the side of the party.
Any tips and advice for using the encounter builder with npc characters?
I haven't done this yet, but have you tried using the homebrew monster maker, identifying a stock NPC "monster" as a template and adapting it from there and dropping that into the encounter builder? Presuming you can drop homebrew into the encounter builder.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I've done things like that, the problem becomes converting character level into a cr rating. The other shortcut I use is to make the NPCs roughly equal to their level and remove one of them from the roster while I'm making in the encounter.
Have you looked at this? The DMG's creating monsters challenge rating chart. I apologize if I'm being redundant to your research so far. I also am not sure quite how you use the table, but I think you add up the CR associated with each column entry to get an entities total CR (there's also some additional fudge factors for class levels and the like). Hoping you get more feedback because I wouldn't mind to learn a bit in this area too.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The easiest way is to find a monster with similar damage, ac and health and just use the CR for that. The NPC's section in the Monster Manual and Volo's provide good examples for low and high level variants.
The more time consuming option is to use the monster CR chart in the DMG, and you work out the CR by doing this:
Lets use an example: I create a custom Dragon called 'Bob the Dragon', Bob has 100hp, 16ac and has 2 attacks: a breath weapon that does 14(4d6) damage and a bite attack that does 16(2d10 + 5). The bite attack has a +8 attack bonus and the breath weapon is a 30ft cone with a (5-6) recharge. He is also able to fly.
First off we calculate the Defensive CR, this is done first by going down to the table to see what the expected CR of a creature with 100hp is, which in this case is CR 2. You then look at what the expected ac of a CR 2 creature is, which is 13ac. Now for every 2 points of AC higher than the expected ac, you increase the CR by 1, as Bob's ac is 3 points higher, this increases his defensive CR by 1, giving a final defensive CR of 3.
Next we calculate the Offensive CR, this is done by calculating the average damage per round of the creature. This is calculated by working out how much total damage it could do in 3 rounds if it used its most powerful attacks. In this case Bob would use his breath weapon in the first round, if an attack is capable of hitting multiple targets, it's always assumed that it hits 2, so Bob's breath weapon is assuming to deal 28 total damage this round. Bob's breath weapon needs to recharge, so it's assumed he can only use it once every 3 rounds, therefore he uses his bite for the next 2 rounds, dealing 16 damage each time. Add up the damage across 3 rounds, in this case we get 60, then divide by 3 and round down to get 20 damage. By looking at the table, we see a monster that does 20 damage a round is expected to be CR 2. According to the table a CR3 creature is expected to have a +3 attack bonus (No idea why it's so low when Goblins have a +5), so you increase the offensive CR for every 2 points of difference with the attack bonus, giving Bob a final offensive CR of 4.
Now we perform the 'final' modifications. If a monster has a certain trait or ability, this effects its CR rating. Bob is capable of flight, which increases his defensive CR by 1. The DMG has a list that tells you what effects will change a monsters CR. Once you've done this, add up the Defensive and Offensive CR's together then divide by 2. This gives Bob an overall Challenge Rating of 4.
Now it should be noted that this process is time consuming, especially for any creature with spellcasting. As a joke I often work out what my parties character's CR's would be and it wildly overestimates how powerful Spellcasters, my friends lvl 6 Bladesinger works out at 5CR whereas the lvl 6 Monk and Fighter work out at 2CR.
I've used this from time to time getting a baseline CR calculation (https://********/crcalculator.html) is based on the DMG Monster Creation designmentioned above.
It's not super important to actually crunch the CR math, it's not like CR is all that accurate in the first place, but CR is typically around half level for classes that mostly rely on at-will or short rest abilities, closer to 2/3 for casters.