Pretty much as the title says. I find the table in the DMG ch.9 works fine for making monsters when it's a simple matter how hard they hit and how many hits they can take, but it never feels like it works for spellcasters. I tried to make something based of the Archmage recently and according to how I was using the table the Archmage itself shouldn't be CR 12 so I figure I must be doing something wrong. Hopefully someone can help me out.
There's no evidence that the DMG rules were used for most monsters, though the general rule is to just work out damage for their top three spells and that's offensive CR. Obviously this actually varies with spell selection, the list for the archmage is relatively inoffensive, an arch-evoker might be something like
Cast Meteor Swarm (40d6(140) to multiple targets. AoEs usually assume 2 targets, which means it's contributing (280) or 93 dpr, but it's likely to hit more)
Cast Maddening Darkness (8d8, probably twice, to multiple targets, so contributing 144 or 48 dpr)
Cast Teleport, because if they lived through that he doesn't want to still be here.
That's 141 dpr, or an offensive CR of 21. Of course, defensive CR is pretty low.
If I base an enemy NPC on a PC I consider their CR to be equal to half their level. It doesn't always work effectively, but it's quick and easy. It's better not to use PC stats and abilities for NPC. Choose some spells you want them to have, make them into recharge abilities and make them a standard monster - having 18 spells to read through and prepare is a waste of your DM prep time (they won't use all their spells - it's prep for nothing).
Check out my Deathless Frost Mage - it's an undead mage based on World of Warcraft, and is far easier to use in combat than a monster with tons of spells.
I’m so glad I’m not the only DM who has found the DMG rules impossible to use for building spellcasters! My BBEG is a half-caster, and I’ve been running in circles trying to figure out his CR!! I’ve even been wondering if I could create a sort of prototype and test it against my PCs somehow.
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I live with several severe autoimmune conditions. If I don’t get back to you right away, it’s probably because I’m not feeling well.
The power of most spells is extremely variable depending on circumstance to the point where CR just doesn't matter at all. The way I play spellcasters is to vary their tactics to fit the party's power level. This might mean never using your most powerful spell, or it could mean using your most powerful spell twice. Give them a varied toolkit and use it with thought and care. I will generally make them overpowered and decline to use their big guns unless they are really getting steamrolled.
There's no evidence that the DMG rules were used for most monsters, though the general rule is to just work out damage for their top three spells and that's offensive CR. Obviously this actually varies with spell selection, the list for the archmage is relatively inoffensive, an arch-evoker might be something like
Cast Meteor Swarm (40d6(140) to multiple targets. AoEs usually assume 2 targets, which means it's contributing (280) or 93 dpr, but it's likely to hit more)
Cast Maddening Darkness (8d8, probably twice, to multiple targets, so contributing 144 or 48 dpr)
Cast Teleport, because if they lived through that he doesn't want to still be here.
That's 141 dpr, or an offensive CR of 21. Of course, defensive CR is pretty low.
Spot on.
With a defensive CR of around CR 3, the average CR of the monster is..... CR 12. Right on schedule for the Archmage-turned-evoker. The math is unwieldy, I'll grant you, but it still works out to roughly the same. You have to get fairly heavy handed with AC, HP and To-Hit / Save DCs to move things a great distance. In this case I might ramp the defensive CR up and change spell listings as Pantagruel has demonstrated.
The Archmage is a poor example simply because it lacks the key ingredient of high level DPR out of the box. An easier example might be the Evoker from VGtM. When I math out 1 Chain Lightning and 2 Cone of Cold, assuming 3 targets per spell, it rounds out to CR 9.5-ish as written. Granted, my math is coffee dependent so there's that....
Spellcaster monsters will always be a very fragile glass cannon unless you alter their defenses drastically. In combat, they will be short lived and will lack the actions required to make them a true threat unless they win initiative and are played as the evil genius they represent. That said, adding Legendary Actions to them (cantrips and 1st level spells) will alter their offensive capabilities as well. Resistances will go a long way towards survivability in a scrap.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
If I base an enemy NPC on a PC I consider their CR to be equal to half their level. It doesn't always work effectively, but it's quick and easy. It's better not to use PC stats and abilities for NPC. Choose some spells you want them to have, make them into recharge abilities and make them a standard monster - having 18 spells to read through and prepare is a waste of your DM prep time (they won't use all their spells - it's prep for nothing).
Check out my Deathless Frost Mage - it's an undead mage based on World of Warcraft, and is far easier to use in combat than a monster with tons of spells.
I have a human wizard BBEG who is over 900 years old (clone, plus other longevity spells). For him I created a level 20 wizard, then tweaked the stats, buffed the hit points a lot and gave him pretty much all the low level spells and then selected the high level ones he has prepared based on his mentality. He is not intended to be fought at all for a long time, he is currently an ally and if the characters work out he is a bad guy, which is not impossible, then he will teleport away and live to fight another day. He needs them alive for a thing.
There's no evidence that the DMG rules were used for most monsters, though the general rule is to just work out damage for their top three spells and that's offensive CR. Obviously this actually varies with spell selection, the list for the archmage is relatively inoffensive, an arch-evoker might be something like
Cast Meteor Swarm (40d6(140) to multiple targets. AoEs usually assume 2 targets, which means it's contributing (280) or 93 dpr, but it's likely to hit more)
Cast Maddening Darkness (8d8, probably twice, to multiple targets, so contributing 144 or 48 dpr)
Cast Teleport, because if they lived through that he doesn't want to still be here.
That's 141 dpr, or an offensive CR of 21. Of course, defensive CR is pretty low.
Thank you for this. It's very helpful. I'm afraid though I can't figure where you're getting the secondary, dpr, numbers. Can you explain the math behind them?
Thank you for this. It's very helpful. I'm afraid though I can't figure where you're getting the secondary, dpr, numbers. Can you explain the math behind them?
The standard way the DMG computes dpr is "damage over 3 rounds, divided by 3"
CR in 5e suffers from being designed around creatures without abilities. For just raw stats, it usually mostly works, but casters make it complicated, especially high power casters. High power casters fall into the same category as high power casters do for players- they have some glaring weaknesses (usually AC, though some builds are different, especially multiclass casters and warlocks who have problems with slots/spell selections) but also are disproportionately dangerous at the start of combat.
Let's take a session I ran recently with a spellcaster, a powerful elementalist. This spellcaster was facing a party of four players, two of which had conjured elementals. In the first turn, he used a spell of my own making to hijack one of the conjured elementals. Here is the first problem with calculating caster CR: They don't just do damage. Even a Wall of Force spell, which doesn't do damage, can really impact combat if it walls off one of the most powerful player characters for a decent amount of time. This basically stole about 70 HP (since the elemental was damaged from a previous encounter) from the party, forcing them to attack a former ally, and did some damage to the party before the elemental was destroyed (about 20 over a couple rounds). Obviously, that was quite situational- the CR of the caster would not have changed under the official CR formulas- after all, it didn't do more damage, or gain more health, it just manipulated the battlefield. However, it did cause disarray as the party had to pivot. Next turn, the caster used firestorm on the remaining hostile elemental and three party members (one was out of line of sight), dealing 44 damage on a failed save (which the elemental and one of the players failed, for a total of 132 damage). This was probably his most effective damage spell, and he could have used it again with his 8th level slot, but he didn't.
The turn after that, the caster attempted to use a control effect on the barbarian, who was attacking him. It succeeded momentarily, allowing the caster to safely reposition, but the barbarian saved the save at the end of her turn to regained the ability to move and act. I can't remember what spell I used, unfortunately, because my memory is bad. Control effects are also not reflected in the CR rating of casters- even though it cost the party probably 50-60 points of damage if the barbarian had hit with the attacks she lost, that does not matter for CR RAW. After all, when accounting for spells, the DMG just recommends that "Spells that deal more damage than the monster’s normal attack routine and spells that increase the monster’s AC or hit points need to be accounted for when determining the monster’s final challenge rating." There are some example abilities and their impacts on CR, but unless you go through and compare every available spell and account for the number of slots, then it's difficult to make a direct parity, since the caster would not have used a control spell unless threatened in melee.
Finally, the caster teleported away, which ended combat early. This actually should reduce the CR of the creature, since if it stops attacking the party and focuses on escaping once it hits a certain threshold, or all its allies are defeated, or etc. it actually reduces the effective HP pool of the creature- it stops being a threat to the party, which means that it is, essentially, out of combat for the intents and purposes of doing damage to players or being defeated (though obviously if players target it, that might shift damage away from an actual threat- in this case, the caster was the only surviving enemy left, so it simply reduced the potential damage the party could receive).
Basically, CR doesn't work for casters. CR assumes that an enemy is going to attack a party member more or less directly and continue to do things fairly consistently for as long as that enemy is in the combat. On the other hand, casters, especially ones with slots above 5th, do not work that way- they have extremely high burst damage if they open with their strongest spells, but that rapidly decreases as they use their resources, and they have a lot of options outside of just doing damage that could be either extremely dangerous (such as using hold person on a fighter while they get hit by enemies who automatically get critical hits because of paralysis) or control the battlefield (the aforementioned wall of force isolating party members) in ways that very few creatures do normally. That means that casters are extremely inaccurate CR wise- changing the location of a battle, for example, so that the entire party fits in one 60 foot cone at all times could make a caster with Cone of Cold go from being marginally effective if they can only hit the melee fighter running them down to being extremely dangerous as they neutralize the party's more vulnerable casters.
Also, for the DPR, Pantagruel is taking the damage of each spell and dividing it by the number of rounds the caster spends in the combat (three- Meteor Swarm, Maddening Darkness, and Teleport) for a total of 141 dpr from 424 damage divided by three. That's still kind of a problem because it assumes that a caster won't sustain longer damage if they get to stick around longer without being threatened (i.e. if they have meatshields), but I do think (especially for Meteor Swarm) burst damage is more important here.
Thank you for this. It's very helpful. I'm afraid though I can't figure where you're getting the secondary, dpr, numbers. Can you explain the math behind them?
The standard way the DMG computes dpr is "damage over 3 rounds, divided by 3"
CR in 5e suffers from being designed around creatures without abilities. For just raw stats, it usually mostly works, but casters make it complicated, especially high power casters. High power casters fall into the same category as high power casters do for players- they have some glaring weaknesses (usually AC, though some builds are different, especially multiclass casters and warlocks who have problems with slots/spell selections) but also are disproportionately dangerous at the start of combat.
Let's take a session I ran recently with a spellcaster, a powerful elementalist. This spellcaster was facing a party of four players, two of which had conjured elementals. In the first turn, he used a spell of my own making to hijack one of the conjured elementals. Here is the first problem with calculating caster CR: They don't just do damage. Even a Wall of Force spell, which doesn't do damage, can really impact combat if it walls off one of the most powerful player characters for a decent amount of time. This basically stole about 70 HP (since the elemental was damaged from a previous encounter) from the party, forcing them to attack a former ally, and did some damage to the party before the elemental was destroyed (about 20 over a couple rounds). Obviously, that was quite situational- the CR of the caster would not have changed under the official CR formulas- after all, it didn't do more damage, or gain more health, it just manipulated the battlefield. However, it did cause disarray as the party had to pivot. Next turn, the caster used firestorm on the remaining hostile elemental and three party members (one was out of line of sight), dealing 44 damage on a failed save (which the elemental and one of the players failed, for a total of 132 damage). This was probably his most effective damage spell, and he could have used it again with his 8th level slot, but he didn't.
The turn after that, the caster attempted to use a control effect on the barbarian, who was attacking him. It succeeded momentarily, allowing the caster to safely reposition, but the barbarian saved the save at the end of her turn to regained the ability to move and act. I can't remember what spell I used, unfortunately, because my memory is bad. Control effects are also not reflected in the CR rating of casters- even though it cost the party probably 50-60 points of damage if the barbarian had hit with the attacks she lost, that does not matter for CR RAW. After all, when accounting for spells, the DMG just recommends that "Spells that deal more damage than the monster’s normal attack routine and spells that increase the monster’s AC or hit points need to be accounted for when determining the monster’s final challenge rating." There are some example abilities and their impacts on CR, but unless you go through and compare every available spell and account for the number of slots, then it's difficult to make a direct parity, since the caster would not have used a control spell unless threatened in melee.
Finally, the caster teleported away, which ended combat early. This actually should reduce the CR of the creature, since if it stops attacking the party and focuses on escaping once it hits a certain threshold, or all its allies are defeated, or etc. it actually reduces the effective HP pool of the creature- it stops being a threat to the party, which means that it is, essentially, out of combat for the intents and purposes of doing damage to players or being defeated (though obviously if players target it, that might shift damage away from an actual threat- in this case, the caster was the only surviving enemy left, so it simply reduced the potential damage the party could receive).
Basically, CR doesn't work for casters. CR assumes that an enemy is going to attack a party member more or less directly and continue to do things fairly consistently for as long as that enemy is in the combat. On the other hand, casters, especially ones with slots above 5th, do not work that way- they have extremely high burst damage if they open with their strongest spells, but that rapidly decreases as they use their resources, and they have a lot of options outside of just doing damage that could be either extremely dangerous (such as using hold person on a fighter while they get hit by enemies who automatically get critical hits because of paralysis) or control the battlefield (the aforementioned wall of force isolating party members) in ways that very few creatures do normally. That means that casters are extremely inaccurate CR wise- changing the location of a battle, for example, so that the entire party fits in one 60 foot cone at all times could make a caster with Cone of Cold go from being marginally effective if they can only hit the melee fighter running them down to being extremely dangerous as they neutralize the party's more vulnerable casters.
Also, for the DPR, Pantagruel is taking the damage of each spell and dividing it by the number of rounds the caster spends in the combat (three- Meteor Swarm, Maddening Darkness, and Teleport) for a total of 141 dpr from 424 damage divided by three. That's still kind of a problem because it assumes that a caster won't sustain longer damage if they get to stick around longer without being threatened (i.e. if they have meatshields), but I do think (especially for Meteor Swarm) burst damage is more important here.
Thanks for the advice. It's very much appreciated.
Generally I would select the 3 most common spells that caster would cast in combat, and use those spell's damage output for CR calculation. I may use a spell for 2/3 of the spell's average damage output if that spell is cast commonly.
If a spell caster can only use one damaging spell...
Well than you just use that spell for damage calculation.
There's no evidence that the DMG rules were used for most monsters, though the general rule is to just work out damage for their top three spells and that's offensive CR. Obviously this actually varies with spell selection, the list for the archmage is relatively inoffensive, an arch-evoker might be something like
Cast Meteor Swarm (40d6(140) to multiple targets. AoEs usually assume 2 targets, which means it's contributing (280) or 93 dpr, but it's likely to hit more)
Cast Maddening Darkness (8d8, probably twice, to multiple targets, so contributing 144 or 48 dpr)
Cast Teleport, because if they lived through that he doesn't want to still be here.
That's 141 dpr, or an offensive CR of 21. Of course, defensive CR is pretty low.
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Pretty much as the title says. I find the table in the DMG ch.9 works fine for making monsters when it's a simple matter how hard they hit and how many hits they can take, but it never feels like it works for spellcasters. I tried to make something based of the Archmage recently and according to how I was using the table the Archmage itself shouldn't be CR 12 so I figure I must be doing something wrong. Hopefully someone can help me out.
There's no evidence that the DMG rules were used for most monsters, though the general rule is to just work out damage for their top three spells and that's offensive CR. Obviously this actually varies with spell selection, the list for the archmage is relatively inoffensive, an arch-evoker might be something like
That's 141 dpr, or an offensive CR of 21. Of course, defensive CR is pretty low.
If I base an enemy NPC on a PC I consider their CR to be equal to half their level. It doesn't always work effectively, but it's quick and easy. It's better not to use PC stats and abilities for NPC. Choose some spells you want them to have, make them into recharge abilities and make them a standard monster - having 18 spells to read through and prepare is a waste of your DM prep time (they won't use all their spells - it's prep for nothing).
Check out my Deathless Frost Mage - it's an undead mage based on World of Warcraft, and is far easier to use in combat than a monster with tons of spells.
Undead Frost Mage
I’m so glad I’m not the only DM who has found the DMG rules impossible to use for building spellcasters! My BBEG is a half-caster, and I’ve been running in circles trying to figure out his CR!! I’ve even been wondering if I could create a sort of prototype and test it against my PCs somehow.
I live with several severe autoimmune conditions. If I don’t get back to you right away, it’s probably because I’m not feeling well.
The power of most spells is extremely variable depending on circumstance to the point where CR just doesn't matter at all. The way I play spellcasters is to vary their tactics to fit the party's power level. This might mean never using your most powerful spell, or it could mean using your most powerful spell twice. Give them a varied toolkit and use it with thought and care. I will generally make them overpowered and decline to use their big guns unless they are really getting steamrolled.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Spot on.
With a defensive CR of around CR 3, the average CR of the monster is..... CR 12. Right on schedule for the Archmage-turned-evoker. The math is unwieldy, I'll grant you, but it still works out to roughly the same. You have to get fairly heavy handed with AC, HP and To-Hit / Save DCs to move things a great distance. In this case I might ramp the defensive CR up and change spell listings as Pantagruel has demonstrated.
The Archmage is a poor example simply because it lacks the key ingredient of high level DPR out of the box. An easier example might be the Evoker from VGtM. When I math out 1 Chain Lightning and 2 Cone of Cold, assuming 3 targets per spell, it rounds out to CR 9.5-ish as written. Granted, my math is coffee dependent so there's that....
Spellcaster monsters will always be a very fragile glass cannon unless you alter their defenses drastically. In combat, they will be short lived and will lack the actions required to make them a true threat unless they win initiative and are played as the evil genius they represent. That said, adding Legendary Actions to them (cantrips and 1st level spells) will alter their offensive capabilities as well. Resistances will go a long way towards survivability in a scrap.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I have a human wizard BBEG who is over 900 years old (clone, plus other longevity spells). For him I created a level 20 wizard, then tweaked the stats, buffed the hit points a lot and gave him pretty much all the low level spells and then selected the high level ones he has prepared based on his mentality. He is not intended to be fought at all for a long time, he is currently an ally and if the characters work out he is a bad guy, which is not impossible, then he will teleport away and live to fight another day. He needs them alive for a thing.
Thanks everyone for all your help and it advice. It's really helpful.
Thank you for this. It's very helpful. I'm afraid though I can't figure where you're getting the secondary, dpr, numbers. Can you explain the math behind them?
The standard way the DMG computes dpr is "damage over 3 rounds, divided by 3"
CR in 5e suffers from being designed around creatures without abilities. For just raw stats, it usually mostly works, but casters make it complicated, especially high power casters. High power casters fall into the same category as high power casters do for players- they have some glaring weaknesses (usually AC, though some builds are different, especially multiclass casters and warlocks who have problems with slots/spell selections) but also are disproportionately dangerous at the start of combat.
Let's take a session I ran recently with a spellcaster, a powerful elementalist. This spellcaster was facing a party of four players, two of which had conjured elementals. In the first turn, he used a spell of my own making to hijack one of the conjured elementals. Here is the first problem with calculating caster CR: They don't just do damage. Even a Wall of Force spell, which doesn't do damage, can really impact combat if it walls off one of the most powerful player characters for a decent amount of time. This basically stole about 70 HP (since the elemental was damaged from a previous encounter) from the party, forcing them to attack a former ally, and did some damage to the party before the elemental was destroyed (about 20 over a couple rounds). Obviously, that was quite situational- the CR of the caster would not have changed under the official CR formulas- after all, it didn't do more damage, or gain more health, it just manipulated the battlefield. However, it did cause disarray as the party had to pivot. Next turn, the caster used firestorm on the remaining hostile elemental and three party members (one was out of line of sight), dealing 44 damage on a failed save (which the elemental and one of the players failed, for a total of 132 damage). This was probably his most effective damage spell, and he could have used it again with his 8th level slot, but he didn't.
The turn after that, the caster attempted to use a control effect on the barbarian, who was attacking him. It succeeded momentarily, allowing the caster to safely reposition, but the barbarian saved the save at the end of her turn to regained the ability to move and act. I can't remember what spell I used, unfortunately, because my memory is bad. Control effects are also not reflected in the CR rating of casters- even though it cost the party probably 50-60 points of damage if the barbarian had hit with the attacks she lost, that does not matter for CR RAW. After all, when accounting for spells, the DMG just recommends that "Spells that deal more damage than the monster’s normal attack routine and spells that increase the monster’s AC or hit points need to be accounted for when determining the monster’s final challenge rating." There are some example abilities and their impacts on CR, but unless you go through and compare every available spell and account for the number of slots, then it's difficult to make a direct parity, since the caster would not have used a control spell unless threatened in melee.
Finally, the caster teleported away, which ended combat early. This actually should reduce the CR of the creature, since if it stops attacking the party and focuses on escaping once it hits a certain threshold, or all its allies are defeated, or etc. it actually reduces the effective HP pool of the creature- it stops being a threat to the party, which means that it is, essentially, out of combat for the intents and purposes of doing damage to players or being defeated (though obviously if players target it, that might shift damage away from an actual threat- in this case, the caster was the only surviving enemy left, so it simply reduced the potential damage the party could receive).
Basically, CR doesn't work for casters. CR assumes that an enemy is going to attack a party member more or less directly and continue to do things fairly consistently for as long as that enemy is in the combat. On the other hand, casters, especially ones with slots above 5th, do not work that way- they have extremely high burst damage if they open with their strongest spells, but that rapidly decreases as they use their resources, and they have a lot of options outside of just doing damage that could be either extremely dangerous (such as using hold person on a fighter while they get hit by enemies who automatically get critical hits because of paralysis) or control the battlefield (the aforementioned wall of force isolating party members) in ways that very few creatures do normally. That means that casters are extremely inaccurate CR wise- changing the location of a battle, for example, so that the entire party fits in one 60 foot cone at all times could make a caster with Cone of Cold go from being marginally effective if they can only hit the melee fighter running them down to being extremely dangerous as they neutralize the party's more vulnerable casters.
Also, for the DPR, Pantagruel is taking the damage of each spell and dividing it by the number of rounds the caster spends in the combat (three- Meteor Swarm, Maddening Darkness, and Teleport) for a total of 141 dpr from 424 damage divided by three. That's still kind of a problem because it assumes that a caster won't sustain longer damage if they get to stick around longer without being threatened (i.e. if they have meatshields), but I do think (especially for Meteor Swarm) burst damage is more important here.
Ah thank you very much for the clarification.
Thanks for the advice. It's very much appreciated.
Generally I would select the 3 most common spells that caster would cast in combat, and use those spell's damage output for CR calculation. I may use a spell for 2/3 of the spell's average damage output if that spell is cast commonly.
If a spell caster can only use one damaging spell...
Well than you just use that spell for damage calculation.