I'm thinking of making an encounter where my party has the chance to help a revenant get its revenge on the people who killed it. Its lore mentions that this is plausible if its murderer(s) are too powerful for the revenant to handle on its own. My problem is I don't know HOW powerful I need to make the murderer(s) so that the revenant would have a problem but still make it fair for my party to handle. Like
My question is this: how do I use a monster's CR to interpret its strength relative to another monster's CR, and incorporate my players' levels into that encounter? Can a CR 5 monster handle another CR 5 monster well? Is a CR 5 monster like a level five adventuring NPC, or a bit higher or lower?
Other than CR rating, there’s not really a way to compare monster to monster. You could argue that a CR5 monster would have trouble with a CR 6 or higher but it would really depend on the creature abilities more than straight power until you get a few CR levels up. What’s more important is that the encounter feels balanced for the Party and PCs, not your NPC. The rules on that are in the DMG and Basic rules.
Now, CR levels are usually stronger than PC levels, so your CR 5 revenant is stronger than a level 5 PC, so that needs to be taken into account when designing the encounter
Start with CR to get a comparable range of stats and HP, but I would rely more abilities and resistances. For example the Revenant can regenerate unless it takes fire or radiant damage, so its adversary being able to use either of these freely seems like a reasonable add in since otherwise the Revenant can just keep fighting.
Like Dovenwolf said, it depends a lot on the monsters abilities and stats. I took I think 3 orcs against a 4 man party of 2-3 level characters and they would have killed them if it weren't for fudging. Same with a Scarecrow which should have been a pushover for them. U would say use the stat block of the Revenent to make 2-3 murders with either similar or countering stats and abilities. Like say, a lantern with nullifies undead abilities, and a guy who has a sword of undead slaying. Then the Revenent would have no real way to fight them and the party can wallop them.
I agree with others. You really need to look at the stats. Sure you can use CR as a baseline but that's about it. I think some enemies in the monster manuals that are out there represent a CR level far higher than what is in the text. I think a perfect example would be one of the kobold monster manuals. If you feel that there will be a balancing issue then just alter some stats. For example raise or lower armor class, hit points, two-hit bonuses, and even damaged dice. That's what I do anyway. I often take creatures that would be considered low level for my group and make a few adjustments to raise the bar. For me it works out. Honestly I feel fifth edition is so simplified with monster stats and whatnot that even making adjustments on the fly is incredibly easy to do.
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I'm thinking of making an encounter where my party has the chance to help a revenant get its revenge on the people who killed it. Its lore mentions that this is plausible if its murderer(s) are too powerful for the revenant to handle on its own. My problem is I don't know HOW powerful I need to make the murderer(s) so that the revenant would have a problem but still make it fair for my party to handle. Like
My question is this: how do I use a monster's CR to interpret its strength relative to another monster's CR, and incorporate my players' levels into that encounter? Can a CR 5 monster handle another CR 5 monster well? Is a CR 5 monster like a level five adventuring NPC, or a bit higher or lower?
Other than CR rating, there’s not really a way to compare monster to monster. You could argue that a CR5 monster would have trouble with a CR 6 or higher but it would really depend on the creature abilities more than straight power until you get a few CR levels up. What’s more important is that the encounter feels balanced for the Party and PCs, not your NPC. The rules on that are in the DMG and Basic rules.
Now, CR levels are usually stronger than PC levels, so your CR 5 revenant is stronger than a level 5 PC, so that needs to be taken into account when designing the encounter
Start with CR to get a comparable range of stats and HP, but I would rely more abilities and resistances. For example the Revenant can regenerate unless it takes fire or radiant damage, so its adversary being able to use either of these freely seems like a reasonable add in since otherwise the Revenant can just keep fighting.
Like Dovenwolf said, it depends a lot on the monsters abilities and stats. I took I think 3 orcs against a 4 man party of 2-3 level characters and they would have killed them if it weren't for fudging. Same with a Scarecrow which should have been a pushover for them. U would say use the stat block of the Revenent to make 2-3 murders with either similar or countering stats and abilities. Like say, a lantern with nullifies undead abilities, and a guy who has a sword of undead slaying. Then the Revenent would have no real way to fight them and the party can wallop them.
I agree with others. You really need to look at the stats. Sure you can use CR as a baseline but that's about it. I think some enemies in the monster manuals that are out there represent a CR level far higher than what is in the text. I think a perfect example would be one of the kobold monster manuals. If you feel that there will be a balancing issue then just alter some stats. For example raise or lower armor class, hit points, two-hit bonuses, and even damaged dice. That's what I do anyway. I often take creatures that would be considered low level for my group and make a few adjustments to raise the bar. For me it works out. Honestly I feel fifth edition is so simplified with monster stats and whatnot that even making adjustments on the fly is incredibly easy to do.