So, I have devised a medium encounter for two level 4 and two level 5 PCs which means I have 1500 EXP as a budget. But it feels a tad... unbalanced. Check this out:
Two CR 1/2 and eight CR 1/4 100 EXP cost into 250 for a total of 500 EXP for the two CR 1/2 cultists. 50 cost into 125 eight times for a total of 1000 for the CR 1/4 cultists.
This group should have a total of 388 HP (the minimal) which is ON PAR with a CR 20 creature!!
And they all have at least one attack per round to deal an average of 56 damage per round! And again, that's the minimum! They can drop players real fast! That's intense!
Am I doing something wrong? :(
Edit: an additional note: Xanathar's Guide to Everything suggests, using the "Multiple Monsters: 1st-5th level Table", that I could have two CR 2 monsters for my level 5 heroes and eight CR 1/4 for my level 4 adventurers in this one encounter... that's even stronger, I thought the maths were supposed to match! :'(
Yes, but those HPs have some assumptions behind them that are: AC 13, +3 bonus to hit and the damage 4-5 (CR-1/4) and 6-8 (CR-1/2). If you are assuming all of these stats, then it is a balanced encounter.
Otherwise, you could lower the HPs and increase the damage output or the bonus to hit. As explained in that section of the DMG, the final CR of a creature is the average between Defensive CR and Offensive CR.
I usually make my fights pretty dynamic, so I'm usually not too worried about putting my players in trouble... but the basic maths is that the cultists would deal an average of 56 damage per round which is still huge compared to the players! In fact, the cultists can knock players one after the other.
And while I'm sure I can tune the damage down reasonably... the trade-off is more damage and more to-hit bonus... which I feel would make that 56 damage even more dangerous than it should be.
If we compare it to the players (level 5 having multi-attack): they could deal at most at their respective levels 6d10+25 damage per round. Which is an average of 58 dmg... they can barely knock a CR 1/2 cultist per round.
The fight is definitely balanced according to the book. Balanced with its own maths, that's fine. But it is unbalanced when comparing it against the players.
The players have a maximum of 18 HD (of various dice score such as d8 & d10) and can't go over +5 Constitution. So, if I were to make a quick & generous calculation (making assumptions that they rolled the best result everytime and maxed out their Constitution score): they can't go over 270 HP.
You are leaving your players' AC and bonus to hit out of the equation. I am sure some of your players' character have AC and bonus to hit higher than 13 and +3, respectively.
Not to mention, you are assuming that the average damage of the party of cultists is the sum of the average damage of the single cultists, which, statistically, it is very unlikely to happen.
Challenge Rating is practically useless. There are 4 PCs in the party. You’re throwing 10 low-level enemies at them. This will be a hard, but doable fight for them. Just make sure they have a couple healing potions available and the PCs should win, but it’ll be a heck of a fight for them.
Definitely! However, the DMG asks you to consider it as a fact that the monsters will deal their average damage every turn. We also have to consider that there are 10 of those opponents that can easily surround and attack the smaller party with advantage. I realise my job as a GM is to design the encounter, so a smaller zone or a choke point would be the ideal location for my players to fight... what if they don't fight there? What if the cultists just so happen to have a grudge against the wizard and decide to shove the frontline around to all surround the wizard? I was under the impression that the maths of the book helped me figure out a fair encounter from the start and then let me play around with the conflict itself to make it harder or easier in a way that would allow my players to strategize themselves. :O
Challenge Rating is practically useless. There are 4 PCs in the party. You’re throwing 10 low-level enemies at them. This will be a hard, but doable fight for them. Just make sure they have a couple healing potions available and the PCs should win, but it’ll be a heck of a fight for them.
Why is it useless, though? What tool do you suggest for me to use?
I have found CR to have absolutely no reflection on how difficult encounters actually are. Any time the PCs outnumber the bad guys, the PCs have the advantage, any time the bad guys outnumber the PCs they have the advantage. The only real metric is how many attacks each side gets/round compared to the number of HP they have to chew through. IMHO, Actions/HP is the only metric I go by unless the AC is 20 or higher.
Two Ogres have the same base CR as 16 Goblins, and around the same number of HP. Those Gobbos would eviscerate those Ogres in a fight. Even if you make it 3 Ogres to balance the Adjusted CR, the Gobbos will still more than likely win. The Ogres can only kill at most 3 Goblins/round. As soon as the Goblins focus down 1 Ogre (probably in the first turn) then the Ogres can only kill 2, and then 1 and then their probably dead and there will probably be around 10 Goblins left.
A Goblin Boss and an Acolyte should probably both be CR 1/2, but one is CR 1, and the other is CR 1/4. It makes no sense.
If you put 8 CR 1/8 Cultists, 4 CR 1/4 Acolytes, and 1 CR 2 Cult Fanatic in an encounter against your party, that would be a heck of a lot tougher to beat than 8 CR 1/4 Goblins and 2 CR 1 Goblin Bosses. Almost the same CR.
CR 1/2 are suggested by the book to have at a minimum of 50 HP each.
As for CR 1/4, they are suggested by the DMG again, to have at a minimum of 36 HP!
(36x8=288)+(50x2=100)=388!
Yeah I don't understand why DMG recommends that when you would be hard pressed to find a single CR 1/2 creature with the AC + HP combo they suggest.
Some examples of more common types of creatures:
Giant Goat, CR 1/2, HP 19, AC 11, Damage 8.
Hobgoblin, CR 1/2, AC 18 (ok, that's high), HP 11, Damage 5.
Gnoll Hunter, CR 1/2, AC 13, HP 22, Damage 4-6 depending on attack.
Worg, CR 1/2, AC 13, HP 26, Damage 10.
Thug, CR 1/2, AC 11, HP 32, Damage 5.
Not one of them has anywhere near 50 HP (the min for CR 1/2) let alone 70 (the max). The Hobgoblin is a standout with that insanely high AC, but he's still going to die in one or two hits (1d8 sword +3 STR will do it on a single max roll, for example).
This drove me nuts doing a homebrew creature -- if you follow the typical creatures of the CR you want to make of MM, you will not get anything remotely like what DMG says it should have for certain elements, especially HP. It's like they didn't follow their own DMG when statting out monsters in the MM. And if they didn't, then why tell us to follow it?
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That’s why I only vaguely pay attention to CR at all. I’m better at just eyeballing the numbers before the fight, and then adjusting them half way through the fight if I need to rebalance things. Way less work for me, and way more exciting for the players. I threw 2 “deadly” encounters, a third that the builder I swear begged me not to throw at them it was so bad, and then another “deadly” encounter at them. I ignored all of that and did it anyway. By the end of that dungeon one player actually came up to me and made a comment that not every fight has to be that hard.
Nobody died. One PC went down and then yo-yoed. That’s it. Many of them were at close to full HP after the last fight. (They had taken 2 short rests throughout the course of that day.) The only one close to dying was the party’s NPC. But it felt like their backs were against the wall the whole time under a ticking clock.
Don’t get hung up on those numbers in advance. Make it they way you feel is right. If it turns out to be too easy, dial it up mid fight. If it turns out to be to hard, dial it down. Remember, the players have no idea how many HP a monster started the fight with, only how many it took to kill it in the end. Those two numbers don’t have to be the same, they’ll never know unless you tell them, and that would ruin the game so don’t do that. They have no idea that the reinforcements weren’t planned until you needed them, or that there were supposed to be reinforcements that never showed up. 🤫
This group should have a total of 388 HP (the minimal) which is ON PAR with a CR 20 creature!!
And they all have at least one attack per round to deal an average of 56 damage per round! And again, that's the minimum! They can drop players real fast! That's intense!
Am I doing something wrong? :(
Well, you're assuming DMG numbers relate to reality. Average HP for CR 1/4 is about 15, average HP for CR 1/2 is about 22, so actual hp total is probably under 200. Other than that, groups of monsters do not have the same difficulty as single monsters with the same total hp and damage output, because:
You can generally prevent some of them from attacking by positioning.
You can reliably prevent some of them from attacking by killing them.
You can kill them faster than their HP indicate with AoEs.
That’s why I only vaguely pay attention to CR at all. I’m better at just eyeballing the numbers before the fight, and then adjusting them half way through the fight if I need to rebalance things.
This is how DMs always did it before CR existed.
But... it is tough for new DMs, and traditionally new DMs = multiple party wipes until the DM gets the hang of things. CR is supposed to help alleviate that, but the problem is, it really doesn't.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Also, Beasts and Humanoid creatures often have much lower hit points than other creatures of the same challenge rating, and normally no damage resistances/immunities. CR is practically useless, it's just made to be a guideline. (Not always accurate, Korreds and Beholders are waaaayyyy more powerful than their CR reflects.)
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That’s why I only vaguely pay attention to CR at all. I’m better at just eyeballing the numbers before the fight, and then adjusting them half way through the fight if I need to rebalance things.
This is how DMs always did it before CR existed.
But... it is tough for new DMs, and traditionally new DMs = multiple party wipes until the DM gets the hang of things. CR is supposed to help alleviate that, but the problem is, it really doesn't.
That’s why I only vaguely pay attention to CR at all. I’m better at just eyeballing the numbers before the fight, and then adjusting them half way through the fight if I need to rebalance things.
This is how DMs always did it before CR existed.
But... it is tough for new DMs, and traditionally new DMs = multiple party wipes until the DM gets the hang of things. CR is supposed to help alleviate that, but the problem is, it really doesn't.
Agreed.
Whenever I create a homebrew monster, halfway through a fight I either learn it is waaaaayyyy too powerful, and either increase the CR by 2 or 3, or just nerf it a bit. If this doesn't happen, they have waaaaayyyyy too little hit points and can't do anything, so they die in one attack.
There should be better CR guides, but I'm not convinced that the Devs even know what CR means.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
There should be better CR guides, but I'm not convinced that the Devs even know what CR means.
You know there is something wrong when all the experienced DMs out there from Mercer to Colville to the folks on this forum say the same thing -- that CR is useless for judging encounter difficulty, and they do a better job just "eyeballing it."
It's not as if the things that make an encounter hard (or easy) are unknown so... I really don't understand what the problem is.
Hello there!
So, I have devised a medium encounter for two level 4 and two level 5 PCs which means I have 1500 EXP as a budget. But it feels a tad... unbalanced. Check this out:
Two CR 1/2 and eight CR 1/4
100 EXP cost into 250 for a total of 500 EXP for the two CR 1/2 cultists.
50 cost into 125 eight times for a total of 1000 for the CR 1/4 cultists.
This group should have a total of 388 HP (the minimal) which is ON PAR with a CR 20 creature!!
And they all have at least one attack per round to deal an average of 56 damage per round! And again, that's the minimum! They can drop players real fast! That's intense!
Am I doing something wrong? :(
Edit: an additional note: Xanathar's Guide to Everything suggests, using the "Multiple Monsters: 1st-5th level Table", that I could have two CR 2 monsters for my level 5 heroes and eight CR 1/4 for my level 4 adventurers in this one encounter... that's even stronger, I thought the maths were supposed to match! :'(
I am confused about the HPs. How do two CR-1/2 and eight CR-1/4 monsters go up to 388 cumulative hit points?
What are the HPs for each?
CR 1/2 are suggested by the book to have at a minimum of 50 HP each.
As for CR 1/4, they are suggested by the DMG again, to have at a minimum of 36 HP!
(36x8=288)+(50x2=100)=388!
Yes, but those HPs have some assumptions behind them that are: AC 13, +3 bonus to hit and the damage 4-5 (CR-1/4) and 6-8 (CR-1/2). If you are assuming all of these stats, then it is a balanced encounter.
Otherwise, you could lower the HPs and increase the damage output or the bonus to hit. As explained in that section of the DMG, the final CR of a creature is the average between Defensive CR and Offensive CR.
I usually make my fights pretty dynamic, so I'm usually not too worried about putting my players in trouble... but the basic maths is that the cultists would deal an average of 56 damage per round which is still huge compared to the players! In fact, the cultists can knock players one after the other.
And while I'm sure I can tune the damage down reasonably... the trade-off is more damage and more to-hit bonus... which I feel would make that 56 damage even more dangerous than it should be.
If we compare it to the players (level 5 having multi-attack): they could deal at most at their respective levels 6d10+25 damage per round. Which is an average of 58 dmg... they can barely knock a CR 1/2 cultist per round.
The fight is definitely balanced according to the book. Balanced with its own maths, that's fine. But it is unbalanced when comparing it against the players.
The players have a maximum of 18 HD (of various dice score such as d8 & d10) and can't go over +5 Constitution. So, if I were to make a quick & generous calculation (making assumptions that they rolled the best result everytime and maxed out their Constitution score): they can't go over 270 HP.
You are leaving your players' AC and bonus to hit out of the equation. I am sure some of your players' character have AC and bonus to hit higher than 13 and +3, respectively.
Not to mention, you are assuming that the average damage of the party of cultists is the sum of the average damage of the single cultists, which, statistically, it is very unlikely to happen.
Challenge Rating is practically useless. There are 4 PCs in the party. You’re throwing 10 low-level enemies at them. This will be a hard, but doable fight for them. Just make sure they have a couple healing potions available and the PCs should win, but it’ll be a heck of a fight for them.
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Definitely! However, the DMG asks you to consider it as a fact that the monsters will deal their average damage every turn. We also have to consider that there are 10 of those opponents that can easily surround and attack the smaller party with advantage. I realise my job as a GM is to design the encounter, so a smaller zone or a choke point would be the ideal location for my players to fight... what if they don't fight there? What if the cultists just so happen to have a grudge against the wizard and decide to shove the frontline around to all surround the wizard? I was under the impression that the maths of the book helped me figure out a fair encounter from the start and then let me play around with the conflict itself to make it harder or easier in a way that would allow my players to strategize themselves. :O
Oh well, back to the drawing board, I guess.
Thanks.
Why is it useless, though? What tool do you suggest for me to use?
I have found CR to have absolutely no reflection on how difficult encounters actually are. Any time the PCs outnumber the bad guys, the PCs have the advantage, any time the bad guys outnumber the PCs they have the advantage. The only real metric is how many attacks each side gets/round compared to the number of HP they have to chew through. IMHO, Actions/HP is the only metric I go by unless the AC is 20 or higher.
Two Ogres have the same base CR as 16 Goblins, and around the same number of HP. Those Gobbos would eviscerate those Ogres in a fight. Even if you make it 3 Ogres to balance the Adjusted CR, the Gobbos will still more than likely win. The Ogres can only kill at most 3 Goblins/round. As soon as the Goblins focus down 1 Ogre (probably in the first turn) then the Ogres can only kill 2, and then 1 and then their probably dead and there will probably be around 10 Goblins left.
A Goblin Boss and an Acolyte should probably both be CR 1/2, but one is CR 1, and the other is CR 1/4. It makes no sense.
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If you put 8 CR 1/8 Cultists, 4 CR 1/4 Acolytes, and 1 CR 2 Cult Fanatic in an encounter against your party, that would be a heck of a lot tougher to beat than 8 CR 1/4 Goblins and 2 CR 1 Goblin Bosses. Almost the same CR.
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Yeah I don't understand why DMG recommends that when you would be hard pressed to find a single CR 1/2 creature with the AC + HP combo they suggest.
Some examples of more common types of creatures:
Not one of them has anywhere near 50 HP (the min for CR 1/2) let alone 70 (the max). The Hobgoblin is a standout with that insanely high AC, but he's still going to die in one or two hits (1d8 sword +3 STR will do it on a single max roll, for example).
This drove me nuts doing a homebrew creature -- if you follow the typical creatures of the CR you want to make of MM, you will not get anything remotely like what DMG says it should have for certain elements, especially HP. It's like they didn't follow their own DMG when statting out monsters in the MM. And if they didn't, then why tell us to follow it?
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
That’s why I only vaguely pay attention to CR at all. I’m better at just eyeballing the numbers before the fight, and then adjusting them half way through the fight if I need to rebalance things. Way less work for me, and way more exciting for the players. I threw 2 “deadly” encounters, a third that the builder I swear begged me not to throw at them it was so bad, and then another “deadly” encounter at them. I ignored all of that and did it anyway. By the end of that dungeon one player actually came up to me and made a comment that not every fight has to be that hard.
Nobody died. One PC went down and then yo-yoed. That’s it. Many of them were at close to full HP after the last fight. (They had taken 2 short rests throughout the course of that day.) The only one close to dying was the party’s NPC. But it felt like their backs were against the wall the whole time under a ticking clock.
Don’t get hung up on those numbers in advance. Make it they way you feel is right. If it turns out to be too easy, dial it up mid fight. If it turns out to be to hard, dial it down. Remember, the players have no idea how many HP a monster started the fight with, only how many it took to kill it in the end. Those two numbers don’t have to be the same, they’ll never know unless you tell them, and that would ruin the game so don’t do that. They have no idea that the reinforcements weren’t planned until you needed them, or that there were supposed to be reinforcements that never showed up. 🤫
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Well, you're assuming DMG numbers relate to reality. Average HP for CR 1/4 is about 15, average HP for CR 1/2 is about 22, so actual hp total is probably under 200. Other than that, groups of monsters do not have the same difficulty as single monsters with the same total hp and damage output, because:
This is how DMs always did it before CR existed.
But... it is tough for new DMs, and traditionally new DMs = multiple party wipes until the DM gets the hang of things. CR is supposed to help alleviate that, but the problem is, it really doesn't.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Also, Beasts and Humanoid creatures often have much lower hit points than other creatures of the same challenge rating, and normally no damage resistances/immunities. CR is practically useless, it's just made to be a guideline. (Not always accurate, Korreds and Beholders are waaaayyyy more powerful than their CR reflects.)
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
My experience isn't that CR is useless, it's just insufficient information by itself. It's certainly more usable than 3.5e CRs.
Agreed.
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Whenever I create a homebrew monster, halfway through a fight I either learn it is waaaaayyyy too powerful, and either increase the CR by 2 or 3, or just nerf it a bit. If this doesn't happen, they have waaaaayyyyy too little hit points and can't do anything, so they die in one attack.
There should be better CR guides, but I'm not convinced that the Devs even know what CR means.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
You know there is something wrong when all the experienced DMs out there from Mercer to Colville to the folks on this forum say the same thing -- that CR is useless for judging encounter difficulty, and they do a better job just "eyeballing it."
It's not as if the things that make an encounter hard (or easy) are unknown so... I really don't understand what the problem is.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.