Hello! I am currently creating my first ever adventure for my first ever campaign. I am in the process of creating the villain, but was wondering how high of a level I should make it. If four level one characters are fighting it, does that mean I make it level four, so it adds up, or should it be weaker or stronger than that? What is the math/difficulty that goes into translating a certain level character into a certain challenge rating?
Agree with Lyxen, don’t approach creating a villain by using th a character creation process. When you say villain - do you mean you need a monster for your party to fight to be the combat encounter for that session or are you looking to design the overall villain of that campaign? If it’s the former, definitely just grab something you feel will fit the setting and will be a fun combat for the PCs out of the monster manual. For a party of 4 level 1 PC’s a CR4 creature with a multi attack and any form of resistances will most likely kill your party. The encounter builder tool could be a good place to start with some basic ideas.
If you need the latter, then I’d work on figuring out what this person/creature’s motivations are, how they fit into the plot, etc... first and then picking or designing a monster that matches what you need rather than worrying about CR upfront.
You can use levelled characters as adversaries, but the rules don't give you a lot of support (e.g. there's no standard rule for calculating CR), and they tend to be glass cannons that result in extremely swingy fights that might not be all that satisfying. A reasonable boss fight for level 1 PCs is a CR 1 plus some adds, or a CR 2 by itself.
I am inclined to agree with the other posters.Using villains generated as PCs can be tricky, even for more experienced DMs. They tend to not have enough HP to put up a reasonable fight, and they tend to have a lot of extra stuff that will likely never come up, and will also likely get in the way of running the combat efficiently. There are other potential issues as well.
If you want to have a Villain that feels like a PC, but runs far more smoothly, and presents a cleaner encounter for the Party, I would suggest using on of the existing monsters with the NPC tag. They can represent exactly that sort of villain, but they are easier to use both in encounter design and in running the actual encounter itself. Besides, most of the work is already done for you. Perhaps something from this list would suit your needs:
Hello! I am currently creating my first ever adventure for my first ever campaign. I am in the process of creating the villain, but was wondering how high of a level I should make it. If four level one characters are fighting it, does that mean I make it level four, so it adds up, or should it be weaker or stronger than that? What is the math/difficulty that goes into translating a certain level character into a certain challenge rating?
Agree with Lyxen, don’t approach creating a villain by using th a character creation process.
When you say villain - do you mean you need a monster for your party to fight to be the combat encounter for that session or are you looking to design the overall villain of that campaign? If it’s the former, definitely just grab something you feel will fit the setting and will be a fun combat for the PCs out of the monster manual. For a party of 4 level 1 PC’s a CR4 creature with a multi attack and any form of resistances will most likely kill your party. The encounter builder tool could be a good place to start with some basic ideas.
If you need the latter, then I’d work on figuring out what this person/creature’s motivations are, how they fit into the plot, etc... first and then picking or designing a monster that matches what you need rather than worrying about CR upfront.
If you still feel like using a Character sheet, it's normally a Player level +4. CR 1:Lvl. 5, 2:6, 3:7 ...
You can use levelled characters as adversaries, but the rules don't give you a lot of support (e.g. there's no standard rule for calculating CR), and they tend to be glass cannons that result in extremely swingy fights that might not be all that satisfying. A reasonable boss fight for level 1 PCs is a CR 1 plus some adds, or a CR 2 by itself.
I am inclined to agree with the other posters.Using villains generated as PCs can be tricky, even for more experienced DMs. They tend to not have enough HP to put up a reasonable fight, and they tend to have a lot of extra stuff that will likely never come up, and will also likely get in the way of running the combat efficiently. There are other potential issues as well.
If you want to have a Villain that feels like a PC, but runs far more smoothly, and presents a cleaner encounter for the Party, I would suggest using on of the existing monsters with the NPC tag. They can represent exactly that sort of villain, but they are easier to use both in encounter design and in running the actual encounter itself. Besides, most of the work is already done for you. Perhaps something from this list would suit your needs:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters?filter-type=0&filter-search=&filter-cr-min=&filter-cr-max=10&filter-armor-class-min=&filter-armor-class-max=&filter-average-hp-min=&filter-average-hp-max=&filter-is-legendary=&filter-is-mythic=&filter-has-lair=&filter-tags=52&filter-source=1&filter-source=4
It would most likely be easier to slightly modify one of those to fit your idea than to try to figure it out using a PC generated villain.
I hope that helps.
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