Hello! I’ve been playing DND for a few years, and I’m trying my hand at a completely homebrew campaign. My struggle is trying to keep bosses and encounters balanced. Does anyone have any tips for how I should go about making a boss for a party of 5-7 players? Not sure exactly what level yet, but somewhere in the range of 5-10.
The idea of the boss is that it’s a reformed dead god from the astral plane. Think Calamity Ganon from Breath of the Wild. The gist with him is that when he gets to half heath, he basically (without getting into too much lore or I’ll be here for a while lol) goes through a wormhole and it’s a inter-dimensional chase scene that leads to another (harder because more minions) encounter with him.
Does anyone have any tips for damage and health numbers? Thanks!
There are guidelines in the DMG regarding how to properly calculate CR for your party, but you need to know how many PCs there will be and of what level. There are also guidelines and a chart for how to properly calculate the stats of a homebrewed monster that will give ranges of how much damage it’ll do and how tough it should be, but you need to know what CR you want the monster to be in order to use it. So you really need to know how many players you have and roughly what levels they’re gonna be before you can really start to calculate everything. Do you have anything more concrete than 5-10 players and no idea what level their characters will be?
It's going to depend on a number of factors. My suggestion is that you create a monster first and post it here. I can help you balance the numbers from there.
To surmise, it is about finding the upper limit of "deadly" encounters using CR vs. Character level instead of exp budget as in the DMG or Xanathar's tables.It ignores the idea of adventuring day, and focusing only on the single encounter itself.
1. This way you can instead find monsters of appropriate CR and mechanics.
2. Then you reskin them into your monsters since the math will be figured out on stat block itself.
3. It assumes the encounter is already "deadly" allowing you to simply scale it down by reducing monsters presented (thereby reducing the encounter's total CR).
If you wanted to expand the idea further for more difficulty (a lot more) in Tier 3/Tier 4 of Play you can see below, otherwise ignore the scaling beyond tier 2:
An encounter will be "deadly" if the...
Tier 1, Local Heroes levels 1-4:...total monster CR is greater than 1/4 the total of the characters' levels
Tier 2, Heroes of the realm levels 5-10:...total monster CR is greater than 1/2 the total of the characters' levels
Tier 3, Masters of the Realm level 11-16:...total monster CR is greater than 3/4 the total of the characters' levels
Tier 4, Masters of the World level 17-20:...total monster CR is greater than the total of the characters' levels
I'd advise against starting form scratch, but you can try to follow monster creation on pages 273 through 283 in the DMG. The DMG's monster creation methods might be outdated, if they aren't already, compared to how they're doing things in monsters of the multiverse. You can use the same rules to edit/reskin monsters however.
I’m landing on 5-7 level 10 characters! As for the boss’ CR, maybe 20 based on the stats from the DMG? Should I go higher? Once again, complete noob when it comes to custom boss creation lol
To surmise, it is about finding the upper limit of "deadly" encounters using CR vs. Character level instead of exp budget as in the DMG or Xanathar's tables.It ignores the idea of adventuring day, and focusing only on the single encounter itself.
1. This way you can instead find monsters of appropriate CR and mechanics.
2. Then you reskin them into your monsters since the math will be figured out on stat block itself.
3. It assumes the encounter is already "deadly" allowing you to simply scale it down by reducing monsters presented (thereby reducing the encounter's total CR).
If you wanted to expand the idea further for more difficulty (a lot more) in Tier 3/Tier 4 of Play you can see below, otherwise ignore the scaling beyond tier 2:
An encounter will be "deadly" if the...
Tier 1, Local Heroes levels 1-4:...total monster CR is greater than 1/4 the total of the characters' levels
Tier 2, Heroes of the realm levels 5-10:...total monster CR is greater than 1/2 the total of the characters' levels
Tier 3, Masters of the Realm level 11-16:...total monster CR is greater than 3/4 the total of the characters' levels
Tier 4, Masters of the World level 17-20:...total monster CR is greater than the total of the characters' levels
I'd advise against starting form scratch, but you can try to follow monster creation on pages 273 through 283 in the DMG. The DMG's monster creation methods might be outdated, if they aren't already, compared to how they're doing things in monsters of the multiverse. You can use the same rules to edit/reskin monsters however.
Hmmm… I know CR is kinda… terrible… so do you think 20 is good? Would higher CR be better? He’s probably going to heal through different boss stages.
Exp budget is terrible, and CR is...janky. This method merely reduces it down to only considering the monsters' CR. This is also the "deadly" benchmark, and assumes you won't go over it.
1. With 5 players at level 5 (Tier 2), your encounter's total monster CR is 12.5. Bearing in mind you probably do not want an individual monster higher than a player's level. This would be considered a "deadly" encounter. If you know the encounter heals up based on stages you can treat each phase as its own encounter, but you also need to be aware the players won't be getting a long/short rest between phases. So you may have each phase progress in difficulty instead of all the same. Phase 1: total CR 6, Phase 2: total CR 9, Phase 3: total CR 12.5. Be sure to telegraph that the fight has phases otherwise they may blow their abilities early on, and everyone has to slog through cantrip spam on the final phase.
5-7 players is a lot and if you saw the video he does discuss how the scaling isn't linear when it comes to player synergies. If the players are level 5, the boss itself would probably be a reskinning of a CR 5-6 monster (like a young white dragon) . Any additional monsters would probably be CR 1, and you scale the fight up by adding more or less of these henchmen. So if they're still struggling in phase 1 you might not add too many more henchmen in phase 2.
2. With 5 players at level 10 (still Tier 2), your encounter's total monster CR is 25.
If the players are level 10, the boss itself would probably be a reskinning of a CR 10-11 monster (like a young red dragon). The henchmen might be CR 2 monsters instead of 1. Phase 1: total CR 12, Phase 2: total CR 18, Phase 3: total CR 25.
If you do have 6 or more players then you might have to consider making the boss "legendary" increasing complexity for you. The dragons used as examples here are somewhat strong for their CR when compared to other monsters of similar CR so making them legendary for 5 or less players may be too difficult.
Nothing says a big boss bad guy has to be a single monster.
All those guard BBG count also. If an intelligent bad guy was confronted by a group he would want a group of his own to fight for him, defend him.
Even unintelligent creatures would try to run away unless compelled in some way to stay. In my world unless a dragon was tied down He would try to fly away and then hunt down the offending party over the period of weeks or even years. Attacking the party with a breath weapon every night as it flew by.
Make that bad guy smart and the challenge naturally goes up. The experience for the total encounter is fully up to you.
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Hello! I’ve been playing DND for a few years, and I’m trying my hand at a completely homebrew campaign. My struggle is trying to keep bosses and encounters balanced. Does anyone have any tips for how I should go about making a boss for a party of 5-7 players? Not sure exactly what level yet, but somewhere in the range of 5-10.
The idea of the boss is that it’s a reformed dead god from the astral plane. Think Calamity Ganon from Breath of the Wild. The gist with him is that when he gets to half heath, he basically (without getting into too much lore or I’ll be here for a while lol) goes through a wormhole and it’s a inter-dimensional chase scene that leads to another (harder because more minions) encounter with him.
Does anyone have any tips for damage and health numbers? Thanks!
There are guidelines in the DMG regarding how to properly calculate CR for your party, but you need to know how many PCs there will be and of what level. There are also guidelines and a chart for how to properly calculate the stats of a homebrewed monster that will give ranges of how much damage it’ll do and how tough it should be, but you need to know what CR you want the monster to be in order to use it. So you really need to know how many players you have and roughly what levels they’re gonna be before you can really start to calculate everything. Do you have anything more concrete than 5-10 players and no idea what level their characters will be?
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It's going to depend on a number of factors. My suggestion is that you create a monster first and post it here. I can help you balance the numbers from there.
You can try to use something similar to this method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05VWofhNMHI
To surmise, it is about finding the upper limit of "deadly" encounters using CR vs. Character level instead of exp budget as in the DMG or Xanathar's tables. It ignores the idea of adventuring day, and focusing only on the single encounter itself.
1. This way you can instead find monsters of appropriate CR and mechanics.
2. Then you reskin them into your monsters since the math will be figured out on stat block itself.
3. It assumes the encounter is already "deadly" allowing you to simply scale it down by reducing monsters presented (thereby reducing the encounter's total CR).
If you wanted to expand the idea further for more difficulty (a lot more) in Tier 3/Tier 4 of Play you can see below, otherwise ignore the scaling beyond tier 2:
An encounter will be "deadly" if the...
Tier 1, Local Heroes levels 1-4: ...total monster CR is greater than 1/4 the total of the characters' levels
Tier 2, Heroes of the realm levels 5-10: ...total monster CR is greater than 1/2 the total of the characters' levels
Tier 3, Masters of the Realm level 11-16: ...total monster CR is greater than 3/4 the total of the characters' levels
Tier 4, Masters of the World level 17-20: ...total monster CR is greater than the total of the characters' levels
I'd advise against starting form scratch, but you can try to follow monster creation on pages 273 through 283 in the DMG. The DMG's monster creation methods might be outdated, if they aren't already, compared to how they're doing things in monsters of the multiverse. You can use the same rules to edit/reskin monsters however.
I’m landing on 5-7 level 10 characters! As for the boss’ CR, maybe 20 based on the stats from the DMG? Should I go higher? Once again, complete noob when it comes to custom boss creation lol
Hmmm… I know CR is kinda… terrible… so do you think 20 is good? Would higher CR be better? He’s probably going to heal through different boss stages.
Exp budget is terrible, and CR is...janky. This method merely reduces it down to only considering the monsters' CR. This is also the "deadly" benchmark, and assumes you won't go over it.
1. With 5 players at level 5 (Tier 2), your encounter's total monster CR is 12.5. Bearing in mind you probably do not want an individual monster higher than a player's level. This would be considered a "deadly" encounter. If you know the encounter heals up based on stages you can treat each phase as its own encounter, but you also need to be aware the players won't be getting a long/short rest between phases. So you may have each phase progress in difficulty instead of all the same. Phase 1: total CR 6, Phase 2: total CR 9, Phase 3: total CR 12.5. Be sure to telegraph that the fight has phases otherwise they may blow their abilities early on, and everyone has to slog through cantrip spam on the final phase.
5-7 players is a lot and if you saw the video he does discuss how the scaling isn't linear when it comes to player synergies. If the players are level 5, the boss itself would probably be a reskinning of a CR 5-6 monster (like a young white dragon) . Any additional monsters would probably be CR 1, and you scale the fight up by adding more or less of these henchmen. So if they're still struggling in phase 1 you might not add too many more henchmen in phase 2.
2. With 5 players at level 10 (still Tier 2), your encounter's total monster CR is 25.
If the players are level 10, the boss itself would probably be a reskinning of a CR 10-11 monster (like a young red dragon). The henchmen might be CR 2 monsters instead of 1. Phase 1: total CR 12, Phase 2: total CR 18, Phase 3: total CR 25.
If you do have 6 or more players then you might have to consider making the boss "legendary" increasing complexity for you. The dragons used as examples here are somewhat strong for their CR when compared to other monsters of similar CR so making them legendary for 5 or less players may be too difficult.
Nothing says a big boss bad guy has to be a single monster.
All those guard BBG count also. If an intelligent bad guy was confronted by a group he would want a group of his own to fight for him, defend him.
Even unintelligent creatures would try to run away unless compelled in some way to stay. In my world unless a dragon was tied down He would try to fly away and then hunt down the offending party over the period of weeks or even years. Attacking the party with a breath weapon every night as it flew by.
Make that bad guy smart and the challenge naturally goes up. The experience for the total encounter is fully up to you.