So in the game levels 1-4, characters have 1 attack and the CR rating with the average health pool seems fine. Then they get to level 5 and everything doubles for the players immediately and the average health pool feels very week compared to the double damage that they are now doing. 100% jump in one level but the CR Rating scales slowly upwards? This is a huge balance problem. How do you guys handle this? I've been giving all my Monsters max health at level 5+? This definitely helps but is there something else I'm missing or something else that is a better solution?
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To know the light, you must sometimes experience the dark.
Well, looking at the DMG's table for balancing homebrew monster, HP and DPR scale linearly from CR 3 to 5. AC and attack bonus go up 2 points each in 2 levels, but that only does a fraction more than keep up with PC's ASI and PB increases.
Where I think the rules really balance this is the encounter difficulty rules. The experience threshold for level 5 characters is double the threshold of a level 4, but the XP of a CR 5 monster is not double the XP of a CR 4. With this, a CR4 vs 4 level 4 PCs is a medium encounter, but a CR 5 vs 4 level 5 PCs is an easy encounter. In fact a single CR 6 is now the same difficulty as a CR 4 was a level earlier.
Tl;Dr PC level and monster CR were not meant to be compared to one another. CR is part of the encounter building rules, and the encounter building rules as a whole are (roughly) balanced to PC level.
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So in the game levels 1-4, characters have 1 attack and the CR rating with the average health pool seems fine. Then they get to level 5 and everything doubles for the players immediately and the average health pool feels very week compared to the double damage that they are now doing. 100% jump in one level but the CR Rating scales slowly upwards? This is a huge balance problem. How do you guys handle this? I've been giving all my Monsters max health at level 5+? This definitely helps but is there something else I'm missing or something else that is a better solution?
To know the light, you must sometimes experience the dark.
Well, looking at the DMG's table for balancing homebrew monster, HP and DPR scale linearly from CR 3 to 5. AC and attack bonus go up 2 points each in 2 levels, but that only does a fraction more than keep up with PC's ASI and PB increases.
Where I think the rules really balance this is the encounter difficulty rules. The experience threshold for level 5 characters is double the threshold of a level 4, but the XP of a CR 5 monster is not double the XP of a CR 4. With this, a CR4 vs 4 level 4 PCs is a medium encounter, but a CR 5 vs 4 level 5 PCs is an easy encounter. In fact a single CR 6 is now the same difficulty as a CR 4 was a level earlier.
Tl;Dr PC level and monster CR were not meant to be compared to one another. CR is part of the encounter building rules, and the encounter building rules as a whole are (roughly) balanced to PC level.