Demonic Spoon
2014-11-18, 09:30 PM
So, the DMG will have rules for creating NPCs using player character classes and figuring out what their CR is. Those are probably better than anything here, but since we have a bit to wait for the official rules, I was thinking of a way to sort-of calculate the CR of a level X (non)player character. I'd like to see what the rest of you think of this:
We'll start with a basic assumption: An encounter worth just enough XP to qualify as a Deadly encounter has a roughly 50/50 chance of beating the party. In practice, we may need to adjust this up a bit (an average party of level X can probably beat an encounter with the minimum XP budget to count as Deadly to them)
Let's use 6th level characters as an example. 4 6th-level characters has a deadly encounter XP threshold of 5600 XP, which means that one 6th-level character is worth 5600/4 (1 character) / 2 (Encounter multipliers) = 700 XP.
700 XP is exactly a CR3 monster. Let's compare a Knight against a level 6 Champion fighter.
A level 6 champion fighter, assuming human + standard array for simplicity, could have 20 strength, and 16 CON assuming no feats and maxing strength and con, meaning (10 + 5*(5.5+3)) = 53 hitpoints. Bonus action Second Wind gives effective hitpoints of 53 + (1d10+6)= ~12 = 65. With a greatsword and GWF style, that's +8 to attack, 2 attacks with a greatsword. Because of GWF fighting style rerolls, the average damage per attack is 2 * 4.16 (avg damage for 2d6 reroll 1s and 2s) + 5 = 13.32 damage per attack. Also, it has action surge and improved critical.
AC-wise, we could assume 18 AC from plate mail.
Let's compare this with a Knight (CR 3 NPC, DM basic rules p 54). Knight has 52 HP and 18 AC, so less effective HP and same AC as our fighter. I'd say Parry + leadership is almost but not quite as good as Action Surge. The knight will attack with a +5 attack bonus and 2d6+3 damage, which averages 10 damage per attack with 3 less attack bonus.
So, our hypothetical champion fighter wins by a decent but not overwhelming chunk. However, this is all dependent on the initial XP assumption detailed above, which I think was a substantial lowball - I think most parties could probably handle a single Deadly encounter at the minimum deadly XP threshold, so the accuracy of this method would improve quite a bit if we just bumped the starting XP by 15-20% (~6580 XP instead of 5600). Also, the hypothetical character I used is probably less optimized than the average character in the average game,but not by too much, so that affects it a bit.
Still, I think this method has some potential.
Thoughts?
We'll start with a basic assumption: An encounter worth just enough XP to qualify as a Deadly encounter has a roughly 50/50 chance of beating the party. In practice, we may need to adjust this up a bit (an average party of level X can probably beat an encounter with the minimum XP budget to count as Deadly to them)
Let's use 6th level characters as an example. 4 6th-level characters has a deadly encounter XP threshold of 5600 XP, which means that one 6th-level character is worth 5600/4 (1 character) / 2 (Encounter multipliers) = 700 XP.
700 XP is exactly a CR3 monster. Let's compare a Knight against a level 6 Champion fighter.
A level 6 champion fighter, assuming human + standard array for simplicity, could have 20 strength, and 16 CON assuming no feats and maxing strength and con, meaning (10 + 5*(5.5+3)) = 53 hitpoints. Bonus action Second Wind gives effective hitpoints of 53 + (1d10+6)= ~12 = 65. With a greatsword and GWF style, that's +8 to attack, 2 attacks with a greatsword. Because of GWF fighting style rerolls, the average damage per attack is 2 * 4.16 (avg damage for 2d6 reroll 1s and 2s) + 5 = 13.32 damage per attack. Also, it has action surge and improved critical.
AC-wise, we could assume 18 AC from plate mail.
Let's compare this with a Knight (CR 3 NPC, DM basic rules p 54). Knight has 52 HP and 18 AC, so less effective HP and same AC as our fighter. I'd say Parry + leadership is almost but not quite as good as Action Surge. The knight will attack with a +5 attack bonus and 2d6+3 damage, which averages 10 damage per attack with 3 less attack bonus.
So, our hypothetical champion fighter wins by a decent but not overwhelming chunk. However, this is all dependent on the initial XP assumption detailed above, which I think was a substantial lowball - I think most parties could probably handle a single Deadly encounter at the minimum deadly XP threshold, so the accuracy of this method would improve quite a bit if we just bumped the starting XP by 15-20% (~6580 XP instead of 5600). Also, the hypothetical character I used is probably less optimized than the average character in the average game,but not by too much, so that affects it a bit.
Still, I think this method has some potential.
Thoughts?