Challenge rating accuracy

[SliceandDiceKid]

I know it's not a perfect system, but after DMing my first time, the party seemed to trample the challenges I set in front of them. 5th level party of 4 handled several crs above their level, and dominated the minions I sent their way. Not complaining, as my BBEG killed two of them and downed a third, before the paladin smote him.

Thoughts?

[Demonic Spoon]

CR is a way of classifying monsters into XP/difficulty brackets. You aren't supposed to balance encounters solely based on CR.

XP budgets are described in the DM basic rules.

[silveralen]

It is.... odd.

Some of the CRs seem to under or overvalue certain traits, and aren't 100% consistent with one another.

So far, I'd say that a big CR monster isn't typically as strong as you think, while multiple lower CRs come across stronger in actual play than the game anticpates. That seems to be the opposite of what you encountered though.

[MaxWilson]

I know it's not a perfect system, but after DMing my first time, the party seemed to trample the challenges I set in front of them. 5th level party of 4 handled several crs above their level, and dominated the minions I sent their way. Not complaining, as my BBEG killed two of them and downed a third, before the paladin smote him.

Thoughts?

CR is deliberately skewed in the players' favor. CR-parity encounters ("Medium") are a resource drain and not really a threat. A level 5 party is supposed to have basically a 100% chance of victory against a CR 5 threat--but they face multiple CR 5 threats per day.

If you like more exciting games, or else you just don't think it makes sense that PCs always stumble across threats exactly matched to their level, feel free to throw threats at PCs with CRs (or total XP budgets for groups) that are way over or under their level. 3 hobgoblins are a Medium threat for 4 3rd level characters; but last Thursday I threw 3 hobgoblins at 3 1st level characters (totally unoptimized, one player completely new to roleplaying). Due to poor tactics one of them was down by the time the real fight started, so with 2 characters it was actually a CR 7 challenge... and yet the PCs (barely) won, and they had a great time! They levelled up immediately afterwards.

In short, yeah, CRs are a gaming construct, not an actual threat evaluation tool. And don't feel obliged to restrict yourself to level-appropriate encounters.

[SliceandDiceKid]

CR is a way of classifying monsters into XP/difficulty brackets. You aren't supposed to balance encounters solely based on CR.

XP budgets are described in the DM basic rules.

Obviously. But cr should have a bearing on encounters you build. Not like it's the end all. I sent much higher CR challenges. My opinion is simply that the CR GREATLY favors pcs. At least at low levels.


CR is deliberately skewed in the players' favor. CR-parity encounters ("Medium") are a resource drain and not really a threat. A level 5 party is supposed to have basically a 100% chance of victory against a CR 5 threat--but they face multiple CR 5 threats per day.

If you like more exciting games, or else you just don't think it makes sense that PCs always stumble across threats exactly matched to their level, feel free to throw threats at PCs with CRs (or total XP budgets for groups) that are way over or under their level. 3 hobgoblins are a Medium threat for 4 3rd level characters; but last Thursday I threw 3 hobgoblins at 3 1st level characters (totally unoptimized, one player completely new to roleplaying). Due to poor tactics one of them was down by the time the real fight started, so with 2 characters it was actually a CR 7 challenge... and yet the PCs (barely) won, and they had a great time! They levelled up immediately afterwards.

In short, yeah, CRs are a gaming construct, not an actual threat evaluation tool. And don't feel obliged to restrict yourself to level-appropriate encounters.

My players were intimidated at first by the wyrmlings and ogres I sent at them (and an ONI), but made short work of them. Again, I'm not sure if CR levels out more at higher levels, It just seems too easy at this point. And they were excited by their success. Satisfaction of players is what motivates me to DM.

[Demonic Spoon]

Obviously. But cr should have a bearing on encounters you build. Not like it's the end all. I sent much higher CR challenges. My opinion is simply that the CR GREATLY favors pcs. At least at low levels.


CR is irrelevant. CR is a way to bucket monsters into XP categories and roughly compare the power level of different monsters. Encounters are balanced by XP budgets.

Are your PCs able to consistently and easily beat Deadly encounters? If so, then your PCs are more powerful than normal, the monsters you picked are underpowered for their XP/CR, or something else is going on.

[Quarterling]

It is.... odd.

Some of the CRs seem to under or overvalue certain traits, and aren't 100% consistent with one another.

So far, I'd say that a big CR monster isn't typically as strong as you think, while multiple lower CRs come across stronger in actual play than the game anticpates. That seems to be the opposite of what you encountered though.

weirdly that's happened to our party quite often it seems the Dragons, vampires and whatever else seems ridiculous, we'll do okay but the scariest encounters are the mobs of weaker CR creatures

[RedMage125]

CR is a way of classifying monsters into XP/difficulty brackets. You aren't supposed to balance encounters solely based on CR.

XP budgets are described in the DM basic rules.

While this is SUPPOSED to be correct, I'm having issues as well.

The XP budgeting tables in the DM Basic Rules regarding multiple monster encounters are not always accurate. It says you should use these tables is you have between 3 and 5 players. I've got 5, and I keep ending up with encounters that are too easy. I started treating them as if they were a large party (use one multiplier lower when calculating XP budget difficulty), and things got better.

Here's an example: When they were level 2, I had an encounter with 8 Stirges.

8 Stirges at 25 XP each = 200 xp. Since there are 8 creatures, for difficulty calculating purposes, I should have multiplied that by 2.5, giving me 500 xp, which should be the Medium difficulty target for a 5 person party.

They wiped them out in 2 rounds. Easy encounter.

So I started treating them as a "larger party".

5 Bullywugs (50 XP each)
4 Giant Frogs (50 XP each)
1 Giant toad (200 XP)

650 XP, 10 creatures would be a x2.5 multiplier, going one lower makes it x2. 1300 XP is in the Deadly category, and that turned out to be a Very Hard encounter. 2 players went to 0 hit points, but no one died.

On a related note, Sleep is an awesome spell.

[MaxWilson]

650 XP, 10 creatures would be a x2.5 multiplier, going one lower makes it x2. 1300 XP is in the Deadly category, and that turned out to be a Very Hard encounter. 2 players went to 0 hit points, but no one died.

Two points:

1.) For 5 level 2 characters, the Deadly budget is actually 200 XP per character. 1300 XP is beyond Deadly. kobold.club calls this "Ludicrous" difficulty, which I think is appropriate. Theoretically it means "you should not use these against this party," but I tend to think of it as "the only kind of fight worth remembering." All my favorite 5E combat memories come out of Ludicrously deadly fights.

2.) Since Deadly means "could be lethal for one or more characters; the party risks defeat," the mere fact that no one actually died doesn't mean it wasn't really a Deadly fight. Emphasis added.

[Ghost Nappa]

*snip*

While I can appreciate the hard work you put into planning your encounters, might I suggest using this as a resource (http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder) instead?

[RedMage125]

Two points:

1.) For 5 level 2 characters, the Deadly budget is actually 200 XP per character. 1300 XP is beyond Deadly. kobold.club call this "Ludicrous" difficulty, which I think is appropriate. Theoretically it means "you should not use these against this party," but I tend to think of it as "the only kind of fight worth remembering." All my favorite 5E combat memories come out of Ludicrously deadly fights.

2.) Since Deadly means "could be lethal for one or more characters; the party risks defeat," the mere fact that no one actually died doesn't mean it wasn't really a Deadly fight. Emphasis added.

That's my whole point. An encounter that should have been Moderate was Easy. I threw a compound encounter at them made up of 2 Hard encounters. That ended up actually being a Hard encounter. The closest thing I got to a Moderate encounter was 6 zombies when they were level 2. Something that the books say should be Hard. And that was WITH a cleric in the party who had Turn Undead. Zombie Fortitude is pretty awesome.

I think I need to additionally assume a higher XP budget for the difficulty levels.

[MaxWilson]

That's my whole point. An encounter that should have been Moderate was Easy. I threw a compound encounter at them made up of 2 Hard encounters. That ended up actually being a Hard encounter. The closest thing I got to a Moderate encounter was 6 zombies when they were level 2. Something that the books say should be Hard. And that was WITH a cleric in the party who had Turn Undead. Zombie Fortitude is pretty awesome.

I think I need to additionally assume a higher XP budget for the difficulty levels.

I don't understand your claim that a certain Medium encounter was actually Easy, since Medium and Easy are defined only in the XP budget section, by whose terms a Medium encounter is an objective term referring to the XP budget used to build it and not to the ease by which players deal with it. For the sake of your players, just use the DMG terms, then you can tell them, "Good job! You guys just blew the lid off a maximum-difficulty encounter!" instead of "Oh, that encounter wasn't as difficult as I was hoping, because none of you died."

Substantively I do agree with you, and have said multiple times in this thread, that the CR guidelines are heavily biased in favor of the players. Personally, as a player, I enjoy exceeding those guidelines. So you should allow for self-pacing. This is why dungeons traditionally, in the old days, had level ratings: if you are on level X of the dungeon, you know you're asking for beholders and liches, or (in 5E terms) CR 20 challenges like an entire horde of orcs and wargs. (25 Orcs, 1 Eye of Gruumsh, 1 Orc War Chief, 4 Orogs, and 8 Wargs = CR 20.) If your 8th level characters want to take on that challenge, they can mosey on down to level X and find out. Or they can stay upstairs on level IV and keep fighting lone Fire Giants (CR 8), and collecting only CR 8's worth of reward.

[Safety Sword]

Encounters also become substantially more difficult if you "force" players to use resources on earlier encounters.

Something that should be medium is clearly harder to deal with after a deadly encounter has been survived....

All of these things are guesses at best. All vary by situation.

[JoeJ]

Neither Challenge nor XP budget is ever going to give you anything more than a very crude ballpark estimate of difficulty. Too much depends on the party composition, the environment, and the tactics used by the players. If the encounters you're creating are too easy to be fun, you just need to use more powerful monsters and/or increase the numbers until they feel right.

One very easy way to adjust the difficulty is to have enemies arrive after the fight is started. So, for example, in round 1, one of the hobgoblins blows a horn to call for help. On round 3, more hobgoblins arrive to help out, but the numbers are adjusted based on how the PCs are doing; If they're holding their own maybe 2 more hobgoblins show up. If they've already killed the first batch, the reinforcements will number 6 and they'll have an ogre with them. If the party is barely hanging on, then maybe it's only a pair of kobolds and they don't get there until round 5. The players don't know what you've written in your notes, so you can just roll some dice, look at your notes, and choose whatever result will make the encounter a better challenge.

[Demonic Spoon]

8 Stirges at 25 XP each = 200 xp. Since there are 8 creatures, for difficulty calculating purposes, I should have multiplied that by 2.5, giving me 500 xp, which should be the Medium difficulty target for a 5 person party.

They wiped them out in 2 rounds. Easy encounter.


For one, a 5 person party is on the high end for the range of 3-5, and isn't 500 Xp on the low end for a Medium encounter?

also, you had Sleep, which is extremely powerful against hordes of weak enemies.

[MaxWilson]

For one, a 5 person party is on the high end for the range of 3-5, and isn't 500 Xp on the low end for a Medium encounter?

No, 500 XP is the upper bound for a Medium encounter for five 2nd level PCs. 501 XP is the low end of Hard.

[Demonic Spoon]

No it isn't. The Hard difficulty threshold for 5 level 2 PCs is 5 * 150 = 750 XP.

The medium-difficulty threshold is 5 * 100 = 500.


Compare XP. Compare the monsters’ adjusted XP
value to the party’s XP thresholds. The closest threshold
that is lower than the adjusted XP value of the monsters
determines the encounter’s difficulty.
For example, an encounter with one bugbear and
three hobgoblins has an adjusted XP value of 1,000,
making it a hard encounter for a party of three 3rd-level
characters and one 2nd-level character (which has
a hard encounter threshold of 825 XP and a deadly
encounter threshold of 1,400 XP).

Nothing below 750 XP can be a Hard encounter.

If the adjusted XP value of the encounter was 500, then we start looking down from 500 to find the nearest XP threshold - that's Medium at 500. Given that your party was slightly larger than the baseline assumption made by encounter multiplier rules (4 players), that barely even counts as a Medium encounter - I'd consider it more of an Easy one, especially since he had access to one of the few powerful AoE spells at level 2.

[MaxWilson]

[re-reads DMG]... you are correct. That means there's a bug in kobold.club: it's overreporting the difficulty of every encounter that doesn't fall exactly on a threshold.

So all the encounters that I thought were Medium are actually Easy, and the ones I thought were Ludicrously difficult are actually just Deadly: there is no upper limit on Deadly encounters. And encounters that don't meet the Easy threshold, well, I don't know what they are (Trivial?), but they're not worth worrying about anyway.

Thanks for pointing this out, this is pretty important.

[Demonic Spoon]

I can see how some people were misinterpreting that, especially if kobold club was doing it incorrectly

[Ghost Nappa]

[re-reads DMG]... you are correct. That means there's a bug in kobold.club: it's overreporting the difficulty of every encounter that doesn't fall exactly on a threshold.

So all the encounters that I thought were Medium are actually Easy, and the ones I thought were Ludicrously difficult are actually just Deadly: there is no upper limit on Deadly encounters. And encounters that don't meet the Easy threshold, well, I don't know what they are (Trivial?), but they're not worth worrying about anyway.

Thanks for pointing this out, this is pretty important.

The hard part is then contacting whoever is responsible for maintaining/creating it and telling them of the error. The page I listed to is literally just a web-tool. There's no contact information on the page itself. There might be information somewhere if someone used F9 but I'm not savvy enough with HTML and Javascript to have any confidence using it as a method to find contact info.

Edit: Google is my friend. It found this (http://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/2ikkgc/introducing_koboldclub_updates_to_my_encounter/). Unfortunately, I'm not on reddit.

[Demonic Spoon]

Found the relevant github page and sent him an email with a link to this thread.

[Selkirk]

yeah cr is problematic for my group as well. encounters are either easy or tpk with little to no middle ground. we are either curb stomping monsters or getting kicked in the crotch :D. most encounters are easy/dull but echoing from above the frustrating part is low level enemies are often more challenging than higher cr creatures.

and i do agree that resources play a huge part but so does distance. if we are 60 ft away from creatures we win easy. closer fights are more dicey. and dmg does suggest an average adventuring day is 5-6 medium encounters (seems a bit much) with 2 short rests factoring in. getting good cr balance is tough...we need more published adventures from wotc to see how they are handling it.

notes-from lmop the only truly memorable fight we have had was against klarg and his wolf...and of course minions. of course at that point we were level 1...since then it's been easy encounters except for a few irritating low level mob encounters which got deadly (detailed in another thread :smalleek:).

[Demonic Spoon]

With regards to the kobold club tool: the developer confirmed the issue, and that XP values were calculated correctly but that they were rounded up instead of down. So, hopefully that gets fixed soon.


yeah cr is problematic for my group as well. encounters are either easy or tpk with little to no middle ground. we are either curb stomping monsters or getting kicked in the crotch :D. most encounters are easy/dull but echoing from above the frustrating part is low level enemies are often more challenging than higher cr creatures.


As said before, CR is not supposed to be accurate. CR is not how you balance encounters. That is a non-supported relic of 3e.

[Selkirk]

As said before, CR is not supposed to be accurate. CR is not how you balance encounters. That is a non-supported relic of 3e.

yeah that's true, it's supposed to be xp budget...which relies on monster cr. dmg explicitly warns against putting parties against higher cr monsters (creatures that could kill party members in one strike etc...). i suppose the problem is that it's impossible to know how powerful party a at level 4 is compared to party b at level 4.

ultimately relies on dm knowing the party and adjusting encounters up or down (adding or subtracting monsters...or increasing/decreasing monster levels). if the party is cruising thru encounters then beef them up. still its a very fine line between tpk and cakewalk. wish they had given more sample encounters just so we could benchmark chars at given levels.

[Demonic Spoon]

Sort of. Note that CR is usually a lowball for XP budgeting. A CR 1 creature is only barely a medium encounter for a party of 4 level 1 characters, and with 5+ characters it's an Easy encounter.

at higher levels it gets more severe - a single CR 5 creature is outright Easy for a party of level 5 characters.


I've actually had a lot of success using the encounter balancing rules as they are written. You of course still need to know your party, but I think it's a very effective mechanism.

[Safety Sword]

You of course still need to know your party, but I think it's a very effective mechanism.

I think this is the crux of encounter balancing.

[Shining Wrath]

While it's more work, have you considered testing your encounters? You are the DM; you should have copies of the character sheets; run an encounter on your own with guesses on which resources the party might choose to use (i.e., spells and long-rest-recharge features) and see how it goes.