Are monsters shallow? Is Challenge rating useful?

[Madeiner]

Hi there.

I am a DM of a group that is in process of switching to 5e.
We have been playing 3.5, then converted to pathfinder. The campaign has been going on for some 8 years now and PCs are level 14.
I don't necessarily like 5e that much, but i'm really too tired to have combat take hours to resolve, with characters having to do from four to 7 attacks rolls in a round, having to draw a table for modifiers, added damage, bonuses, maluses, etc.

I've been reading the 5e manuals a few times over and we have made characters now.
We have previously tried a sample fight with four level 14 PCs. By the XP tables it was to be a couple of deadly encounters, but the PCs managed to win very very easily while suffering very little damage and never being in any danger. Is the CR rating any good this time? Or should i ignore it as usual?

Also, i've been inspecting monsters.
For example, the Marilith.

In pathfinder (CR17) it has her standard multiattacks.
Then it has Greater Teleport, Blade barrier, Fly, Unholy aura, it can render people unconscious for 1d8 rounds, it has telekinesis and project image, and it can summon other demons to fight for her.

In 5e (CR16), it can multiattack or teleport 120 feet and that's it. No other ability except for a once per round parry.
Also, it has a +9 to hit (characters have 16-20 AC) and hits for 13 damage, like 6 times. So, if left to its own devices, it should output some 30-40 damage per round against a 120+ hp pool of an average character.

Isn't the monster really shallow? Can it really threaten a level 14 party? It doesn't really look like it.
Are most monsters like this?

[Kane0]

The streamlined design approach that 5e seems to focus on carries over to monsters too. You dont find enemies with long lists of spells snd abilities for the mostpart, and attacks are pretty standard. As usual CR is a guideline and experienced players will usually come out on top.
Try adding in some lair and legendary actions, they work pretty well.
And like all DMs dont forget terrain, strategic and numerical advantages and disadvantages. A high end fiend will usually have some minions around which help against the superior action ecenomy of a party and in 5e can actually still threaten them which is nice.

[xroads]

Are you letting your players keep their magic items from 3.5? 5e down plays the use of magic items quite a bit. So if your players are still using their 3.5 gear, they’ll probably be able to stomp through equivalent level challenges much more easily.

[Clistenes]

Well, I have very little experience with 5th edition, I'm still learning about it too, but the monsters have less tricks now, but you have to take into account that PCs are generally less tough too. You don't get to walk around with a ton of magical items and defensive spells anymore, and each character tends to have several poor saves among the six.

If anything, I would say that monsters are more dangerous. A CR 5 monster isn't as powerful as a single lvl 5 character, it's a challenge for a party of 4 lvl 5 characters.

I tried to use the information in the DMG to calculate the true combat power of every monster and this is what I got.



a CR 1/2 monster is roughly equivalent to a 1 or 2 level character
a CR 1 monster is roughly equivalent to a 2 or 3 level character
a CR 2 monster is roughly equivalent to a 4 level character
a CR 3 monster is roughly equivalent to a 5 level character
a CR 4 monster is roughly equivalent to a 8 level character
a CR 5 monster is roughly equivalent to a 10 level character
a CR 6 monster is roughly equivalent to a 11 level character
a CR 7 monster is roughly equivalent to a 12 level character
a CR 8 monster is roughly equivalent to a 14 level character
a CR 9 monster is roughly equivalent to a 16 level character
a CR 10 monster is roughly equivalent to a 17 level character
a CR 11 monster is roughly equivalent to a 19 level character
a CR 12 monster is roughly equivalent to a 20 level character

And since PCs tend to be a bit of glass cannons now, with many weakensses and little magic to counter them, even low level monsters can be dangerous it they are numerous enough or get a few good attack rolls (or the PCs a few poor saves).

The designers have tried to make the game simpler by making each monster do only a few things. It's more than enough for combat encounters, but I think it detracts from the fluff. Angels, for example, are dangerous bruisers, but they no longer give that semi-divine vibe they had. They are limited in what they can do.

I guess experienced DMs could create monster NPCs with class levels to make them more impressive (Archfiends, Celestial Paragons, Divine Proxies and such).

I wonder if they will give rules to create characters with more than 20 class levels in order to re-create characters like Rowan Darkwood, the Cleric 20 /Ranger 20 factol of the Takers.

[Shining Wrath]

By your calculations, the Marilith can kill a character in 3 or 4 rounds. And it can teleport.

A creature that can teleport into the middle of the party where the squishy people dwell, kill the wizard, and teleport away to seek healing is nothing to sneeze at.

[Safety Sword]

By your calculations, the Marilith can kill a character in 3 or 4 rounds. And it can teleport.

A creature that can teleport into the middle of the party where the squishy people dwell, kill the wizard, and teleport away to seek healing is nothing to sneeze at.

My last fight with my party was a bit like this.

They were trying to funnel the bad guys through a door way.

The bad guys: the monk shadow steps into the back
The Fighter/Mage Misty steps into the middle of the party

It was great to hear the "Oh no" chorus as the party realised that it wasn't the guys with all the hit points I was after.

Can I also say, Abjuration Wizards can boss it...

Sometimes you need to surprise your party and play as really evil guys would. Drop the Life Domain Cleric, watch the fear ;)

[MinotaurWarrior]

Monsters are far, far simpler, usually having one core ability that makes them stand out from just another list of numbers if their a mook, and 2-5 if they're a bigger threat.

I'd say CR works for the most part, as someone DMing a campaign that's gone from 1-5 so far. The thing to keep in mind is (1) the D20 is often more important now and (2) to prey on party vulnerabilities, but not too much. One of the areas where I really think the 5e approach pays off is that I can easily hold in my head what my party is weak to. I know that I can put the fear of DM in my warlock by having something target his dex save, and don't need to worry about the confounding variable of all the crazy buffs that could be being stacked on him. But still, the scariest encounter my PCs have faced thus far was when I threw some very simple orcs at them, but the orcs rolled absurdly well on their stealth checks, the hunter archer couldn't roll anything but a four to-hit, and Sleep failed to take out the main target by precisely 1hp.

So, my advice would be to use CR, but make sure the monsters you choose prey on at least one PC's specific vulnerability - but still, don't expect the 'Deadly' encounter to always be deadly or the 'easy' encounter to always be easy, because you have to factor in random chance.

[pwykersotz]

One thing I like to do is add non-CR affecting abilities that are thematic to the monsters if they're anything more than mooks to be cut through. It's the difference between a Zombie from the MM and a Dust Zombie from the Lost Mines of Phandelver. One is more memorable than the other, provided your players have a baseline experience in the 'normal' stuff.

[Tenmujiin]

CR is a direct measure of a creature's offensive and defensive power in combat and the monster manual is focused on combat abilities (the mind flayer may have some serious limits on his mind control abilities in combat but gove him an hour or two with your unconsious body and you'll be brainwashed in no time).

CR (and exp) basically measure the damage, to hit, AC and HP of a creature with combat abilities and weaknesses altering it somewhat. In addition, a deadly encounter is expected to drop 1-2 members of a 4 man party to 0 at some point in the fight assuming they are trying to conserve resources, a single deadly fight a day should be a cakewalk, its when you have to run 3 mediums and a deadly followed by a short rest and anout two deadlys that your players should feel threatened and even then the dice can lead them to victory or defeat easily thanks to bounded accuracy

[Demonic Spoon]

Hi there.

I am a DM of a group that is in process of switching to 5e.
We have been playing 3.5, then converted to pathfinder. The campaign has been going on for some 8 years now and PCs are level 14.
I don't necessarily like 5e that much, but i'm really too tired to have combat take hours to resolve, with characters having to do from four to 7 attacks rolls in a round, having to draw a table for modifiers, added damage, bonuses, maluses, etc.

I've been reading the 5e manuals a few times over and we have made characters now.
We have previously tried a sample fight with four level 14 PCs. By the XP tables it was to be a couple of deadly encounters, but the PCs managed to win very very easily while suffering very little damage and never being in any danger. Is the CR rating any good this time? Or should i ignore it as usual?

Also, i've been inspecting monsters.
For example, the Marilith.

In pathfinder (CR17) it has her standard multiattacks.
Then it has Greater Teleport, Blade barrier, Fly, Unholy aura, it can render people unconscious for 1d8 rounds, it has telekinesis and project image, and it can summon other demons to fight for her.

In 5e (CR16), it can multiattack or teleport 120 feet and that's it. No other ability except for a once per round parry.
Also, it has a +9 to hit (characters have 16-20 AC) and hits for 13 damage, like 6 times. So, if left to its own devices, it should output some 30-40 damage per round against a 120+ hp pool of an average character.

Isn't the monster really shallow? Can it really threaten a level 14 party? It doesn't really look like it.
Are most monsters like this?

A CR 16 creature is 15000 XP

The Deadly XP threshold for 4, 14th-level characters is 22800.

In fact, even the Hard threshold is only 15200, so the Marilith is very barely a Hard encounter.

A medium-hard encounter is something that level 14 characters are supposed to be able to take 6-8 of in a day, remember, so it seems perfectly fitting that a full party isn't at risk of TPK from a single one.

Similarly, if you're only fighting a couple of encounters in the day, even a deadly encounter is going to be a bit easier than it might normally because the players can dump all their resources into the fight.