How accurate is the Challenge Rating system for NPCs?

[Mongobear]

So, I am trying to design the NPCs and encounters for a campaign I have just started DMing last week, and mid session, my players began to get overwhelmed until they nearly TPK'd in the "Prologue" that pulled them all together and got the minor plot elements introduced before actually sending them into the major flow of events that leads to the real campaign. It got to the point, that I began inserting healing pots on random dead enemies just so they wouldnt die after every combat encounter.

What they were fighting were a mixture of Orc Warrior 2(NPC) and Goblin Rogue 1 with Elite Array stats + racial modifiers. Most of the encounters in their cave were a pair of Orcs, 4 Goblins, or 1 Orc and 2 Goblins, and there were a few "boss fights" that were slightly better versions of the base versions. Using the CR calculator for NPC classes, the Orcs should have been CR 2, and the goblins CR 1, which for a party of 5 Level 2 PCs fairly optimised towards what theyre supposed to do, and extremely good stats/tactics would have been handled just fine.

The party was as follows, all are ECL 2:

Human Dread Necromancer (18 Strength using a Morningstar 2Handed pretending to be a Battle Cleric)
Human Rogue (standard TWF/weapon finesse trying to fish for sneak attacks since we had a lot of melee)
Dragonborn Trip Fighter (Dragonborn is a custom race I created to replace half-orcs, since they dont exist, but build is the standard reach weapon + imp trip + combat reflexes)
Lesser Tiefling Warlock (Eldritch Spear/Baleful Utterance with good stats in Dex and Cha)
Lesser Aasimar Healer (was on the ball when people were hurt, otherwise sat in the back and plinked with a crossbow)

But it didnt play out that way. After the third room/4th encounter, the Fighter and Rogue were almost out of HP, the MiniHandbook Healer was out of spells and depleting his wand of cure light wounds like mad, and the Dread Necro with an 18 Strength was pretending to be a fighter because 2handing his mace was more effective than his spells and touch attack. The only PC that was functioning at full capacity was an Eldritch Spear Warlock who was staying out of melee and using shatter to try and break the enemies weapons, but he wasnt keeping up, or dealing with absolutely terrible rolls all night.

Was I miscalculating the CRs I assigned to the monsters they were fighting? I went by the book if i was using material covered for CR changes, and occasionally bumping it by +1 if the circumstances werent a regular fight. But at times it just felt like I didnt accomodate for something, and the fights were way harder than they should have been.

[LokeyITP]

Short answer, not very :)

What kind of weaps are your npcs using? Low level, something like falchion (which is the standard orc writeup iirc) is agony unless the players play smart (which they weren't). Sleep, entangle, illusions, a few other cantrip or level 1 spells should have made all that trivial. Even if they're all melee it's plenty doable, but kick open door is just inviting a tpk at any level until you have immunity to everything (and even then...)

That aside (because you might use elves or incorporeals or whatever), low level is pretty unforgiving. Once things start going bad (or even without warning), you're deep in the negatives. It's your job as a DM to keep things fun and challenging but keep that from happening all the time.

[Ssalarn]

A first or second level party is playing rocket tag against monsters like orcs, so it's easy for things to go south very quickly. Your CR wasn't wrong, so much as there aren't a lot of truly "safe" encounters for low level adventurers. A 1st level Wizard has at best a 50/50 chance against the average house cat, let alone an orc. Level 2 only slightly changes that dynamic :P

[Mongobear]

in the first session, the orcs had great axes, which I quickly realised was a mistake, so i started swapping to longspears or falchions, and I had to fudge a roll when an Orc crit a PC for 45 damage, I didnt want someone to die in the intro to the whole campaign, especially since he put so much effort into his character and background.

For the second session, I have swapped them to a mix of random simple weapons, with a few 2handers mixed in for more of a threat. But I still dont know what to do as far as balancing the NPC class levels for a proper group so they dont get into wipefests every night. The Healer did pick up a wand of cure moderate wounds of a random loot hoard, which should help, but I cant stope someone from getting one shot from a max damage crit.

Also, their tactics were pretty sound as far as keeping fights happening on their terms. The tripper was shutting down 1-2 enemies a turn, while the necro and rogue were flanking to take down enemies in unison. But from bad rolls, and low damage at low levels, the warlock wasnt contributing much outside of Shattering a "boss" Orcs weapon a few times.

[Ssalarn]

in the first session, the orcs had great axes, which I quickly realised was a mistake, so i started swapping to longspears or falchions, and I had to fudge a roll when an Orc crit a PC for 45 damage, I didnt want someone to die in the intro to the whole campaign, especially since he put so much effort into his character and background.

For the second session, I have swapped them to a mix of random simple weapons, with a few 2handers mixed in for more of a threat. But I still dont know what to do as far as balancing the NPC class levels for a proper group so they dont get into wipefests every night. The Healer did pick up a wand of cure moderate wounds of a random loot hoard, which should help, but I cant stope someone from getting one shot from a max damage crit.

Also, their tactics were pretty sound as far as keeping fights happening on their terms. The tripper was shutting down 1-2 enemies a turn, while the necro and rogue were flanking to take down enemies in unison. But from bad rolls, and low damage at low levels, the warlock wasnt contributing much outside of Shattering a "boss" Orcs weapon a few times.


Pro tip - More then 1 orc is never an appropriate encounter for a level 1 party, and it's still pushing it at level 2. The damage they deal is actually (notably) higher then some CR 2 and 3 creatures, despite their lower CR designation. They're kind of the monster equivalent of a glass cannon.

[Sayt]

Orcs with 2h weapons are ...problematic. They do a tonne of damage very easily, and get the most out of quite good feats.

I recommend some sword+board enemies, javelineers, that kind of thing, as it tends to be much less swingier.

[Mongobear]

Orcs with 2h weapons are ...problematic. They do a tonne of damage very easily, and get the most out of quite good feats.

I recommend some sword+board enemies, javelineers, that kind of thing, as it tends to be much less swingier.

Yeah I figured that out quickly, when the Orcs were taking out 8-12 hp from each pc every hit, switching to Longspears and Falchions stopped the higher swings, but they were still taking loads of damage if the Orc connected.

Heres the real question I am wondering:

With a party of 5 PCs, when does the threat of a Glass Cannon encounter such as a regular Orc with a 2-Hander stop being an actual threat of one shot territory? The way I designed each stage of the adventure, and the forces of all the major players involved, it would be a massive amount of rewriting to swap everythng from what I started with, to something slightly less threatening. (As explanation goes, the world ive created has very few actual "Monsters" per se, most of the world is inhabited by humanoid races, humans/dwarves/elves/etc so most encounters will be vs NPC Humanoids with class levels, and not big scary beasts in the wilderness.

[Ssalarn]

Yeah I figured that out quickly, when the Orcs were taking out 8-12 hp from each pc every hit, switching to Longspears and Falchions stopped the higher swings, but they were still taking loads of damage if the Orc connected.

Heres the real question I am wondering:

With a party of 5 PCs, when does the threat of a Glass Cannon encounter such as a regular Orc with a 2-Hander stop being an actual threat of one shot territory? The way I designed each stage of the adventure, and the forces of all the major players involved, it would be a massive amount of rewriting to swap everythng from what I started with, to something slightly less threatening. (As explanation goes, the world ive created has very few actual "Monsters" per se, most of the world is inhabited by humanoid races, humans/dwarves/elves/etc so most encounters will be vs NPC Humanoids with class levels, and not big scary beasts in the wilderness.

Orc damage (as presented in their stat blocks with falchions and all) is on par with a CR 3 monster (better than some, truthfully), so I'd try to avoid having more then one or two orcs armed in that manner per encounter until then, unless it's a situation where the party has some chance to mitigate the danger.

[Red Fel]

With a party of 5 PCs, when does the threat of a Glass Cannon encounter such as a regular Orc with a 2-Hander stop being an actual threat of one shot territory? The way I designed each stage of the adventure, and the forces of all the major players involved, it would be a massive amount of rewriting to swap everythng from what I started with, to something slightly less threatening. (As explanation goes, the world ive created has very few actual "Monsters" per se, most of the world is inhabited by humanoid races, humans/dwarves/elves/etc so most encounters will be vs NPC Humanoids with class levels, and not big scary beasts in the wilderness.

It depends on the type of threat and the means the PCs have of mitigating.

For example, HP damage is manageable once the PCs have a few levels under their belts to give them a decent HP buffer. Having resources like miss chance or AC also helps. A good test is to look at the average damage an NPC will do on a full attack - if that could drop a PC, you're still in the danger zone.

Not all NPCs use direct HP damage, though. Higher-level threats have more sophisticated tricks up their sleeves. The trick there is to consider the relevant defense the PCs have. For example, does the NPC in question use poisons? How likely are the PCs to make the save? Does the NPC fly? What means do the PCs have of battling an airborne opponent? And so forth.

Most importantly, keep the action economy in mind. When the PCs outnumber the NPCs, you can afford to make your NPCs a bit tougher, and a bit deadlier, because the PCs can take multiple actions to an NPC's one. When the NPCs outnumber the PCs, the threat should be one of tactics, not of force; smaller, weaker NPCs can still prove a threat if they can use the environment or tactics to their advantage, but they shouldn't individually be able to one-shot PCs.

It's hard to say when each threshold is. It depends on the classes involved, how optimized they are, how skilled the players are, a number of things. For example, a well-equipped mostly-Fighter party is going to have heavier armor pretty soon, and can soak a few hits before having to run away; however, they'll still suffer if faced with touch attacks or save-or-suck effects. A Wizard party could potentially handle any threat preemptively, but only if they win initiative; otherwise you can expect heavy casualties until they start persisting their buffs.

In your party, you have only one heavy armor user, the Fighter. Everyone else is wearing light armor or less. At low levels, they're also not likely to have tricks like miss chance to save them. This means that each PC has two lines of defense - AC and HP. Their AC is likely to be low, and none of the casters are well-equipped to provide magical defense buffs. That means that if the PCs in question get hit - and they will - their best defense is HP.

Your Healer is d8. Your Necro, Rogue, and Warlock are d6. Your Fighter is d10. Assuming you give them max HP at each level instead of making them roll, this means that at level 2, the Fighter will has 20, the Healer has 16, and everyone else has 12 HP. Most standard weapons deal 1d6 or 1d8 damage, ignoring crits and Str modifiers, for an average damage of 3.5 or 4.5. A high roll on a standard weapon - a 6 or an 8 - will cut that in half. If you've been having your players roll for HP, that number will be less, which means that a single high roll on an ordinary weapon - say, a spear - will likely drop anyone but the Fighter.

When the PCs' HP is such that a single high roll deals half of their HP or less, they'll be in better position. At level 5, assuming max HP, the Fighter has 50, the Healer has 40, and the rest have 30. Even assuming that AC is still their only source of mitigation, they'll already be in a better position. A maximum-damage hit from a 1d8 weapon will deal roughly a third of the HP of even the weaker party members. In that sense, level 5 becomes a reasonably foreseeable turning point. All other things being equal, by level 5, mundane attacks should be less of an instant-death situation.

Pretty much anything else, on the other hand...

[LokeyITP]

The party should still be doing better, especially if they're able to fight on their terms. I.e. their terms should mean we disable half our opponents before they can act or something along that line. In your face damage is the toughest spiel to pull off safely (you need more defenses than you have at level 2 and some serious optimization), there are just so many easier ways for the party to solve their problems. It's not like you broke out intelligent constructs/undead/other nasties already :)

If the warlock had a wand of sleep I'd bet you'd have been asking how to ramp up the difficulty lol.

[Mongobear]

For the most part, the part was dealing with the encounters that included the Goblin Rogues just fine, but whenever they encountered the pair of Orcs, thats when things started to go south.

Each of the 3 pregenerated encounters for the dungeon was either:

Pair of Orc Warrior 2 with studded leather/greataxe and Power Attack
Four Goblin Rogue 1 with Shortswords/Hand Crossbows and Imp. Initiative
One Orc and 2 Goblins with equipment

The Goblin encounters were a breeze, but the Orc pairs were what really did a number on them, im not sure if it was roll variance or the challenge was just too much, but tactically they did everything they should have done, but it just wasnt working as it was vs the Goblins.

[Ssalarn]

For the most part, the part was dealing with the encounters that included the Goblin Rogues just fine, but whenever they encountered the pair of Orcs, thats when things started to go south.

Each of the 3 pregenerated encounters for the dungeon was either:

Pair of Orc Warrior 2 with studded leather/greataxe and Power Attack
Four Goblin Rogue 1 with Shortswords/Hand Crossbows and Imp. Initiative
One Orc and 2 Goblins with equipment

The Goblin encounters were a breeze, but the Orc pairs were what really did a number on them, im not sure if it was roll variance or the challenge was just too much, but tactically they did everything they should have done, but it just wasnt working as it was vs the Goblins.

A stock orc's damage with a falchion is 2d4+4 with an 18-20 crit and +5 to hit. A goblin does 1d4 with a 19-20 crit and +2 to hit. The orc is literally over 3 times as dangerous as the goblin.

[Runestar]

Combat at low levels tends to be quite swingy. A few good rolls (for your opponent) and / or poor rolls (for your PCs) can easily spell an early doom for the campaign.

Though by and large, cr for classed npcs still tends to be fairly accurate at lower levels. It does become wildly inaccurate at mid-to-higher levels though (the cr tends to be higher than the actual challenged posed by the npc at higher levels).

You can always trying comparing their stats to those of existing monsters in the MM and see how they stack up.

[Hal0Badger]

As other mentioned, combat is deadly at early levels because your PC's can drop with a single crit from an orc. But, keep in mind that orcs do not use advanced tactics. They rush into the battle, as brutes without thinking.

Average orc warrior has a hp of 5 and AC of 13. Your STR melees should drop one with each hit they got. Instead of rushing them, maybe your PC's use a patient tactic, like waiting them and readying actions. If your reach guy has Combat Reflexes, he could drop 2-3 of them in a round: Orcs not gona stop and think a tactic to beat his, they either rush into him, or they would retreat in fear.
Try not to overplay your orcs more intelligently, like, if they flank, it should coincidence not a planned tactic.

[Telonius]

The best tactics against Orcs at very low levels are probably going to be ranged weapons and/or Grease spells. They can really hurt you if they get close, and you don't yet have the ability to fix or prevent that. So, don't let them get close. If the players are of the "run up and smash it" mindset, they're not going to win; Orcs are just better at that, than they are.

[Hal0Badger]

The best tactics against Orcs at very low levels are probably going to be ranged weapons and/or Grease spells. They can really hurt you if they get close, and you don't yet have the ability to fix or prevent that. So, don't let them get close. If the players are of the "run up and smash it" mindset, they're not going to win; Orcs are just better at that, than they are.
Completely agree here. They are better than party, since they are also disposable.

[Mongobear]

Well, they did eventually manage to work their way through it once i changed the gearing of each orc to have a mixture of weapons, and not all big 2 handers, but the difference that just a weapon swap made to me was so mind blowing, I never expected that giving an Orc a Hand Axe or bunch of Javelins would be so different of an encounter than when they just have a 2handed weapon and stab people.

[Ssalarn]

Well, they did eventually manage to work their way through it once i changed the gearing of each orc to have a mixture of weapons, and not all big 2 handers, but the difference that just a weapon swap made to me was so mind blowing, I never expected that giving an Orc a Hand Axe or bunch of Javelins would be so different of an encounter than when they just have a 2handed weapon and stab people.

Two handed weapons on a high Strength martial are one of the single best methods for delivering single target damage in the game. It's particularly true during the first 3 levels or so, where there aren't really any competing options that have come online yet.

[Mongobear]

Well a lot of it was I didnt design the encounters around their class choices or party make-up, i designed as a "these Orcs are kinda organized and this is what theyve all been given" Going off of previous adventures, I expected the kinds of CC and Disruption effects you would expect low level groups, Sleep, Charm, Grease, etc, but it just didnt come out that way. Everyone kinda made something intended to just blast their enemies and not hinder them.

Like was mentioned before, if the Warlock had a wand of Sleep or if the Necromancer used any debuff spells he may have had access to, the fights would have most likely been much easier. Especially since a random Orc has no Will save to speak of, might even be negative right out of the MM entry.