How to use enemies built as PCs against the party

[CircleOfTheRock]

Like the title says; how does one classify an enemy (or a group of enemies) built as a PC as, say, a Medium Encounter against a party consisting of, say, 3 Level 7 PCs?

[leogobsin]

I would say use the Monster Statistics by Challenge Rating table in the DMG (page 274) to assign a challenge rating, then judge the difficulty from there.

[CircleOfTheRock]

I would say use the Monster Statistics by Challenge Rating table in the DMG (page 274) to assign a challenge rating, then judge the difficulty from there.
Yes - but a fair few classes (and particularly spell casters) would be nigh impossible to assign a CR for, wouldn’t you say?

[leogobsin]

I don't necessarily think so, no. Spellcasters you can determine damage per round, save DC and attack bonus for their spells and assign CR accordingly.

[strangebloke]

Yes - but a fair few classes (and particularly spell casters) would be nigh impossible to assign a CR for, wouldn’t you say?

Well, the game isn't really designed for those kinds of encounters.

PvP is not an intended mode of play. Things like action surge are way out of line for stuff like that. You can't assign a CR to something like that because it was never intended as something that the PCs have to deal with. It sounds lame, but honestly just make NPC statblocks. You'll thank yourself later.

Like, consider a plausibly-statted 'sharpshooter' fighter. He's level 17. Realistically, if he starts hunting the players, they are screwed. They can't take cover, he can action surge the first couple of them down, and his accuracy and damage is going to be crazy, starting from a huge distance. But if they encounter him in a narrow hole....

I guess what I'm getting at is that PCs are narrow specialists, whereas monsters are powerful generalists. Sure, most monsters have a couple 'tricks' that they rely on, but they usually have a ranged/melee attack, they usually have insanely high HP compared to PCs, and they often have layers and layers of defensive abilities. Most of them can deal pretty good damage in melee in a pinch.

If you're going this far outside of DND's wheelhouse, you're honestly best off just whinging it.

[CTurbo]

I like using NPC villains rolled up by me before hand. Sometimes I even give them feats. It's hilarious to see a player's reaction when he runs up on an enemy Fighter with Polearm Master lol. It's not always easy to gauge the correct difficulty, but there are many premade "NPC" type characters in the back of the MM so you can usually get it close by looking at how many hit dice they have, AC, and dpr.

One trick I use is to adjust enemy hit points on the fly if things are going too well or not well enough. This typically works. I've never had to get too silly with it. Another option would be to have the bad guys call for back up if the PCs are wiping the floor with them too well.

[Unoriginal]

Like the title says; how does one classify an enemy (or a group of enemies) built as a PC as, say, a Medium Encounter against a party consisting of, say, 3 Level 7 PCs?

As others have said: calculate the DPR/Attack bonus/save DC/AC/HPs and look at the table in the DMG to determine the CR it gives this character.



Yes - but a fair few classes (and particularly spell casters) would be nigh impossible to assign a CR for, wouldn’t you say?

Not nigh impossible, but very tedious and generally too much troubles for an encounter that's likely not worth it.

That's why it's better to use NPC statblocks. You can mod them to give them what you want without issue.