D&D 5E What does the CR number mean in 5E?

jasin

Explorer

• Jan 16, 2018

• #1

I don't have the books, and I think the encounter guidelines I've been looking at might have been from Xanathar's Guide rather than the DMG/MM, so maybe this is covered. If so, just point me at the right section. Otherwise, help me understand what the CR numbers represent in 5E.

In 3E, it was "CR N creature = decent fight for a level N party".

In 4E, it was "CR N creature = for use at or around level N".

In 5E, it seems that the number itself doesn't really have much relation with anything? The encounter building guidelines I've seen have been tables saying "if it's a single monster, use a CR 7 monster for a level 5 party; if it's a bunch of monsters, use 1 CR 2 monster per 1 level 5 PC".

Extensive experience has shown it's exceedingly difficult to make a simple formula of any worth, but wouldn't it be reasonable to simply label those monsters that are a good match for a level N party from at least some angle with CR N? Either "use 1 of these guys per 1 PC for a fun fight" or "use 1 of these against a whole party for a fun fight" or "1 of these is an even match against 1 PC"?

Ultimately, the DM always has to judge themselves how tough the encounter is going to be for a given party, but for a level N party, can I just quickly glance through the MM and pick monsters according to CR (or CR+X, or CR-X) as a starting point, rather than going to the tables?

 

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Stalker0

Legend

• Jan 16, 2018

• #2

Officially, the CR number means that a monster with CR number higher than your party's level may be an "unexpected challenge". It may possess abilities your party doesn't have the means to stop, or do damage in bursts that your party can't account for.

XP is the official number for a monster that you use for determining the challenge of an encounter.

That said, I personally think CR numbers break down past level 5. As many stories on the boards will show, higher level groups can often stomp higher CR monsters with little issue.

 

dave2008

Legend

• Jan 16, 2018

• #3

As noted by [MENTION=5889]Stalker0[/MENTION], in 5e the total XP of the monsters is more important. CR gives you an idea of how difficult a monster is, but because of bounded accuracy the CR of a monster should be viable over a longer range. Thus, you can't say an N level party should use an N level monster. In 5e, you can easily use N-5 or N+5 monsters and create the same challenge. It just depends on how many of those monsters you want in the fight.

 

jasin

Explorer

• Jan 16, 2018

• #4

Ah so simply the XP sum is what I'm looking for? "Y XP is a decent fight for a level N party", regardless of whether that's one guy worth Y XP or 5 guys worth Y/5 XP each? (With the understanding that using CRs a higher or a lot lower than party level makes things even less reliable than usual.)

So a lot like 4E, really, maybe a bit more resilient to the use of below-level CR monsters?

 

Jeff Carlsen

Adventurer

• Jan 16, 2018

• #5

I think of it as "You must be this tall to ride".

Challenge Rating is a poor name for it. It's more of a Threat Level. A measure of what the monster can do with a single action. If you use a single monster with a CR higher than the party, it won't necessarily be much of a challenge to take down, but it might kill a PC in the process.

You may use CRs higher than the party, but it's best to telegraph the threat in some way before the combat. If you plan to drop a combat encounter on the party without warning, then you probably want to keep the CR of each monster at or below the level of the party. Doing otherwise is knowingly taking a risk.

 

Oofta

Legend

• Jan 16, 2018

• #6

As Mr Carlsen mentioned, it's more of a general guideline of what can normally be handled without risking PC death. In addition, it seems to be based on a party of 4 non-optimized players with no feats, magic items, using average characters (standard array/point buy or strict 4d6 drop lowest), with 6-8 encounters per long rest with only a single short rest or two.

Change any of those factors and the effective level of the party increases, perhaps dramatically. I've played in / DMed (or helped DM) different groups at various levels and the gulf between the threat level they could handle was pretty vast because of different choices that were made. No one play style is right or wrong, but the CR guideline was reasonably accurate for one group while another would have stomped it into oblivion it while finishing breakfast without looking up from their morning coffee.

 

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cooperjer

Explorer

• Jan 16, 2018

• #7

As [MENTION=6801845]Oofta[/MENTION] said, there are several factors that influence the effective level of a party, so a system that says "Y XP is a decent fight for a level N party" may not hold true either. My home game has one barbarian and one paladin. In calculating the encounter difficulty I consider the barbarian to be two characters and the mix of a paladin and barbarian, plus the player experience, and a the magic items I handed out causes me to increase the effective level by 1 as well. Right now they are playing as four level elevens characters, but I build encounters using five level 12 characters, with a minimum encounter XP of 10% of daily totals.

For the Adventures League game I run, I use the daily XP and kobold fight club as a guide. There is no guarantee that a barbarian will be playing in the game and there is no guarantee on the number of players I'll have, so I use the average number of players and identify which levels I'll most likely have based on historical records I keep from previous games.

 

T

The Crimson Binome

Hero

• Jan 16, 2018

• #8

jasin said:

Ah so simply the XP sum is what I'm looking for? "Y XP is a decent fight for a level N party", regardless of whether that's one guy worth Y XP or 5 guys worth Y/5 XP each? (With the understanding that using CRs a higher or a lot lower than party level makes things even less reliable than usual.)

Click to expand...

In theory, yes. In practice, a fight against one guy worth Y will probably be a pushover. You generally want to divide Y between two or three guys, but one boss with two flunkies can be as challenging as two co-equal bosses.

 

Quickleaf

Legend

• Jan 16, 2018

• #9

[MENTION=7531]jasin[/MENTION] Are these the guidelines you are looking at? https://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/Encounter_Building.pdf These went on to be printed (in edited form) in Xanathar's Guide.

 

Flexor the Mighty!

18/100 Strength!

• Jan 16, 2018

• #10

It means very little. A rough guideline that is often so rough it is meaningless.