D&D 5E Fixing Challenge Rating

[Shardstone]

Again, in my experience, more monsters tends to extend fights, which increases the number of dice rolled, which increases the probability of non average results (critical, very high or very low damage, failed saves) but it doesn't actually increase difficulty-- at least not to the extent that the chart suggests.

Correct. I hate running full combats with more than 5 or so monsters for this reason, and its a big reason why I developed Raid rules for my upcoming release, and also why I embrace minion rules. With minions and raiding parties, I can have swarms without any added time to the combat. Minions have the added benefit of becoming living traps.

On top of that, adding a lot of monsters doesn't do as much for a combat's difficult as a unique arena does. The threat of serious fall damage, explosives, roof collapses, poison, darkness, and so on can jack up difficulty and add a much more tactical element to the combat. And since most vanilla 5E monsters are really boringly designed, adding more monsters tends to result in adding more bite or claw attacks. Yippee.

 

[tomedunn]

Again, in my experience, more monsters tends to extend fights, which increases the number of dice rolled, which increases the probability of non average results (critical, very high or very low damage, failed saves) but it doesn't actually increase difficulty-- at least not to the extent that the chart suggests.

Increasing the number of dice rolled (specifically attack rolls and saving throws) will make the results more consistent, not less. You might be more likely to roll a critical hit or a high damage roll, but those make up a smaller portion of the overall result than a single critical hit or high damage roll from an encounter where fewer dice are rolled.

Here's an example illustrating this effect from my article on the damage variability from attacks, it shows how the distribution of damage looks for 8d6 total damage distributed across 1, 2, and 8 attacks that each have a 60% chance to hit and a 5% chance to critically hit.

All deal the same average damage overall, but the damage variability decreases as the number of attacks increases.

If we think of this in the context of balancing combat, if these represent the damage a single PC with 30 HP would take in an encounter with each of these monsters, the monster that attacks once for 8d6 would be significantly deadlier than the one that attacks 8 times for 1d6 each.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Increasing the number of dice rolled (specifically attack rolls and saving throws) will make the results more consistent, not less. You might be more likely to roll a critical hit or a high damage roll, but those make up a smaller portion of the overall result than a single critical hit or high damage roll from an encounter where fewer dice are rolled.

Here's an example illustrating this effect from my article on the damage variability from attacks, it shows how the distribution of damage looks for 8d6 total damage distributed across 1, 2, and 8 attacks that each have a 60% chance to hit and a 5% chance to critically hit.

View attachment 350482

All deal the same average damage overall, but the damage variability decreases as the number of attacks increases.

If we think of this in the context of balancing combat, if these represent the damage a single PC with 30 HP would take in an encounter with each of these monsters, the monster that attacks once for 8d6 would be significantly deadlier than the one that attacks 8 times for 1d6 each.

Right, but my feeling is that going into the design of 5e the lessons of 4e monsters were very fresh in the designer's minds. In 4e Solo monsters basically suck because they have weak action economy. A single solo gets one set of actions. Doesn't really matter if it can multi-attack, 90% of them can, but all you have to do is find some way to deprive it of a single action per turn and its potential is DRASTICALLY reduced, often totally nullified. I think going into that edition they thought that the durability of that one creature, that you can't attrit team monster throughout the fight, would balance it out. It doesn't even come close!

Now, the same considerations don't quite apply in 5e, but having learned the lesson "many actions make you dangerous" they A) tuned the game for battles against one monster at a time, and B) assumed that several monsters would be much more deadly, even though their total overall damage output is likely much less variable, AND probably more spread out. However, a basic numerical model cannot easily suss these things out either, so like most RPGs the numbers don't work perfectly.

 

[bedir than]

Why do people want keep using the boring monsters from low levels forever so much?

Because a bandit camp is a bandit camp. It doesn't make sense for the bandits to level up just because your wizard is an arch mage.

Or why are the guards of the king's castle now the equivalent of fire giants, but when you first met them they were soldiers?

 

[Reynard]

Why do people want keep using the boring monsters from low levels forever so much?

I don't like using those enemies when the party is low level either. Even low CR enemies can be weird and interesting.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Because a bandit camp is a bandit camp. It doesn't make sense for the bandits to level up just because your wizard is an arch mage.

Or why are the guards of the king's castle now the equivalent of fire giants, but when you first met them they were soldiers?

Who is proposing that? When some PCs are 20th level why would anyone pit them against some common highwaymen? The problem here isn't some silly idea that ordinary bandits will get ramped up to 20th level, the problem is bad fiction!

 

[bedir than]

Who is proposing that? When some PCs are 20th level why would anyone pit them against some common highwaymen? The problem here isn't some silly idea that ordinary bandits will get ramped up to 20th level, the problem is bad fiction!

It's bad fiction for the PCs that travelled out to the dungeon to come back to the castle of the corrupt king who sent them to the dungeon?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It's bad fiction for the PCs that travelled out to the dungeon to come back to the castle of the corrupt king who sent them to the dungeon?

If they're 20th level what are they doing hanging around ordinary castles and routine dungeons? I mean, sure, maybe they do visit a castle, but they are like demi-gods, the castle guards are not some sort of threat to them. This is just a social call. If it is ACTUALLY dangerous, then we're dealing with Ozymandias, God-King of Fubaria in his interdimensional cloud-castle. YES, his guards are equal to fire giants!

 

[bedir than]

If they're 20th level what are they doing hanging around ordinary castles and routine dungeons? I mean, sure, maybe they do visit a castle, but they are like demi-gods, the castle guards are not some sort of threat to them. This is just a social call. If it is ACTUALLY dangerous, then we're dealing with Ozymandias, God-King of Fubaria in his interdimensional cloud-castle. YES, his guards are equal to fire giants!

What if they're 10th level? Should the guards have leveled up? Why? How? If they were capable of that, why did the king send your party?

Encounters should make sense narratively before anything else.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Who is proposing that? When some PCs are 20th level why would anyone pit them against some common highwaymen? The problem here isn't some silly idea that ordinary bandits will get ramped up to 20th level, the problem is bad fiction!

Not long ago our group of 13th level PCs got attacked by 6th level bandits who had no idea who we were and thought their numbers (3x the party) attacking with ranged weapons from cover outweighed the party's visible weapons & armor.

That was perfectly good fiction and felt appropriate. (Our currently 16th Level party is not visibly significantly more dangerous than at 13th)

It was also a perfectly giddy combat where we blew threw what would have been a TPK the prior in-game year. Two Synaptic Statics annihilated the troops on either side of the road without harming the forest while the melees eliminated the ones in the road.

Some narratives involve establishing new plateaus before the next challenge. Conan book ~5 has him slaughter a group of assailants in a bar as a one-page vignette and go back to drinking like it's a typical Tuesday, where in book ~1 that would have been a major conflict over five pages.