D&D 5E Project Monsters by Level (not CR)

[FitzTheRuke]

I'll start with a toy model.

The PCs do 100 damage per round. Monsters have 100 HP, and do 30 damage per round.

You fight 3 monsters. If the PCs lose initiative, the PCs take 90 + 60 + 30 = 180 damage.

To "win" initiative, they have to all 3 beat the initiative of the monster they chose to focus fire, killing it before it acts. That is relatively unlikely on round 1. There is a higher chance on later rounds.

Now we want a combo-monster "worth" 3 monsters to last as long. So we want 300 HP, give or take (X times the HP, where X is 3). The fight takes 3 rounds.

--

Under my model, the 3x combo monster should do (1+X)/2 the damage of a single monster, where X is 3.

So the 3x monster monster does 60 damage per round. The PCs take 60+60+60 = 180 damage.

The idea is that this roughly lines up with the damage they take against the 3 separate monsters.

Thanks. Makes sense.

a) Just dice will mean that a single encounter with monsters of your level is going to have a decent chance of a PC being dead, unless the PCs are optimized and "better than they should be". Like 10%. And PCs in 5e have to undergo 100+ fights to hit level 20.

Nobody gets to level 20 without "cheating" in the described system. You don't win 100s of close to even duels.

I'm not so sure about that. "Drops", for sure. "Dies"? It's not very easy to kill 5e PCs. Or to look at it another way, it's pretty easy not to kill them.

b) Variation of PC build power level is high enough that you'll generate a hard incentive to pick OP PCs. Less OP PCs will die a lot. If you then rebalance for said OP PCs, the process repeats, until you have at best a handful of viable PC builds.

Also, I don't think he's advocating encounter-building to always be set at an "equal" fight. It's just that a DM more easily knows what they're doing, by having an equal fight actually be somewhat equal (but in the PCs favour). You then set "easy" fights by using less monsters or monsters of lower levels.

c) 5e PCs are not designed around 2 encounter days. The endurance vs power output of PCs varies significantly between classes. A rogue's only daily and per-encounter resources is HD; in contrast, a wizard's resources are almost all on a per-day basis. Over a mere 2 encounters, the wizard can dump an entire day's worth of resources and be exhausted; the rogue, in contrast, is at worst a single large heal spell away from being 100% effective after the 2nd fight.

Draining the Rogue's resources precisely would require extreme fine tuning, and would fail at least half of the time, because the only resource you can drain is HP. And the Rogue can't "choose to spend HP". For the Wizard, they get to pick how fast they burn down their spells; depending on perceived danger, they are likely to "overkill" and burn too many spells rather than let themselves fall to single digit HP.

A fine-tuning that both forces the wizard to use all of their spells and drains both of the wizard and rogue's HD and drops them to single-digit HP is inplausible.

I'm also not sure that it's as dire as that sounds, even IF you DO throw two "even" fights at the PCs. I mean, you're right, of course, on where the "problem"-spots lie, but it's all so random in the end that if you mix it up even a little (when it comes to encounter building), it should work well enough.

Honestly, 6-8 encounters per day is such a terrible idea that I advocate for anything that works against it, even if imperfect.

 

[NotAYakk]

Honestly, 6-8 encounters per day is such a terrible idea that I advocate for anything that works against it, even if imperfect.

Wait, what? "Players have to budget their resources over 6-8 encounters" is a terrible idea, as a long rest resets everything.

Are you that much against extended resource management?

I'd argue that non-gritty rests are a bigger problem than the 6-8 encounter combo.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Wait, what? "Players have to budget their resources over 6-8 encounters" is a terrible idea, as a long rest resets everything.

Are you that much against extended resource management?

I'd argue that non-gritty rests are a bigger problem than the 6-8 encounter combo.

No, I'm not against extended resource management, but I AM against trying to cram that many fights into a single day, both story-wise and session-wise (I'd be hard pressed to pass a single day in a month of sessions). Your last sentence is probably true, but I haven't managed to use the "gritty" rules to find out.

 

[dave2008]

Damn, that's convoluted!

Thanks for clarifying

If things were all designed well and equally (no "iconics" like fireball), it would be simple. Just use the damage by spell level chart from the DMG for spell CR purposes. That is what I do, even if it is clearly not 100% accurate (when it is not a straight up damage spell). It is how it should work.

 

[dave2008]

I'll start with a toy model.

The PCs do 100 damage per round. Monsters have 100 HP, and do 30 damage per round.

You fight 3 monsters. If the PCs lose initiative, the PCs take 90 + 60 + 30 = 180 damage.

To "win" initiative, they have to all 3 beat the initiative of the monster they chose to focus fire, killing it before it acts. That is relatively unlikely on round 1. There is a higher chance on later rounds.

Now we want a combo-monster "worth" 3 monsters to last as long. So we want 300 HP, give or take (X times the HP, where X is 3). The fight takes 3 rounds.

--

Under my model, the 3x combo monster should do (1+X)/2 the damage of a single monster, where X is 3.

So the 3x monster monster does 60 damage per round. The PCs take 60+60+60 = 180 damage.

The idea is that this roughly lines up with the damage they take against the 3 separate monsters.



a) Just dice will mean that a single encounter with monsters of your level is going to have a decent chance of a PC being dead, unless the PCs are optimized and "better than they should be". Like 10%. And PCs in 5e have to undergo 100+ fights to hit level 20.

Nobody gets to level 20 without "cheating" in the described system. You don't win 100s of close to even duels.

b) Variation of PC build power level is high enough that you'll generate a hard incentive to pick OP PCs. Less OP PCs will die a lot. If you then rebalance for said OP PCs, the process repeats, until you have at best a handful of viable PC builds.

c) 5e PCs are not designed around 2 encounter days. The endurance vs power output of PCs varies significantly between classes. A rogue's only daily and per-encounter resources is HD; in contrast, a wizard's resources are almost all on a per-day basis. Over a mere 2 encounters, the wizard can dump an entire day's worth of resources and be exhausted; the rogue, in contrast, is at worst a single large heal spell away from being 100% effective after the 2nd fight.

Draining the Rogue's resources precisely would require extreme fine tuning, and would fail at least half of the time, because the only resource you can drain is HP. And the Rogue can't "choose to spend HP". For the Wizard, they get to pick how fast they burn down their spells; depending on perceived danger, they are likely to "overkill" and burn too many spells rather than let themselves fall to single digit HP.

A fine-tuning that both forces the wizard to use all of their spells and drains both of the wizard and rogue's HD and drops them to single-digit HP is inplausible.

Lot to unpack here, but I have to head to a meeting. Will try to respond later.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

A thing about fireball: I played for a whole campaign thinking that 5e fireball did SIX d6 instead of eight, and no one noticed. It was still one of the best spells around. That's how you can tell that 5e fireball is well overclocked.

 

[NotAYakk]

So, the idea that Elite(X) version of monsters have X times the HP and (X+1)/2 times the damage is because normal fights are triangles.

This is also the reason why AOE and multi-target damage is best measured as (primary damage) + 50% * (damage to secondary targets).

Focus fire damage reduces the number of foes, which in turn reduces incoming damage. Spread out damage isn't as effective at reducing incoming damage. The degree to which it is worse is basically the difference between a triangle and a rectangle - 50%!

There are second-order differences, but this is a decent first step. (and while this post might be hand-wavey, I can provide math to back it up. I was amused when my first "guess" of secondary target damage being worth half turned out to actually work regardless of number of foes, size of aoe, etc - with the exception when the AOE finishes foes completely. Then the secondary damage becomes primary damage. But this often lines up pretty well with blowthrough...).

 

[dave2008]

a) Just dice will mean that a single encounter with monsters of your level is going to have a decent chance of a PC being dead, unless the PCs are optimized and "better than they should be". Like 10%. And PCs in 5e have to undergo 100+ fights to hit level 20.

Nobody gets to level 20 without "cheating" in the described system. You don't win 100s of close to even duels.

Well that depends on how I define a "challenge." So that is TBD. However, even if what you propose is the expected challenge, I don't see that as an issue. You don't have to fight monsters of your level. In fact, it isn't recommend to if you want to live a long time. That is kind of the point. You fight monsters of lower level than you, or you gain up on monsters of the same or higher level.

b) Variation of PC build power level is high enough that you'll generate a hard incentive to pick OP PCs. Less OP PCs will die a lot. If you then rebalance for said OP PCs, the process repeats, until you have at best a handful of viable PC builds.

Not sure what this comment is about, but I think...see my response above?

c) 5e PCs are not designed around 2 encounter days. The endurance vs power output of PCs varies significantly between classes. A rogue's only daily and per-encounter resources is HD; in contrast, a wizard's resources are almost all on a per-day basis. Over a mere 2 encounters, the wizard can dump an entire day's worth of resources and be exhausted; the rogue, in contrast, is at worst a single large heal spell away from being 100% effective after the 2nd fight.

Think you are misunderstanding the purpose of this exercise. A monster being equal to a PC's lvl has nothing to do with number of encounters per day. You adjust that by using monsters of lower or higher level depending on what you are going for.

Draining the Rogue's resources precisely would require extreme fine tuning, and would fail at least half of the time, because the only resource you can drain is HP. And the Rogue can't "choose to spend HP". For the Wizard, they get to pick how fast they burn down their spells; depending on perceived danger, they are likely to "overkill" and burn too many spells rather than let themselves fall to single digit HP.

A fine-tuning that both forces the wizard to use all of their spells and drains both of the wizard and rogue's HD and drops them to single-digit HP is inplausible.

I think you are looking at it too literally and precisely. That is not the goal.

 

[NotAYakk]

A sketch of a possible system. Needs a balance pass and details.

Level: Monsters in this system have a Level. The idea is that a level 10 monster is to a level 10 PC as a Level 1 monster is to a Level 1 PC.

Tier: Level 1-4 is Tier 1, 5-10 is Tier 2, 11-16 is Tier 3, 17-20 is Tier 4, 21-23 is Tier 5, 24-26 is Tier 6, 27-29 is Tier 7 and 30 is Tier 8.

Elite: Monsters can be Elite(N). An Elite(2) monster is "two times as wide" as a normal monster of the same level, while an Elite(5) is "five times as wide".

Elite monsters add their proficiency bonus to their AC and saving throws, and add (N-1) to their attack attribute.

Elite monsters gain (N-1) special abilities.

An Elite(N) monster has (N-1) Paragon actions per turn. A Paragon action is a kind of Legendary action.

Your damage budget on a Paragon action is 1/2 of a normal monster's damage budget.

When you take a Paragon action you can make a save against an effect a save can end, but suffer no consequence if you fail. If there is an effect that a save cannot end but had an initial save, you can reroll that initial save; you suffer no consequences if you fail, but if you succeed you can choose to end the spell on you and suffer the consequences of a successful save instead.

Baseline: To build a monster, you start with a baseline monster. Then you add two templates (you can pick the same one twice) and 1 special ability per tier.

Damage: 4+Level
Attacks: 1 per tier
HP: 5+5*level
Attack Attribute: 12 + level
Other Attributes: To taste
Proficiency: 2 + (Level-1)/4 rounded down
AC: 10+Level/2
Movement speed: 30'

Range damage is 1/2 of melee damage if it has it.

You can combine or divide attacks into bigger ones if you want (ie a level 11 creature gets 3 attacks at 15, or one at 45).

Templates

Brute: +level*2 damage, +5+level*5 HP
Soldier: +5 AC, +2+level*2 HP, proficiency in all saves
Sniper: Range damage is not halved melee is instead, +level damage
Skirmisher: +level*2 damage, +10' movement speed per tier, +3 AC, proficiency in dex saves
Artillery: Ranged damage is AOE (10' radius per tier)
Leader: +5+level*5 HP, gets 2 extra special abilities

Special Abilities:

Spellcasting: Pick 1 spell of level Tier+1, 2 spells of level Tier and 3 spells of level Tier-1 or lower. You can cast each once. (for lower level spells, feel free to make them at-will).

Crippling Attacks: When your attack hits it causes a condition. Use an appropriate attribute for the save DC (it should be similar to your attack attribute).

Most effects should offer a saving throw at the end of each turn to shake it off.

Some effects should require multiple failures to kick in.

Poisoned can be shaken off.
Paralyzed should require multiple failures to occur.

Breath Weapon: A typically recharge 56 AOE ability.

I'd recommend having the Breath Weapon's recharge be at the end of a creature's turn, and make it visible, to allow PCs to respond.

Damage should be (8+Level*2) range with a save for half.

Area covered should be 10-15' radius per tier.

A creature that throws a ball of fire would also count as "breath weapon". The point is

Commander's Strike (Leader only)
Allied creatures make an attack in addition to the leader's attacks.

Flight: The creature can fly and has an additional (Tier)*10' movement speed.

Speedy: The creature has an additional (Tier)*20' movement speed.

Defend: As a reaction, can move half its speed and take an attack meant for another.

Pack Tactics: Allies attacks adjacent foes are at advantage.

Strong: Your attack attribute increases by 3+your Tier.

 

[dave2008]

A sketch of a possible system. Needs a balance pass and details.

Level: Monsters in this system have a Level. The idea is that a level 10 monster is to a level 10 PC as a Level 1 monster is to a Level 1 PC.

Tier: Level 1-4 is Tier 1, 5-10 is Tier 2, 11-16 is Tier 3, 17-20 is Tier 4, 21-23 is Tier 5, 24-26 is Tier 6, 27-29 is Tier 7 and 30 is Tier 8.

Elite: Monsters can be Elite(N). An Elite(2) monster is "two times as wide" as a normal monster of the same level, while an Elite(5) is "five times as wide".

Elite monsters add their proficiency bonus to their AC and saving throws, and add (N-1) to their attack attribute.

Elite monsters gain (N-1) special abilities.

An Elite(N) monster has (N-1) Paragon actions per turn. A Paragon action is a kind of Legendary action.

Your damage budget on a Paragon action is 1/2 of a normal monster's damage budget.

When you take a Paragon action you can make a save against an effect a save can end, but suffer no consequence if you fail. If there is an effect that a save cannot end but had an initial save, you can reroll that initial save; you suffer no consequences if you fail, but if you succeed you can choose to end the spell on you and suffer the consequences of a successful save instead.

Baseline: To build a monster, you start with a baseline monster. Then you add two templates (you can pick the same one twice) and 1 special ability per tier.

Damage: 4+Level
Attacks: 1 per tier
HP: 5+5*level
Attack Attribute: 12 + level
Other Attributes: To taste
Proficiency: 2 + (Level-1)/4 rounded down
AC: 10+Level/2
Movement speed: 30'

Range damage is 1/2 of melee damage if it has it.

You can combine or divide attacks into bigger ones if you want (ie a level 11 creature gets 3 attacks at 15, or one at 45).

Templates

Brute: +level*2 damage, +5+level*5 HP
Soldier: +5 AC, +2+level*2 HP, proficiency in all saves
Sniper: Range damage is not halved melee is instead, +level damage
Skirmisher: +level*2 damage, +10' movement speed per tier, +3 AC, proficiency in dex saves
Artillery: Ranged damage is AOE (10' radius per tier)
Leader: +5+level*5 HP, gets 2 extra special abilities

Special Abilities:

Spellcasting: Pick 1 spell of level Tier+1, 2 spells of level Tier and 3 spells of level Tier-1 or lower. You can cast each once. (for lower level spells, feel free to make them at-will).

Crippling Attacks: When your attack hits it causes a condition. Use an appropriate attribute for the save DC (it should be similar to your attack attribute).

Most effects should offer a saving throw at the end of each turn to shake it off.

Some effects should require multiple failures to kick in.

Poisoned can be shaken off.
Paralyzed should require multiple failures to occur.

Breath Weapon: A typically recharge 56 AOE ability.

I'd recommend having the Breath Weapon's recharge be at the end of a creature's turn, and make it visible, to allow PCs to respond.

Damage should be (8+Level*2) range with a save for half.

Area covered should be 10-15' radius per tier.

A creature that throws a ball of fire would also count as "breath weapon". The point is

Commander's Strike (Leader only)
Allied creatures make an attack in addition to the leader's attacks.

Flight: The creature can fly and has an additional (Tier)*10' movement speed.

Speedy: The creature has an additional (Tier)*20' movement speed.

Defend: As a reaction, can move half its speed and take an attack meant for another.

Pack Tactics: Allies attacks adjacent foes are at advantage.

Strong: Your attack attribute increases by 3+your Tier.

I like what you have done here, but we need to verify if the numbers add to a "typical" PC at each level. But this is a good framework.