D&D 5E (2024) 5e 2024 − The Monster Math

[Weiley31]

What evidence do you have that they used maths?

Well, if cookies were used, then all the crumbs on the table suggest they were all eaten before monster crafting. Math would be the next best option after the snickerdoodles are gone.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Let's take a look at the final battle in The Sunless Citadel. Per the module, the characters should be 3rd level when they have this fight.

The NPCs and monsters - Belak, Sir Braford, Sharwyn, the giant frog, and three twig blights - add up to 775 XP.

Under the 5e model, the number of monsters multiplies that to 1900 xp, or a deadly encounter for a 3rd level party of 4 characters.

Under 5.5, 775 XP is a moderate encounter for a 3rd level party of 4. To push it up to high difficulty, we technically need to add 130 XP to exceed the moderate listing, but that doesn't feel right.

I'd expect to aim for 1600 XP for a high difficulty fight, giving us 825 XP to add. We could clone each of the creatures and still be short.

In other words, to make the final fight in a 5e adventure work you need to double the threat or add a CR 3 and a CR 1/2 creature to the fray.

EDIT TO ADD: That also means that Belak is no longer the toughest NPC or creature in the encounter. He's CR 2.

That's wild. I'd expect them to keep the XP and CR values the same, but then make the individual creatures more powerful.

That feels like the opposite of what they said they were going for.

 

[mearls]

That feels like the opposite of what they said they were going for.

Agreed. The talked about keeping the CRs the same but changing the numbers. A much simpler approach would've been to up the CR numbers, then adapt the Xanathar's Guidelines or simplify the DMG ones.

That's why I think they double corrected. It feels like one team tinkered with monsters, and another tinkered with the DMG encounter building rules. I get why they'd get rid of the multipliers, but it makes 5e adventures much harder to use. I think it will be easier to start from the 3e adventure than to try to figure out the XP gap and fill in the 5e version.

 

[Charlaquin]

Agreed. The talked about keeping the CRs the same but changing the numbers. A much simpler approach would've been to up the CR numbers, then adapt the Xanathar's Guidelines or simplify the DMG ones.

That's why I think they double corrected. It feels like one team tinkered with monsters, and another tinkered with the DMG encounter building rules. I get why they'd get rid of the multipliers, but it makes 5e adventures much harder to use. I think it will be easier to start from the 3e adventure than to try to figure out the XP gap and fill in the 5e version.

I mean, apart from the lack of group size multiplier, the XP budget guidelines are the same up to 5th level (due to the affirmationed shift from floors to ceilings), and very close from 6th to 10th. Beyond that the 2014 math was far enough off that correcting both the XP budgets and the monster stats may have been warranted.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Well, if cookies were used, then all the crumbs on the table suggest they were all eaten before monster crafting. Math would be the next best option after the snickerdoodles are gone.

If maths was used, you would expect a consistent formula to be reverse engineerable. The fact that there isn't one suggests that maths wasn't used - at least not in the same consistent fashion for everything.

I've been successfully designing my own monsters since 1st edition, and I've never relied on mathematical formulae.

 

[mamba]

If maths was used, you would expect a consistent formula to be reverse engineerable. The fact that there isn't one suggests that maths wasn't used - at least not in the same consistent fashion for everything.

or it suggests that monsters are pretty varied, making the reverse engineering very hard to impossible. How much damage is knocking someone prone worth? What about the countless other things that do not just deal damage to one target? and on and on for defenses

WotC definitely has guidelines on this, they are not just making the monsters up as they go along and then tweak them slightly from playtesting…

 

[Paul Farquhar]

How much damage is knocking someone prone worth?

It depends on the situation.

Which is why it's impossible to calculate mathematically. There are lots of variables that you simply do not know.

So you guess.

 

[CrashFiend82]

Agreed. The talked about keeping the CRs the same but changing the numbers. A much simpler approach would've been to up the CR numbers, then adapt the Xanathar's Guidelines or simplify the DMG ones.

That's why I think they double corrected. It feels like one team tinkered with monsters, and another tinkered with the DMG encounter building rules. I get why they'd get rid of the multipliers, but it makes 5e adventures much harder to use. I think it will be easier to start from the 3e adventure than to try to figure out the XP gap and fill in the 5e version.

The modules very rarely followed the encounter building guidelines, as has been noted by a number of people over the years. Either people run them strictly by the book and won't much care, or people like myself rip them apart and rebuild them and will use the new guidelines.

 

[CrashFiend82]

These comparisons are invalid. A tipoff is that the terms for encounter difficulty have changed from 2014 to 2024; 2024's "Moderate" is not 2014's "Medium" (there is no "Medium" in 2024), it's equivalent to 2014's "Hard". To make some valid comparisons:

2014 - 10th level, 4 characters, Medium difficulty => 4800 XP (the floor) - 7599 XP
4 CR 3 monsters (taking into account numerical adjustment) is 5600 effective XP
Total HP: 240; Total Damage/Round: 80

2024 - 10th level, 4 characters, Easy difficulty => up to 6400 XP (the ceiling)
4 CR 4 monsters is 4400 XP
Total HP: ?; Total Damage/Round: ? (not sure where you were getting these to update)

The difference between the two isn't as great as you might've thought.

The numbers came from Teos's calculations in his video. While I realize they are not fully equivalent, Moderate and Medium are synonymous. Most DMs will look at building encounters and think "this should be a decent challenge" and just choose Moderate. I wanted a mathematical comparison.

After years of building encounters and running them for 2014. I am excited by the new guidelines because, hopefully a Moderate challenge will "feel" more correct instead of just being a minor speed bump.

 

[Senior_WotC_Janitor]

What evidence do you have that they used maths?

Hopefully they didn't use "maths" because British English is ridiculous.