D&D 5E 5E Challenge Ratings

[Sword of Spirit]

There is no correlation between HD and CR in 5e. In that sense, monsters are completely unlike 3e monsters. In 5e, CR is a hard stat, because your proficiency bonus is derived from it, rather than a soft stat that is just used for encounter building and XP as it was in 3e.

The only thing monster HD are used for is determining hit points. They are there for consistency (and in case you want to let them spend HD like PCs), but they could just as easily have assigned an arbitrary hit point value for all their effect on the creature overall. I assume they start with about the number of hit points they want a monster to have, and then give them the appropriate number of HD that, combined with their Con mod, will produce that value. There are creatures with quite low CRs and a ton of HD. I do prefer this method to arbitrary hit points, although I'm sure there are others who wouldn't care one way or the other.

The tricky part for me is "interpreting" the non-player character stats in comparison to PCs, for purposes of determining where that NPC fits in the world. (It's hard to explain what I'm getting at, but for those familiar with 3e NPC classes, that's kind of what I'm thinking of.) I finally settled with assuming their HD/hp represent about where their point of comparison to a PC should be, and the PC's greater class abilities at that HD/hp value representing the PC's elite training. It's not perfect, but I need something for my moderate simulationist approach.

 

[Talaeden_Denthiir]

[MENTION=184]Agamon[/MENTION],
Then thank that Magic 8 Ball for me .

 

[Prism]

The sooner we get the monster building tools the better than

I actually think you would start with CR first , pick some stats, proficiencies and number of attacks and hit points. Different to how I would have done it in previous editions which always tended to start with Hit Dice or Level and work from there.

 

[Talaeden_Denthiir]

@ Sword-of-Spirit,

Thanks, that makes a bit more sense now. Although 3.x had many
Awesome Sauce moments, for me (IMHO), the CR system wasn't
One of them. I'm glad the 5E CR system is a horse of a different
Color. So, even though the Green Dragon in LMoP has 16 HD, it's
An appropriate challenge for 4 level 8 PCs with a CR of 8 that won't be higher
than level 5 according to the adventure?

To your NPC point, that was actually my 1st concern. I understand
what u are saying. Hopefully when the MM finally hits store shelves
It'll allay our concerns.

 

[Talaeden_Denthiir]

@ Prism,

Sounds like a plan. I just don't know how to determine CR in the 1st place. According to the basic Ds
PDF, the sidebars and text on it look to say the same things, yet differently.

I'm just confused. I guess I can just throw things at PCs and see if it's a TPK and then go from there .

 

[Prism]

@ Prism,

Sounds like a plan. I just don't know how to determine CR in the 1st place. According to the basic Ds
PDF, the sidebars and text on it look to say the same things, yet differently.

I'm just confused. I guess I can just throw things at PCs and see if it's a TPK and then go from there .

CR really just represents how tough the monster is in general. You want to create a monster to challenge your 10th level party. You choose or create a CR 10 creature. You want a harder fight then use the encounter building rules to add in some lower CR creatures into the mix. Or pick a higher CR creature instead.

All this of course assumes we trust the CR system. A lot of eyeballing the encounters may have to go on at first until we get used to it

In the starter kit adventure the party probably shouldn't be attacking the dragon. If you do the calculations on the table its classed as a deadly encounter......then again so are two of the fights in the first encounter area

 

[MerricB]

Challenge Rating is actually really interesting this edition. Look at the definition from the DM Basic Guide: "An appropriately equipped and well-rested party of four adventurers should be able to defeat a monster that has a challenge rating equal to its level without suffering any deaths.

Think about that. A party that isn't well-rested coming up against a monster with the same challenge rating? That might cause PC deaths! This is a long way from the 20% of resources that 3E believed CRs stood for!

It really looks like Challenge Ratings are there to say "this is the limit of what the group can deal with"!

Cheers!

 

[Talaeden_Denthiir]

[MENTION=9501]Prism[/MENTION],

I know what you mean. I just read your awesome analysis over in the other pist:

Since there has been plenty of debate over the Lost Mine of Phandelver and its difficulty I thought I would use the new DM encounter guidelines to see if they shed any light.

Assuming a party of 5

Spoilers......








Area 1 - 400xp (Deadly)
Area 2 - 150xp (Medium)
Area 3 - 300xp (Hard)
Area 6 - 600xp (off the scale)
Area 7 - 300xp (Hard)
Area 8 - 700xp (off the scale)


So it does look to me like the adventure starts off very hard for a new group of inexperienced players. No wonder the difficulty some groups have had. I would say that the developer of the adventure was not working to these DM guidelines when writing it.

In the lost mines after area 1 it says 'in the unlikely event the goblins defeats the players...'. The guidelines for a deadly encounter state 'The encounter is potentially lethal for one or more player characters'.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?358156-D-amp-D-Basic-Rules-Updated/page14#ixzz3AKAK8T1s

It's stuff like that that has me worried. I want to run my daughter through LMoP and HotDQ but,
I don't want her to say, " mommy, Daddy TPK'd us!" Granted, 'good DM's check these things', but
that's just it. I work 6 days a week ow and just don't have the time to make sure all the
Encounters are balanced ala 3.x CR! If I've paid for the adventures, I should
be able to run them as is without too much fuss. Yes, I appreciate that the
basic game is free, but the point is I'm not, "getting a box of money from WoTC and
complaining how it's wrapped. I'm paying full price at FLGS to support
the hobby and slaughtering PC's in an intro to RP adventure for kids new to the hobbY
LOL. Not very encouraging for their continued interest in the hobby. Yeah, I could spend
Tons of time figuring it out myself, with contradictory wording with side bars on encounter budgets,
But then that defeats the purpose LOL CRY.

@ Merric,

Exactly!


P.S. all- sorry for thpos, I'm texting frim iphone at work.

 

[Grazzt]

The only thing monster HD are used for is determining hit points. They are there for consistency (and in case you want to let them spend HD like PCs), but they could just as easily have assigned an arbitrary hit point value for all their effect on the creature overall.

Yep. I noticed this too. You could technically do away with HD for monsters and just assign them hp within a range based on the CR (as you said).

 

[the Jester]

...even though the Green Dragon in LMoP has 16 HD, it's
An appropriate challenge for 4 level 8 PCs with a CR of 8 that won't be higher
than level 5 according to the adventure?

It looks to me like you're talking about

Spoiler

the dragon in LMoP

, in which case it's designed to be too tough for the pcs to defeat in a straight up fight. They'll need to try creative approaches to drive it off, and are likely to lose a fight to the death. I think the purpose of this is to

Spoiler

teach everyone that dragons are bad ass in 5e

. I also think dying in a final battle

Spoiler

against a dragon

is actually a heck of a fun introduction to D&D, although I admit that tastes vary on this.