Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ath'kethin" data-source="post: 8179355" data-attributes="member: 6798775">CR is calculated in two steps: defensive CR and offensive CR.  The final CR is the average of the two.That makes it sound much simpler than it really tends to be, especially since the following pages of that section in the DMG have a host of other factors that can change the values.For your boar, boosting its AC to 13 won't change its CR.By the numbers: 11 HP falls into CR 1/8. AC 13 does not change this value.4 damage per round falls into CR 1/4. The attack bonus does not change this value.1/4 + 1/8 = 3/8, ÷ 2 =  3/16, which can still still round to 1/4. So no change there.HOWEVER, on page 280 we see and adjustment for the Charge trait and on page 281 we see an adjustment for the Relentless trait. Let's see what they do.The damage value on the table is the average damage the monster inflicts per round, based on a three round cycle. The boar normally deals 4 damage per round with it's tusk (4+4+4)/3=4 damage average; if we add 3 damage to one round for the charge trait it becomes (4+4+4+3)/3=5 damage average. This ALSO falls I to CR 1/4 territory, so no real change to the earlier math.For Relentless, we adjust the monster's effective hit points based on its expected CR. Since the CR we are expecting (or at least what we started with) is less than 1, we can just use the value for CR 1, which is 7 HP. Adding 7 hp to the boar's 11 HP gets us an effective hp total of 18, which still falls into the CR 1/8 range on the table. So no change there.In short: boosting the boar's AC to 13 does not change its Challenge rating.To my knowledge, there is no online calculator to do all this. And it does take some getting used to (especially remembering to check pages 280 and 281).Also note that many monsters in the Monster Manual, if you run the math based on the DMG section, seem to have incorrect Challenge Ratings. That's partially based on playtesting results and partly due to the fact that the MM came out before the DMG and not all the tools were perfected yet. But it mostly illustrates that the concept of CR is inexact at best and has some wiggle room.</blockquote>

Verification