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Message: <blockquote data-quote="UngainlyTitan" data-source="post: 8407597" data-attributes="member: 28487">I do not think there is a simple, one size fits all answer to this question. My rule of thumb (based on a blog post by Sly Flourish) is that if the CR of the monster is greater than half the total class level of the party then the encounter is deadly. In that there is a good chance of dropping and or killing a pc or two and an outside chance of a TPK. I have never tpk'ed a party this way and only outright killed characters twice in my current campaign. However, this only holds up to about level 16 or so where it takes more to kill characters. There is a considerable variation. The factors are: how good are the party tactically? The exact composition of the party, and level of optimisation. Some parties are more vulnerable to certain types of opponent than others. Magic items are a significant factor and larger parties are naturally more resilient both by hp pool and the action economy swings strongly in their favour. The OP's situation was the result of, essentially a random encounter. Personally I would not throw a CR15 encounter at a level 5 party unless I built the encounter with the party in mind and/or I would be inclined to give them the possibility of not engaging with the encounter. Although from the description in the bag of beans entry they could have chosen not to go into the pyramid.</blockquote>