D&D 5E CR and Encounter Difficulty: Is It Consistently Wrong?

[I'm A Banana]

TLDR; if a single Deadly encounter leaves you so weak that you'd be unable to beat multiple Medium threats, you are (in my opinion) doing it wrong.

There's no XP modifier for 5' wide corridors or surprise or tactical genius or luck. The system isn't designed to be an accurate representation of the challenge the party actually faces in process. If it wants to be that, it would do better to be retroactive (ie, you reward XP based on the actual danger in the encounter, not based on the monsters). No "xp for monsters" system could EVER actually reflect what happens in practice, due to the huge amount of variability in practice.

The system IS designed to give you a rough idea of how much the party can mathematically handle before they need to rest when you're planning out your encounters in advance. If the party manages to luck or skill their way to a few extra or a few fewer encounters in a day, the system doesn't consider that a problem -- it's part of the natural expected variance (part of why the daily XP total is 6-8 encounters).

In as much as people are looking for the former and receiving the latter, WotC does have a bit of a communication issue (and a gap that could be filled). But I don't see it as a flaw in the system for it not to be delivering something that it wasn't designed to deliver.

If you WANT a system that rewards XP based on actual encounter difficulty, I might recommend...

• Reward XP as if the party defeated an Easy encounter if the party didn't need to use healing or daily abilities in the encounter in order to succeed.
• Reward XP as if the party defeated a Medium encounter if the party had to spend healing or daily abilities in the encounter, but no characters dropped unconscious for more than a round.
• Reward XP as if the party defeated a Hard encounter if the party had at least one party member taken out of the fight entirely.
• Reward XP as if the party defeated a Deadly encounter if the at least half of the party was taken out of the fight entirely.

 

[Fanaelialae]

My impression is that it is very much a guideline & subject to huge variance - surprise is massive in a 3 rounds fight or the ability to get in a round of missile fire before you can be attacked. The variance is enough to say I do not have a handle on the raw values - I have only run modules so far & have not done my own stuff, that is next week.

This is addressed on DMG pgs 84 & 85 under Modifying Encounter Difficulty. If the party has surprise (or a free round of missile fire which is effectively the same thing) you should modify the encounter down by one step.

Granted, you won't always know in advance whether the party will have surprise, but you can often tell. If the PCs are headed to a gate they know is guarded, and they're not in a 10' corridor, odds are they'll try to get the drop on the guards. Even for encounters where surprise is randomly determined, if you're the sort of DM who really likes pushing the PCs to their limits, just adjust the next encounter up a notch if the previous one was easier than expected.

Personally, I love it when my PCs try to ambush the enemy. If it makes the adventuring day easier than intended, then I just consider that their reward for coming up with a good plan and executing it successfully.

 

[Grimstaff]

[MENTION=6787650]emdw45[/MENTION]

For example I have played in an encounter with 16 skeletons, 3 winter wolves, 1 vampire, 1 vampire spawn, and 1 wraith. This encounter was very taxing on resources, despite being an easy/medium encounter for a level 17 party.

Tell us more about your 17th level exploits, I'm always keen to hear about high-level play for 5e.

 

[DaveDash]

Tell us more about your 17th level exploits, I'm always keen to hear about high-level play for 5e.

High level is fast, fluid, and fun. There are a lack of high level creatures though so you need a lot of lower level ones, and higher CR creatures are even more swingy than lower CR ones, in terms of how effective they can be. It can be challenging to build encounters.

My experience thus far is numbers work, solos do not. High level parties can cake walk most monsters in the game if encountered alone. As an example a Balor by itself is pretty weak for it's CR, especially if you pack ranged punch in your party, but teamed up with the right lower level summons it becomes an incredibly deadly foe.

The DMG tells you to ignore "significantly lower CR" monsters when working out encounter deadlines, but you still need to factor them in (basically just guess). Even 16 skeletons can do a lot of damage against level 17s due to bounded accuracy.

 

[Tormyr]

Part of what seems to me like a difficulty people are coming across is the desire for a solo to be a difficult encounter. This sometimes gets coupled with a monster of a certain CR being appropriate for a party of the same level, but it doesn't work like that. The CR20 creature is not really a good solo for a 4 person level 20 party as it is still just a medium. The encounter will likely be over in a couple rounds without too much difficulty.

To borrow some stuff from [MENTION=6786202]DaveDash[/MENTION]'s examples, a CR 19 balor is still just a medium encounter for a 4 person level 17 party. The creature needs to be at least CR20 for a hard encounter or CR22 for a deadly encounter. However you might not want to toss a CR20 or 22 monster in because there is the chance of a 1 hit kill. One way to make the Balor a hard or difficult solo would be to bump its hp so it gets a few more opportunities to hit. Giving it another 25 hp (2d12 + 12) bumps it to a CR20, or an additional 175 hp (14d12 + 84) bumps it to CR 22.

 

[Derren]

Part of what seems to me like a difficulty people are coming across is the desire for a solo to be a difficult encounter. This sometimes gets coupled with a monster of a certain CR being appropriate for a party of the same level, but it doesn't work like that. The CR20 creature is not really a good solo for a 4 person level 20 party as it is still just a medium. The encounter will likely be over in a couple rounds without too much difficulty.

Problem is that even a monster CR +5 or even higher is often not a good solo encounter for a party.

 

[Fanaelialae]

The DMG tells you to ignore "significantly lower CR" monsters when working out encounter deadlines, but you still need to factor them in (basically just guess). Even 16 skeletons can do a lot of damage against level 17s due to bounded accuracy.

That's just for the XP multiplier though. They still add XP to the encounter.

What I do, unless eyeballing difficulty, is apply the multiplier separately if the creatures are of vastly differing CRs.

So a Balor and 16 skeletons would effectively be a 25,200 XP encounter (22,000 for the Balor + (50 x 16 x 4) for the skeletons). Seems to work for me so far, though we're only in the CR 6 range.

 

[DaveDash]

That's just for the XP multiplier though. They still add XP to the encounter.

What I do, unless eyeballing difficulty, is apply the multiplier separately if the creatures are of vastly differing CRs.

So a Balor and 16 skeletons would effectively be a 25,200 XP encounter (22,000 for the Balor + (50 x 16 x 4) for the skeletons). Seems to work for me so far, though we're only in the CR 6 range.

Ok very good idea!

 

[aramis erak]

It's weakly linked to XP, not strongly linked. It can give you a baseline of XP to start with, and then XP is adjusted based on numerous factors (so many it took pages to detail them all). It's in no way your primary tool to judge or adjust encounter difficulty. There is a reason the entire many-page encounter difficulty section of the DMG only mentions CR in passing in a side-bar.

If a person actually knows how CR is used in 5e from having read the section, and continues to post about CR as being the issue with encounter difficulty, then they're being intentionally deceptive. But I think it's far more likely the people doing it simply have not read the DMG section on encounter difficulty, and are assuming what CR means. The disinformation might also be sourced to the free Basic DM section, which I know at one time was inaccurate (and maybe it still is - I have not checked).

The 5E earned XP is exactly and ONLY the CR. The Adjustments for difficulty values are nowhere stated to apply to Earned XP. So while 5x 50XP badguys may be counted as 500 Difficulty XP, nowhere does it say they're worth more than their base 250 XPV for defeating them. Note that the D&D AL modules are also explicit that the earned XP is only the CR derived value.

(The adjustments for what is included match up with the DXPV, but the awards listed in the back do not, being only the CR XPVs.)

 

[Psikerlord#]

[MENTION=6787650]emdw45[/MENTION] your post is true. In fact the most resource "taxing" encounters I have ran and been in as a player have been purely about numbers, not rating.

For example I have played in an encounter with 16 skeletons, 3 winter wolves, 1 vampire, 1 vampire spawn, and 1 wraith. This encounter was very taxing on resources, despite being an easy/medium encounter for a level 17 party.

This is what's awesome about 5e.... if things are too easy, just add more monsters. If you eyeball and think, this is far too easy for what I want, just double the number of mooks and you'll get a cracking battle.