D&D 5E CR and Monsters: Let me get this straight...

[Remathilis]

I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around CR/XP/Monster Level things.

Lets say I have a group of Five fifth-level PCs. By the chart in The DMBasic, that means an easy encounter is 1,250, a medium 2,500, a hard is 3,750, and a deadly 5,500.

I decide the main fight is a Stone Giant (CR 7, 2,900 XP). By the math, that should be a medium/hard encounter (as well it should!) but the Challenge 7 says Seventh Level PCs should face him without risk of death.

Is it an appropriate challenge or not? I don't want to send said players into a TPK (for a fight two higher than their level) but the XP budget says average to hard, not deadly.

On a further note: How are you ever supposed to fight things of CR 21+ (ancient dragons, tarrasque) if you max level at 20?

I'm used to using higher-than-level CR creatures in 3.X, but 5e is mildly confusing me because I don't know if I'm letting my 3.X notions cloud my vision here...

 

[ExploderWizard]

I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around CR/XP/Monster Level things.

Lets say I have a group of Five fifth-level PCs. By the chart in The DMBasic, that means an easy encounter is 1,250, a medium 2,500, a hard is 3,750, and a deadly 5,500.

I decide the main fight is a Stone Giant (CR 7, 2,900 XP). By the math, that should be a medium/hard encounter (as well it should!) but the Challenge 7 says Seventh Level PCs should face him without risk of death.

Based on those numbers and that statement lets make a logical leap and say that a risk of death comes with every purchase of an encounter above the easy level. It is after all, combat.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

On a further note: How are you ever supposed to fight things of CR 21+ (ancient dragons, tarrasque) if you max level at 20?

It doesn't mean you can't fight them! CR Is a guide to deadliness, not a restriction on usage - above level CR means death is quite a significant risk - so CR21+ means significant risk of death even for L20 PCs. Doesn't mean you can't use it, just that you know what you're getting into!

 

[Agamon]

If the CR is higher than the level of the party, there's a decent chance someone is going to die.

The process is, check CR first. For a level 5 party, CR 5 and lower makes for the best encounters. Then you add up XP for and match to the chart to get the difficulty of the encounter. Doing it the other way around might not get the results you want.

 

[Agamon]

On a further note: How are you ever supposed to fight things of CR 21+ (ancient dragons, tarrasque) if you max level at 20?

As for this, yeah, it's not that you can't face something out of your league, it's just that it's going to be a tricky fight. I wouldn't use a higher CR encounter a random encounter (unless you also give the party a chance to see it coming or a chance to escape/negotiate). A higher CR fight should be something the party needs to strategically plan for.

 

[Roger]

Based on a quick look, it seems like a stone giant could squish a 5th-level wizard in pretty short order, if everything goes right for it and wrong for the party.

That being said, it also roughly looks like it shouldn't be a TPK either, if the party can bring some firepower to bear.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[Remathilis]

Ok, then lets change monsters.

A Vampire Spawn is CR 5/1,800 XP. By Ye Olde Charte, that puts him squarely between Easy/Medium, which doesn't seem to interesting for a main fight. I could add 700 XP worth of mooks (lets say, a CR 3 werewolf for a Creature Feature) and aim for medium. EDIT: Actually, no: x1.5 for being a pair so 3,750: its a hard encounter again.

I COULD also use the NPC mage (CR 6/ 2,300) which is solidly medium. He's one higher than the party which seems easier to manage (although an 8d8 cone of cold might give them pause).

I guess my concern is less "someone might die/end up in death saves" and more "Wow, TPK in 3 rounds. Bravo!" from going over CR. On the one hand, it seems you are expected to (as those Epic CRs would indicate) but on the other, CR is a "you must be this high to face this monster" marker.

I have a gut feeling I won't get how powerful these monsters are until I play some solid games with a group and grind a few PCs into dust fudge a few rolls to allow for escape and get a good feel for monsters and capacities.

 

[Boarstorm]

CR is a "you must be this high to face this monster" marker.

Have we actually seen this definition in an actual product yet? I don't recall stumbling across it, and I'm wondering if we're operating on old information that doesn't line up with the final rules.

It almost seems like now CR is simply shorthand for "How high of a proficiency bonus should this monster have?"

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around CR/XP/Monster Level things.

Lets say I have a group of Five fifth-level PCs. By the chart in The DMBasic, that means an easy encounter is 1,250, a medium 2,500, a hard is 3,750, and a deadly 5,500.

I decide the main fight is a Stone Giant (CR 7, 2,900 XP). By the math, that should be a medium/hard encounter (as well it should!) but the Challenge 7 says Seventh Level PCs should face him without risk of death.

Is it an appropriate challenge or not?

I think the idea is that a CR 7 monster becomes reasonable to add to an encounter at level 7. So the fight will likely be a little harder than the exp indicate. How much so is hard to say (with the level of Bounded Accuracy 5e retains from the playtest, I'm tempted to say 2 levels shouldn't matter at all). The fact that the PCs have an advantage in numbers should help a lot.

I don't want to send said players into a TPK (for a fight two higher than their level) but the XP budget says average to hard, not deadly.

TPK or Rollover really depends more on what you decide at the table. If the PCs come up with a plan that sounds good and you allow it to work, the combat could be pretty easy. If you play the monster viciously or soft-ball it will make a huge difference. Whether your rulings tend to favor or disfavor the PCs is another factor. You can always fudge rolls from behind the screen, too.

I'm used to using higher-than-level CR creatures in 3.X, but 5e is mildly confusing me because I don't know if I'm letting my 3.X notions cloud my vision here...

I don't think you should worry - 5e CR is actually a lot like 3.x CR, the baseline is an at-level monster vs the party, it just uses a theoretical exp 'multiplier' for being outnumbered instead of using the 3.x 'break a monster into two CR-2 monsters' for more-than-one-monster encounters.

I have a gut feeling I won't get how powerful these monsters are until I play some solid games with a group and grind a few PCs into dust fudge a few rolls to allow for escape and get a good feel for monsters and capacities.

That's my feeling. The 5e encounter guidelines are a little complex and quantitative, but with the rulings-not-rules philosophy informing design, there's a lot of leeway for the DM, so building (and, more importantly, running) encounters is going to be more art that science, again. How well you prepare for an encounter may well prove to be much less important than how well you react in the middle of it.

 

[Remathilis]

Have we actually seen this definition in an actual product yet? I don't recall stumbling across it, and I'm wondering if we're operating on old information that doesn't line up with the final rules.

It almost seems like now CR is simply shorthand for "How high of a proficiency bonus should this monster have?"

A monster’s challenge rating tells you how great a threat the monster is. 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. For example, a party of four 3rd-level characters should find a monster with a challenge rating of 3 to be a worthy challenge, but not a deadly one.

One could read this as "this is when a monster won't kill you" or "this is when a monster won't kill you outright". I'm ok with the former, but worried about the latter.