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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8182399" data-attributes="member: 6779196">So, the thing to understand about CR is that it really only cares about how much damage the monster can deal in the number of turns it’s expected to be able to survive. The frame of reference the system is built around is one monster against 4 PCs of a level equal to its CR, dealing about a quarter of the party’s total HP in damage before it dies. Typically, that projection is based on its average damage over the course of 3 rounds, but some monsters deal higher damage and last fewer rounds, while others do less damage but last more rounds.A CR 17 monster, then, can be expected to deal roughly a quarter of a 4-person, level 17 party’s health in the time it’s expected that such a party will take to kill that monster. Having Legendary Actions doesn’t typically affect its CR, unless those Legendary Actions allow it to survive more rounds or to deal more damage on average over the course of the number of rounds it’s expected to survive.How does this translate to a fight against a level 11 party? Well, kind of awkwardly. The amount of damage the monster can deal is going to be a fair bit higher relative to the party’s total HP, which means a very high risk of randomly one-shotting a character on a lucky roll. Additionally, there are certain levels where party average DPR spikes. Those levels are 3rd, 5th, 11th, and 17th. So, putting a party of 11th level characters against a CR 17 monster means their average DPR is going to be significantly lower than the CR system expects it to be. So the monster has a high chance of being able to survive an extra round, or maybe two if the players roll poorly.Now, it sounds to me like what you’re looking for is a challenging but fair fight, and in my opinion, simply putting the party against a single monster that’s several CR above their level isn’t likely to deliver that. Either the party will get lucky with their rolls, in which case the monster won’t be a huge challenge for them, or they’ll get unlucky (or if the monster will get lucky) and they’ll get curb stomped. There isn’t a lot of middle-ground.If what you want is a challenge that is tough, but not so swingy, you would be better off using a boss monster closer to the party’s CR (between 9 and 13, probably) and give it minions that are well below their CR. That will increase the total damage output on the monster’s side, without putting the boss monster’s damage output high enough that you risk accidentally one-shotting anyone on a lucky roll, and it will keep the number of turns the boss itself can be expected to survive when the party focuses fire on them in that 2-4 range, while providing speed bumps in the form of those weaker monsters, which will more likely only survive one or two hits.</blockquote>

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