D&D 5E Fixing Challenge Rating

[Shardstone]

I actually think that more robust, holistic, and transparent mathematics facilitate making more creative monster designs.

I agree with what you're observing – that 5e's monster design presents a "sameness" trap that it is easy for a designer to fall into, and even more so if the designer prioritizes creating a monster whose CR can be clearly modeled under the existing guidelines.

One of my projects involves lots of really wild / creative monster design within the 5e umbrella – some is stuff that has no parallels in the game. Evaluating those divergent/creative ideas from a CR standpoint with the current system? Hah. It's educated guesswork at best, nightmare at worst.

I understand wanting to push back against an unfortunate trend in online discussions to hyperfocus on this one number (CR) at the expense of pushing the creative frontiers of the design – heck, I hate that tendency more than most folks, and push against it with my own stuff – but I think it's inaccurate to assume that Maths & Creativity are inherently opposed forces such that developing Maths must come at the expense of Creativity. Nothing about that is inherent.

I mean no disrespect by this, but I think you have completely misunderstood my post. What I said and what you are responding to are completely different messages.

I do not think they are seperate forces (Maths and Creativity), and my argument isn't that CR gets in the way of creative monsters. My argument is that CR does not describe anything that you can relate to beyond "Is this creature 95% likely to TPK my party" or "Can I expect a harder fighter then fighting 3 mooks in a box" etc etc. Furthermore, knowing that 10% resources can be used doesn't make sense because every class has different resources used in different ways, and some classes have no resources other than HP and HD (rogue) vs two or more resources (Sorcerer, Cleric, Druid). Furthermore, various features give their own independent pools of uses instead of sharing a pool. On top of that, not all resources are equal; a high level spell slot is worth a lot more than a 1st level spell slot. So if I'm playing a FIghter Champion and someone is playing a Fighter Battlemaster, how can we create a definition of resources that fits both?

Furthermore, monsters like the Lich only match their CR in specific instances and when played in specific ways. This applies very often to other creatively designed monsters (I know this since I also do design work). Therefore, you can never be quite sure if this creature will use X amount of your resources or not.

So not only is the term "resources" difficult to pragmatically define, but non-standard monsters (and what monster over CR 10 or 15 is really standard?) cannot be accurately described under a CR using "resources" as a framework.

If we got more specific and said JUST Hit Points, it could make more sense, though we'd still need two kinds of CR -- one to describe something "standard" and one to describe something "nonstandard." The shadow doesn't threaten your hit points all that much, but boy does it threaten your strength and thus your life. And what resource can help you replace your strength? Or is the resource I'm counting something more esoteric?

To @mearls -- I'm not saying this to stop your project. In fact, I want you to continue it, because I think it's fascinating and can lead to a lot of cool ideas. But I really do think a pragmatic definition of resources needs to be interrogated again (as I'm sure you've thought about this a lot already) because right now, I don't know how to quantify resources given how D&D classes function.

 

[Shardstone]

Actually nevermind, I just realized you could make a table for each class and each level and then combine the tables for your party for points.

 

[mearls]

Actually nevermind, I just realized you could make a table for each class and each level and then combine the tables for your party for points.

Yes! This is the kind of thing that might unroll from this approach. A costing mechanism, as I learned while working on Magic, is an immensely powerful tool.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I actually think that more robust, holistic, and transparent mathematics facilitate making more creative monster designs.

I agree with what you're observing – that 5e's monster design presents a "sameness" trap that it is easy for a designer to fall into, and even more so if the designer prioritizes creating a monster whose CR can be clearly modeled under the existing guidelines.

A big part of that is there's only CR presented as a fast template. Nothing remotely like the monster roles or monster power levels of 4e. Yes there's more flex presented but one vs four scales (minion/standard/elite/solo)* and six or seven roles (brute/artillery/soldier/"vanilla" skirmisher/"trickster" skirmisher**/controller/lurker) - all of which had a major impact on the way the monsters behaved, leading to a lot of combinations

* 5e doesn't need minions thanks to Bounded Accuracy applying across levels rather than just within level as it did in 4e, but does need separate guidelines for both solos and legendary monsters (I'm still not sure if they should be merged)

** There were in practice two core designs for skirmishers; "vanilla" skirmishers were jacks of all trades and strictly average in everything, while "trickster" skirmishers used low damage expressions but always had something (like Sneak Attack) that would push them to high damage expressions. And I think the controller role was redundant and should have been split between artillery, trickster skirmishers, and lurkers.

 

[Quickleaf]

A big part of that is there's only CR presented as a fast template. Nothing remotely like the monster roles or monster power levels of 4e. Yes there's more flex presented but one vs four scales (minion/standard/elite/solo)* and six or seven roles (brute/artillery/soldier/"vanilla" skirmisher/"trickster" skirmisher**/controller/lurker) - all of which had a major impact on the way the monsters behaved, leading to a lot of combinations

* 5e doesn't need minions thanks to Bounded Accuracy applying across levels rather than just within level as it did in 4e, but does need separate guidelines for both solos and legendary monsters (I'm still not sure if they should be merged)

** There were in practice two core designs for skirmishers; "vanilla" skirmishers were jacks of all trades and strictly average in everything, while "trickster" skirmishers used low damage expressions but always had something (like Sneak Attack) that would push them to high damage expressions. And I think the controller role was redundant and should have been split between artillery, trickster skirmishers, and lurkers.

Yeah, the power levels is a factor.

Monster roles are still there in 5e (flameskull is an artillery, ogre is a brute, etc), just not explicitly called out as such, even if the 4e-style abilities are reduced as there's less focus on minis/map based movement, compared to 4e.

Was having conversation about the issue of 5e's binary (no effect or royally screwed) conditions like stunned, paralyzed, charmed in the dominated sense, etc. Not exclusive to 5e, but definitely pronounced in this edition. The issue is that narrative/functionally there ARE monsters that we envision at different power levels in the sense that some monsters are used in medium to large groups, some by themselves, etc. And the way that binary conditions interact with those different power levels is an issue...

Stun a kobold? Who cares? There are more where that one came from.

Stun a gnoll in a mid-size pack of gnolls? Great, feels good, it's fun, doesn't disrupt the game!

Stun a PC? It sucks for the player because this isn't an OSR game with super fast turns.

Stun a boss monster? Players get a momentary thrill, but sucks for GM, and in long-run ends up sucking for players.

So if there are 4 use cases for stunned condition, and it only works as written in 1 out of 4... that's a design issue. Either the other 3 use cases need to design around Stunned as written OR Stunned needs to be reimagined.

Edit: Sorry, bit of a tangent from fixing CR. Related, but a tangent nevertheless.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yeah, the power levels is a factor.

Monster roles are still there in 5e (flameskull is an artillery, ogre is a brute, etc), just not explicitly called out as such, even if the 4e-style abilities are reduced as there's less focus on minis/map based movement, compared to 4e.

They're less there than even in 3.X. Not only are they not mentioned (as inspiration both for monster design and encounter building), an ogre might be a brute but the only difference between their melee and their ranged attack (other than that it's at range) is 2d8+4 drops to 2d6+4 and a goblin (which defaults to carrying a bow) has exactly the same attack bonus and damage in melee as at range. You can't counterplay against either of them in 5e by kiting the ogre or rushing the goblin archer the way you could in either 4e or 3.X where strength produced your melee attack and dex your ranged one.

So if there are 4 use cases for stunned condition, and it only works as written in 1 out of 4... that's a design issue. Either the other 3 use cases need to design around Stunned as written OR Stunned needs to be reimagined.

Edit: Sorry, bit of a tangent from fixing CR. Related, but a tangent nevertheless.

You are however absolutely right.

 

[Vexorg]

I custom stat 100% of the monsters I run. I use the chart here, which is based on the one created by The Angry GM. Monster statistics are adjusted to match PC's current level. They are also based on the monster-to-PC ratios.

For example, If I have a group of five 6th-level PCs, I might make an encounter with one helmed horror (1 per 2 PC) two spined devils (1 per PC), and four ice mephits (4 per PC). To make the stats line up, I would have to drop the mephit's HP to 15 and raise their attack bonus to +6.

Using this chart I can both balance encounters without complicated math and adjust or make up monsters on the fly. I have no need or interest in keeping monster stats the same as what's printed in the monster manual.

But I'm an experienced DM, and I know new and learning DMs need easy tools.

Spoiler

 

[Orange Mage]

Can I ask: do your danger levels (Moderate, Difficult, Dangerous, Deadly) correspond directly to the 5E DMG ones (Easy, Medium, Hard, Deadly), or are they intended to mean something different?

Also, the 5E DMG's 'Encounter Multipliers' table leads to some very different outcomes from your CP method, which doesn't have an equivalent. For example, an encounter with seven CR 3 monsters would count as "deadly" for a party of four level 9 PCs by the DMG method (7 x 700 x 2.5 = 12,250 adjusted XP, compared with 4 x 2,400 = 9,600 XP threshold for "deadly"), but barely even "moderate" by your CP method (7 x 1 = 7 CP for level 9 PCs, compared with 4 x 3 = 12 CP for "moderate"). Is that intentional? Do you believe the DMG method is very inaccurate for encounters like this?

 

[Maxperson]

Can I ask: do your danger levels (Moderate, Difficult, Dangerous, Deadly) correspond directly to the 5E DMG ones (Easy, Medium, Hard, Deadly), or are they intended to mean something different?

Also, the 5E DMG's 'Encounter Multipliers' table leads to some very different outcomes from your CP method, which doesn't have an equivalent. For example, an encounter with seven CR 3 monsters would count as "deadly" for a party of four level 9 PCs by the DMG method (7 x 700 x 2.5 = 12,250 adjusted XP, compared with 4 x 2,400 = 9,600 XP threshold for "deadly"), but barely even "moderate" by your CP method (7 x 1 = 7 CP for level 9 PCs, compared with 4 x 3 = 12 CP for "moderate"). Is that intentional? Do you believe the DMG method is very inaccurate for encounters like this?

The DMG multipliers really can't be accurate. 6 of those CR creatures is 8,400xp but adding 1 gives nearly 50% more xp, landing at 12,250? 1 more creature isn't going to make that much difference.

 

[tomedunn]

The DMG multipliers really can't be accurate. 6 of those CR creatures is 8,400xp but adding 1 gives nearly 50% more xp, landing at 12,250? 1 more creature isn't going to make that much difference.

The multipliers in the DMG are an approximation that sacrifices accuracy for simplicity. The encounter multiplier should scale smoothly with the number of creatures, as I show in my analysis of the math behind the encounter multiplier.

Most likely, while the encounter multiplier for 7 creatures should be lower that the value listed in the DMG, the value for 6 creatures should also be higher. Meaning that big XP jump is going from somewhat underestimating the difficulty to somewhat overestimating it. Both could still be relatively accurate, even though there's a big jump between them.

The real challenge here is that the "correct" scaling for any encounter XP multiplier is going to depend on each group's particular strength when it comes to dealing with multiple enemies simultaneously. A group with strong AoE abilities will need a smaller multiplier than one that has weak AoE abilities.