D&D 5E Insights on a Warrior Antagonist creation using the books

[MostlyDm]

Away from books at the moment, but... I'm pretty sure the Archmage has a defensive CR below 12 and an offensive CR above 12. Is cone of cold really his best offensive spell? If so, fine, cast it in the 9th, 8th, and 7th level slots. Confirm the AoE calculations on number of targets.

I'm pretty sure if you look at his best possible damage output by DMG guidelines, he is well above offensive CR 12.

Well it depends.
His 8th slot is tied to mindblank.
His 9th holds time stop. I don't know how that factors to damage.

But the archmages NPC relies on hitting 2 targets with each CoC and having them fail (or 4 successes) to reach CR 12 damage.

Okay, but my point was that you may have been misinterpreting the Archmage's expected damage output. I've got my books now, and for fun I just (over)analyzed the Archmage. I think I see the problem.

Your assumption is that the Cone of Cold hits only 2 targets. But why? In the example of an AoE attack, the DMG does suggest assuming it hit 2 targets... but that's for the young white dragon breath weapon, which is a 30 foot cone. Cone of cold is double that.

And sure enough, if you crunch the numbers on the adult white dragon, with a 60 foot cone breath weapon, it's offensive CR comes in well below the expected 13... if you assume it still only hits 2 people. Change that to just 3 people, and it nails it's expected damage output on the nose at 85.

And this still might be a lowball, since the adult white's HP are below expected (closer to CR 10), so arguably it's got a higher offensive CR than defensive. Maybe it assumes 4 targets, which would put it's offensive CR at 16, averaging the two out to the expected 13. Or perhaps it makes up the difference in legendary actions, which add a bit of gravy damage and resistances.

Back to the archmage, though... If we just assume 3 successful targets for each cone of cold, he doesn't even need to cast it into his teleport slot or anything. That dishes out a solid 108 damage, putting his offensive CR up to 17.

Follow that with an objective review of his defensive CR... it turns out, I don't think we even need to worry about time stop, except as a way for him to reliably start the fight with his buffs up. He's got 99 HP, but he has resistance to both spell damage and nonmagic weapons. I'm going to say this gives him an HP multiplier of 1.5 instead of the 1.25 normally given to a CR 12 monster with resistance, since the two actually dovetail extremely well. That puts his effective HP at 148, which is still a measly defensive CR of 6. But wait! His AC is 15, and the magic resistance also gives effective AC +2 according to the DMG. His effective AC 17 (compared to the CR 6 base of 15) means we increase his defensive CR by 1, to CR 7.

So. Offensive CR 17. Defensive CR 7. Those average out to... drumroll please... CR 12!

Looks right to me. You just need to play around with some of the assumptions being made about the monster. Not all AoEs can assume 2 targets when they all have wildly different areas. I would be pretty disappointed in myself if my BBEG could only tag 2 people in a massive AoE like cone of cold.

But it's not explicitly stated anywhere... the area of effect section for adjudicating TotM assumes PvE, with potentially large numbers of foes. They don't have an AoE adjudication table for monsters, which is a shame, because it means we have to rely on gut checks, common sense, and outright guesswork.

Anyway, hope that clears up where I was coming from. The Archmage fits in okay with the CR system after all, in my book.

 

[MostlyDm]

But a humaniod warrior? He or She is still swinging 11 (2d6+5) damage greatswords at best. And I have to give him 25+ HD to get to 200 HP. And humaniods does have enough resistances to get a HP adjustment. I can't have a human pit champion punching harder than the Hill Giant they fought in round 1. And tougher than it. Immersion broken. Luckily there is Action Surge and Indomiable.

I definitely don't agree that a humanoid dealing a lot of damage per hit will somehow break immersion. Damage is as much about hit placement and skill as it is about brute force and supernatural thews. Dexterity can add to damage, after all, right?

And you could straightforwardly make a 20th level rogue-based nonmagical enemy that can dish out 43 average damage per hit without any special tricks whatsoever. Just 20 Dex, a shortbow, and 10d6 sneak attack. The most mundane, boring features there are. Give that rogue the sharpshooter feat and we're up to 53 damage. I'm sure that you could stack on a few more points without much effort.

Fighters typically get a lot of their bonus damage from extra attacks, but hardly all of it. Great weapon mastery and superiority dice spring to mind.

I dunno, man. The PCs can easily hit harder than a Storm Giant. Why would anyone find it immersion-breaking to find another human out there just as painfully accurate as the PCs, or even more so? I don't think it's hard to get a mundane warrior an exceptionally high offensive CR.

As for the lower d8 HD preventing a properly high defensive CR... I'm skeptical. I think he's fine. Consider that high numbers of HD and up to 20 Con can get you a good part of the way there. The difference can be easily made up by the fact that a properly armored warrior is likely to have defensive CR-boosting AC. For example, your basic platemail+shield humanoid fighter has an AC that is literally off the charts, above even the suggested AC for CR 30 monsters, and will therefore most definitely boost the effective defensive CR by at least a little.

I don't think it's all that hard to get martial NPCs up to quite threatening CR points.

 

[Leatherhead]

I don't get how HD ruins immersion, nobody but the DM even knows what the HD stat is for any given creature. And lets face it, if anyone gets to the level of badassery where they are able to be the BBEG, then they are required to to be better than the average person.

But, I have a quick and easy way to give your "simple swordsman" some bite and staying power, in one fell swoop.

Auto-Riposte: once per round, they can deflect an attack and counterattack with a weapon attack.

If that doesn't stick out in your players minds as being different than a Hill Giant, then you run some wicked nasty Hill Giants.

 

[Minigiant]

[MENTION=6788973]MostlyDm[/MENTION]

It 3 targets is assumed for AOE instead of 2, then that does bump up the Offensived CR of the archamage and dragons.

If this is true then it looks like this.

GIANTS
Defense: High HP, Low-Normal AC, Maybe 1 Resistance
Offense: Normal-High Accuracy, Low but Heavy Melee Damage (1-2 hard hits), Bad Ranged Damage,

DRAGONS
Defense: Low HP, High AC, 1-2 Resistances, Legendary Resistance
Offense: High damage, Strong Breath Weapon, High Melee Damage (bite/claw/claw/tail), Many Attacks

ELEMENTAL
Defense: High HP, Normal AC, 1-3 Resistance
Offense: Normal-High Accuracy, Low but Good Melee Damage (1-2 good hits), Good Ranged Damage,

CASTER Humanoid
Defense: Very Bad HP, Good AC, Magic Resistance, 3-5 Resistances
Offense: Very High AOE Damage

WARRIOR HUMANOID
Defense: Bad HP, Excellent AC
Offense: Very High but Light Damage (Death but 1000 Cuts)

[MENTION=53176]Leatherhead[/MENTION]

My Hill Giants are nasty, They do pro wresting moves if catch off guard. Chokeslams, whips, and suplexes.

 

[Uchawi]

I would look at any non-casting class ability as fair game for a martial warrior, including the rogue class. That is how it should have worked had they made the wise choice and added maneuvers as the tool box for martial classes. You also have to consider action economy by removing limits on extra attack, add more mobility, and have attacks that place status effects on the party (look at spells that hold, paralyze, blind, etc.) because martial maneuvers should be able to do the same thing but with individual targets.