D&D 5E Legendary monsters are not solo monsters

[Imaro]

I had a thread about it in here, called Dungeon Delves.

First Encounter was an illithid and 2 umber hulks. So, a CR 8 and 2 CR 5 creatures, facing off against 5 level 12 characters. Considered Hard.

Party was a paladin, barbarian, fighter, warlock, and cleric. They got rocked by the encounter, but survived, with no fatalities.

2nd encounter was with 5 drow, 2 elite drow warriors, 1 illithid and one assassin. Considered deadly. They survived with no fatalities (barely) but not enough resources to go on. Their work day was done.

In no case did they face a monster with a CR above their level -4.

But you hit them with an encounter that was beyond deadly right after a hard fight. A Deadly encounter for 5 12th level characters is 22,500 XP. The second encounter you ran was 26,625 XP... 4,000+ XP over the Deadly Threshold. A deadly encounter has a high risk of total defeat, and could be lethal for one or more characters... It sounds like you got exactly what was predicted by the encounter building guidelines... and the fact that they survived and won shows that the CR guidelines pretty much worked... so what's the issue?

 

[Eric V]

DMG says not to count the 5 drow (at cr 1/4, they are significantly under the avg level of the party and the avg CR of the other monsters.)

Comes out to an adjusted xp of 20,800, which is Hard. I call it deadly myself, because I think the encounter advice in the DMG is unfounded, but technically it was a hard encounter.

 

[Imaro]

DMG says not to count the 5 drow (at cr 1/4, they are significantly under the avg level of the party and the avg CR of the other monsters.)

Comes out to an adjusted xp of 20,800, which is Hard. I call it deadly myself, because I think the encounter advice in the DMG is unfounded, but technically it was a hard encounter.

Wait it says... unless you think the the weak monsters significantly contribute to the difficulty of the encounter... that's 5 more attacks per round (ranged have poison that knocks unconscious on a failed save) and an extra 65 hp's on top of that they have support spells like faerie fire that make it easier for the higher CR monsters to hit... I'm just not seeing how these Drow would be classified as not significantly contributing to the encounter but ok, whatever, I'll go with it...


What I'm still confused about is how exactly did CR not work? Was anyone killed in one blow? Did any monsters have features that were impossible to overcome? If not CR worked as it should have...

 

[DaveDash]

It is wildly inaccurate. It only "works" if I'm lobbing very easily winnable fights at the party where the large amount of error still isn't enough to push it over the point where the fight could be too hard. If you try to use it to make a fight that is challenging, which is sort of the point, then your fight can easily be lethal or too easy with different monster choices of the same CRs because those CRs don't work.

With this whole bounded accuracy kick they were on, there really isn't any excuse for it except lack of effort on their part. CRs should be FAR more accurate and useful than they are.

I think there is a general consensus that low level monsters are under CRed and high level ones are (very) over CRed. There is no direction in the DMG's encounter building about this, it's just something you have learn as a DM, the CRs don't mean a whole lot and you certainly can't use them the way you're instructed to.

I agree with this assessment, especially after using the DMG monster building guidelines to compare with monsters in the MM.

I've been told Mearls has even said CR is based on feeling and not maths.

 

[Eric V]

Wait it says... unless you think the the weak monsters significantly contribute to the difficulty of the encounter... that's 5 more attacks per round (ranged have poison that knocks unconscious on a failed save) and an extra 65 hp's on top of that they have support spells like faerie fire that make it easier for the higher CR monsters to hit... I'm just not seeing how these Drow would be classified as not significantly contributing to the encounter but ok, whatever, I'll go with it...


What I'm still confused about is how exactly did CR not work? Was anyone killed in one blow? Did any monsters have features that were impossible to overcome? If not CR worked as it should have...

I guess it depends on what CR is supposed to help with.

If all it does is indicate "This monster will not kill anyone with one blow, nor does it have impossible to overcome defenses" then it does what it set out to do; I retract my statement.

I will say that, at a glance, I can immediately tell if the monster in question can take out a PC in one (or 2) hits. As well, I can tell if the defenses are overcome-able or not.

So if that is all CR is supposed to do, it works...and is next door to useless.

I was hoping for some better idea of challenge/deadliness/etc but I guess this isn't the edition for that. Eh, whatever.

As for the 5 drow...well, any number of low CR creatures would be X number of extra attacks, Y number of extra hp to overcome...when wouldn't they factor in? In this case, I went with what the DMG was suggesting: CR 1/4 creatures compared to a level 12 party. Eh.

 

[Imaro]

I guess it depends on what CR is supposed to help with.

If all it does is indicate "This monster will not kill anyone with one blow, nor does it have impossible to overcome defenses" then it does what it set out to do; I retract my statement.

I will say that, at a glance, I can immediately tell if the monster in question can take out a PC in one (or 2) hits. As well, I can tell if the defenses are overcome-able or not.

So if that is all CR is supposed to do, it works...and is next door to useless.

I was hoping for some better idea of challenge/deadliness/etc but I guess this isn't the edition for that. Eh, whatever.

As for the 5 drow...well, any number of low CR creatures would be X number of extra attacks, Y number of extra hp to overcome...when wouldn't they factor in? In this case, I went with what the DMG was suggesting: CR 1/4 creatures compared to a level 12 party. Eh.

Actually you compare it to monster level not party level... And I would think all of those drow being able to cast support spells, and attack from range and with poison would factor much more than say a monster who couldn't help the bigger bads and had to get within striking distance of the PC's in order to attack... but hey that's just how I would have judged it, maybe that's why it seems to be working for me though. But to each his own

Edit: To simplify I would judge any monster that makes the bigger bads significantly more effective as affecting the encounter. Advantage to attack is a big boost.

As to CR being useless I rather like that I can glance at the monster by CR list as opposed to going through the MM stat block and having to read each one to determine whether it is an overwhelming danger to my PC's... I just don't have that type of time. But I could see how it might seem useless to someone who has the type of time to look through each monster every time they want to create an encounter. Just for the record exactly what type of granularity in this area are you looking for?

 

[Eric V]

Well, 2 used faerie fire (it's a laughable DC for 12th level toons), and the poison faced similar issues (low DC). Truthfully, they affected the game about as much as goblins might have: ran interference and used the help action. The abilities you mention above didn't really come into play.

As for time requirements...ha. Well, it really doesn't take long (hence, "at a glance") but if the list is helpful to you, great for you.

4e had better guidelines for encounter creation, IMO.

 

[Imaro]

Well, 2 used faerie fire (it's a laughable DC for 12th level toons), and the poison faced similar issues (low DC). Truthfully, they affected the game about as much as goblins might have: ran interference and used the help action. The abilities you mention above didn't really come into play.

As for time requirements...ha. Well, it really doesn't take long (hence, "at a glance") but if the list is helpful to you, great for you.

4e had better guidelines for encounter creation, IMO.

I didn't ask about 4e, I asked what granularity are you looking for CR to convey (in 5e)... what information is it not conveying at this point that you wanted it to.

 

[Imaro]

Also was wondering if you could help me with something here...Your party was...

Party was a paladin, barbarian, fighter, warlock, and cleric. They got rocked by the encounter, but survived, with no fatalities.

Now none of these classes are proficient in Dex saves which is what Faerie Fire uses... but you said...

Well, 2 used faerie fire (it's a laughable DC for 12th level toons), and the poison faced similar issues (low DC). Truthfully, they affected the game about as much as goblins might have: ran interference and used the help action. The abilities you mention above didn't really come into play.

Can you tell me why it was laughable at 12th level for these characters? None of them should be getting prof bonus against the save so level shouldn't make a difference... and none are Dex based classes so I'm going to assume they weren't pumping Dex up...so what exactly allowed the saving throw against this spell to be "laughable"? Unless I'm mistaken this should have been a pretty effective spell against this lot... well at least as effective as it would be against a first level party.

EDIT: On a secondary note only the fighter and barbarian are proficient in Con saving throws (leaving the paladin/warlock and cleric vulnerable) and the poison had a higher DC than the Faerie Fire... so again I'm wondering why was your group so potent against these effects?

 

[the Jester]

It is wildly inaccurate. It only "works" if I'm lobbing very easily winnable fights at the party where the large amount of error still isn't enough to push it over the point where the fight could be too hard. If you try to use it to make a fight that is challenging, which is sort of the point, then your fight can easily be lethal or too easy with different monster choices of the same CRs because those CRs don't work.

>snip<

I think there is a general consensus that low level monsters are under CRed and high level ones are (very) over CRed. There is no direction in the DMG's encounter building about this, it's just something you have learn as a DM, the CRs don't mean a whole lot and you certainly can't use them the way you're instructed to.

Hmm, I'll go on record as having found the 5e CR system to be pretty accurate so far, but the pcs imc are still low level (up to 4th). So it's hard to say whether this will come to be an issue at higher levels.