D&D 5E Offensive CR: determining damage output for a spellcaster

[the Jester]

1 round of cone of cold against three targets is 36 * 3 - 108. Two rounds of [x] against two targets equals 17 * 2 *2 = 68. 108 + 68 = 176 / 3 = 58. I'm then supposed to add the damage from her freezing aura (5), any legendary actions (one deals 20), and lair actions (one deals 5). So that's 58 + 30 = 88.

Assuming your numbers are otherwise correct, I think the lair action and the aura damage might be higher in actual play. If the pcs have two melee types, the aura is going to deal 10 per round, not 5; and if she can keep moving and forcing the melee guys to take spike growth damage each round, even just 5 points, you've gone from 5/round to 10/round, as she's making the two melee guys move 5' each.

Anyhow, it's a minor technicality in this case, and I don't know your party's makeup or weapon choices. But you might consider re-evaluating these two elements if the party has multiple pcs focused on close melee combat.

 

[pukunui]

Assuming your numbers are otherwise correct, I think the lair action and the aura damage might be higher in actual play. If the pcs have two melee types, the aura is going to deal 10 per round, not 5; and if she can keep moving and forcing the melee guys to take spike growth damage each round, even just 5 points, you've gone from 5/round to 10/round, as she's making the two melee guys move 5' each.

Anyhow, it's a minor technicality in this case, and I don't know your party's makeup or weapon choices. But you might consider re-evaluating these two elements if the party has multiple pcs focused on close melee combat.

The party consists of a fighter, a monk, a druid, a bard, a sorcerer, and a rogue. That being said, the DMG guidelines say that, for the purposes of determining CR, just assume there is one melee person taking aura damage and such each round.

 

[the Jester]

The party consists of a fighter, a monk, a druid, a bard, a sorcerer, and a rogue. That being said, the DMG guidelines say that, for the purposes of determining CR, just assume there is one melee person taking aura damage and such each round.

Oh, that's what I get for not checking the book!

 

[Tormyr]

Office 2007. I'll give your suggestion a try when I get a chance.

Since you're familiar with the adventure, this is Gant. The text says he hasn't progressed much beyond his apprenticeship, so I don't want to give him access to 5th level spells. I also want to make him more defensive than offensive.

Crud. Well, I might just go with a CR of 5 for him.

Really? Ugh.

OK.

1 round of cone of cold against three targets is 36 * 3 - 108. Two rounds of [x] against two targets equals 17 * 2 *2 = 68. 108 + 68 = 176 / 3 = 58. I'm then supposed to add the damage from her freezing aura (5), any legendary actions (one deals 20), and lair actions (one deals 5). So that's 58 + 30 = 88.

Her overall CR is 10 now. I'll have to downgrade her defences a bit. The PCs will only be 5th level when they face her. Either that, or I'll have to let them level up to 6th level before they take her on.

Tell me about it!

I dumped Gant's Abjurer's Armor when I turned him into an Enchanter, but I've kept Hedrun's ice armor. 24 is half - I've included it in the total of 73. (So her actual HP are 49.)

I dropped the ice darts altogether, but I've kept ice spear, although I'm not sure she'll actually use it. I had ice storm in her repertoire at first, but it was making her OCR too high, so I dropped it.

5th level seems like it would be at the top end of progression for a group that started the adventure at level 1. Is that where you are starting them, or will they be starting at a higher level?

Hedrun may be too difficult as she is the third of 3 difficult fights in a row after a long journey with no opportunities for rest.

Have you taken a look at my conversion notes for Legacy of the Crystal Shard? It stats at level 1, so it may not be what you are looking for, but it would definitely be challenging for the players. For 6 players, the encounters would need to be scaled up a bit.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1188

 

[pukunui]

Oh, that's what I get for not checking the book!

No worries!

5th level seems like it would be at the top end of progression for a group that started the adventure at level 1. Is that where you are starting them, or will they be starting at a higher level?

I started them at 3rd level. Last session the PCs stopped Derrick's raid in Easthaven (and burned down his ship). Next session they'll be hunting Gant, who gave them the slip in Bryn Shander.

Hedrun may be too difficult as she is the third of 3 difficult fights in a row after a long journey with no opportunities for rest.

Yes, that's why I'm thinking she needs to be toned down some more. I also underestimated the CR for my beefed up Icingdeath skeleton (I made it gargantuan since Icingdeath was an ancient white dragon). It took out one PC but then it got taken out by Tasha's hideous laughter of all things - and couldn't make the save to end it before Hedrun's simulacrum bit it. So even though it should've been a CR 8 or 9, it turned out to be a bit of a pushover - although I suppose if it had been able to stay animated after the simulacrum went down, that might have been a TPK.

Have you taken a look at my conversion notes for Legacy of the Crystal Shard? It stats at level 1, so it may not be what you are looking for, but it would definitely be challenging for the players. For 6 players, the encounters would need to be scaled up a bit.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1188

I haven't. I'll take a look now.

 

[Tormyr]

I haven't. I'll take a look now.

Eh, it probably won't do much for you since you started them at level 3. I made an attempt at keeping the encounter balance roughly the same as the original adventure. That started at level 1 and finishes somewhere between level 3 and 5.

 

[pukunui]

Yeah. I thought the scope of the adventure was too grand for 1st level PCs, so I bumped them up a bit. I also let the PCs add their Con score to their hit points at the start. They're a little hardier, but it hasn't stopped them from going down (or dying, in some cases - one PC died in Icingdeath's lair because she failed three death saves, and another PC killed herself with a wild surge-induced fireball while she was in a rowboat out on Lac Dinneshere - luckily the spell that triggered it was a scorching ray that lit the Howling Fiend's sails on fire, so it was something of a Pyrrhic victory). That player is going to miss the next session, so I've said that if the other PCs can get the wild mage's body back to Mithann in Bryn Shander within the tenday, she'll be able to cast raise dead on her.

 

[Tormyr]

Yeah. I thought the scope of the adventure was too grand for 1st level PCs, so I bumped them up a bit. I also let the PCs add their Con score to their hit points at the start. They're a little hardier, but it hasn't stopped them from going down (or dying, in some cases - one PC died in Icingdeath's lair because she failed three death saves, and another PC killed herself with a wild surge-induced fireball while she was in a rowboat out on Lac Dinneshere - luckily the spell that triggered it was a scorching ray that lit the Howling Fiend's sails on fire, so it was something of a Pyrrhic victory). That player is going to miss the next session, so I've said that if the other PCs can get the wild mage's body back to Mithann in Bryn Shander within the tenday, she'll be able to cast raise dead on her.

I love wild mages. I was hoping our sorcerer would choose wild mage, but he went dragonborn with draconic bloodline.

 

[pukunui]

RE: Excel error.

Are you using an older version of Excel? ?NAME errors occur when Excel does not recognize part of a formula. The only interesting part of the formula in the ability modifiers section is the FLOOR.MATH() function. If you do a global search and replace on the file and replace FLOOR.MATH with FLOOR it may work.

I'm not that used to Excel. I've tried doing a find and replace but it tells me I've "entered too few arguments for this function". ??

I love wild mages. I was hoping our sorcerer would choose wild mage, but he went dragonborn with draconic bloodline.

The wild mage's surges have resulted in some interesting things, like a bewildered pentadrone upstaging the PCs' raid on Gant's office to rescue Duvessa.

 

[pukunui]

OK, so with regards to Gant's CR:

I forgot that he'd only get to cast lightning bolt twice. So two rounds of that at 56 dmg per round is 112, plus one round of fire bolt at 11 dmg, gets me a total of 123 / 3 = 41. His save DC is only 1 lower, so that puts his OCR at CR 6.

I think I got his DCR right, though, which is 4. That gives him a final CR of 5. I'm OK with that, as that's still high enough to give him a +3 proficiency bonus, so I won't have to change anything on his statblock other than his CR and XP value.