D&D 5E Player character level -> challenge rating cheat sheet?

[shadowssong]

This is what I use. I use it the other way around though (calculating the equivalent level of monster who work with the party). It's worked fine so far, but the highest I've used in play so far has been CR 3.

CR-----Level
1/4----1
1/2----2
1-------3
2-------4
3-------5
4-------7
5-------9
6-------11
7-------12
8-------14
9-------16
10-----18
11-----19
12-----20

thanks man this is perfect!

 

[overgeeked]

Sly Flourish put out a video a few months back about this.

The short version is you only need to worry about encounters crossing the deadly threshold. You add up the PCs total levels. If they’re 1st-4th, divide that by 4. If they’re 5th or over, divide by 2. That’s about the total number of monster CRs that will make for a deadly encounter. Build the encounter with that CR as a threshold for non-deadly vs deadly encounters.

For example, six 2nd-level characters have 12 total levels. Since they’re under 5th level, divide by 4. So 3. They can face about 3 CRs worth of monsters before it’s a deadly encounter. Three 1 CR monsters, or a 1 CR and a 2 CR, or six 1/2 CR, etc.

For another example, six 10th-level characters have 60 total levels. Since they’re over 4th level, divide by two. Or about 30 CRs of monsters is the deadly threshold. Three CR 10s, one CR 30, 30 CR 1s, etc.

I’m not sure how accurate this is, but I’ll try it soonish.

 

[Wayner52]

Excel spreadsheet that does the calculations CR

I made an Excel spreadsheet that does the calculations (from DMG)

Can you explain how to work the spreadsheet? With the labels on the specific rows/columns, I'm not seeing anything explaining how to manipulate the sheet to understand what your doing. If there is something there already, I might be looking over it.

 

[Wayner52]

Excel spreadsheet that does the calculations CR

I made an Excel spreadsheet that does the calculations (from DMG)

Can you explain how to work the spreadsheet? With the labels on the specific rows/columns, I'm not seeing anything explaining how to manipulate the sheet to understand what your doing. If there is something there already, I might be looking over it.

 

[aco175]

@Wayner52 welcome to the boards, we like to bring back old threads and 'discuss' them once again. You may find that with posts from several years ago, the writer has not been around for a while, but I see that @Athinar was last seen only a week ago. Although typing in his name did not auto-populate after I typed in @ and started his name.

 

[Quickleaf]

Has anybody put together a table or rule of thumb for average challenge rating for a given character level? I realize that there is probably some variation based on class features, optimization, etc, but is it possible to say, "A 7th level PC is usually CR [x]?"

I ask for situations where I want to create an NPC using player class guidelines, but don't feel like going through all the steps of calculating a given creature challenge rating. Which is maybe dumb, but, whatever. I'm fine with being off by a CR, because I tend to eyeball CR and encounter balance anyway.

My rough rule of thumb (and it's very VERY rough) is:

1/3 warrior level = CR
1/2 offensive caster level = CR

If the warrior build is an alpha strike or spike-damage built, like many paladins, then I use the "offensive caster" chart instead.

If the caster is primarily a healer, diviner, or really lacking in offensive spell capacity, then I will use the "warrior" chart (or even ad lib its CR with pure guesstimating).

But these are really gross estimates just to save time. The devil of CR is in the fine details/maths & also needs to be weighed holistically against the encounter design as an art (as opposed to mathematical formula).

So my chart looks like this...

Warrior Level	Rough Estimate CR
1	1/4 or 1/2
2	1/2
3	1
4	1
5	1 or 2
6	2
7	2
8	2 or 3
9	3
10	3
11	3 or 4
12	4
13	4
14	4 or 5
15	5

Offensive Caster Level	Rough Estimate CR
1	1/2
2	1
3	1 or 2
4	2
5	2 or 3
6	3
7	3 or 4
8	4
9	4 or 5
10	5
11	5 or 6
12	6
13	6 or 7
14	7
15	7 or 8

I haven't played / DMed in 16th-20th level range, so I don't know how well my rough estimates hold into that level range, hence I have not included them in these rough charts.

 

[Nitrosaur]

In my experience, there is no direct correlation of formula with lvl and CR, but you can still calculate as if the PC was a monster, it's just way more of a pain to do so because of the higher complexity of PCs. For what it's worth tho, I calculated the CR of my party when we ended our last adventure, and the characters were more or less in the same tier. All lvl 16 with magic items, without them they would be 1 or 2 CR less i reckon. I found that roughly the PCs' CR was equal to 3/4 of their level at these specific points, can't say at any other point.

The level 16 moon druid, battlesmith artificer and arcane trickster were CR 11, the lvl 16 conquest paladin and glamour bard 14/fiend warlock 2 were CR 12 and the horizon walker ranger was CR 13. I also did it for a friend's character in another campaign, his lore bard 17/sorcerer 1 with a staff of the magi came in with CR 14.