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

[koga305]

I've been writing about the monster building process on my blog, Pact of the Tome. Included is an article where I added Fighter levels to a Hill Giant and analyzed CR, as well as building a Battle Mage NPC (basically a level 5 PC Wizard with some of the special features stripped away).

In the Battle Mage article in particular, I found that the fireball spell, combined with an essentially at-will shield and mage armor, made for a quite formidable creature (CR 5) despite hit points falling into a very low range.

 

[Dmoffett]

@ Athinar. WOW thanks for posting that spreadsheet I love it. It does all the math from the DMs guide for you just put the numbers you want into the top and it tells you what the CR of the monster is I love it. This will make conversion of all my old modules so much faster.

 

[Jack99]

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

Thanks, that's really useful.

Cheers

 

[miniaturehoarder]

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]?"

Not really, the way a PC's CR would be computed would be as any other monster via HP, AC, maximum damage potential and the few other mitigating factors, measured over the course of 3 rounds.

 

[Celtavian]

I had a CR in mind, and then built them from scratch to match that CR using the DMG guidelines.

See, you do like story, Dave. Or at least story-based reasons for the enemies powers.

I like those NPCs.

 

[dpkress2]

I know this thread is a little old, but I am using this spreadsheet and I couldn't figure out how to use the damage column. Could anyone explain?

 

[Tinker-TDC]

My go-to rule is a PC gets matches 1/3 their level in CR.
That is, a level 1 PC has an easy time against a 1/4 but a difficult time against a 1/2.
A level 3 PC is able to take a CR1 creature.
3 level 1 PCs are able to take a CR1 creature.

 

[Horwath]

I would rank NPC with PC classes and same amount of point buy abilities as deadly encounter for one PC for XP budget concerns.

So at lvl1, deadly is 100xp per PC in battle that is CR 1/2.

2nd level PC would be CR 1

3rd, CR 2

 

[dpkress2]

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

Attached Files

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  Level Threat and CR Calculations.xls (37.5 KB, 477 views)

​

^^ I'm talking about this spreadsheet ^^

I know this thread is a little old, but I am using this spreadsheet and I couldn't figure out how to use the damage column. Could anyone explain?

 

[Zach Sauer]

I don't know how relevant your question is to date but, if you feel like spending the money Lone Wolf Development has a great product called Hero Lab that automatically converts Level to CR for you, in many of their game systems. Especially D&D. You will have to learn how to navigate the system but its pretty simple once you get it. Their is also a help tab that links you to a website that explains how things work. Its a very good tool when it comes to custom Classes, Monsters, Races, Skills, Feats, Spells, and other things. Hope this is a good answer for you and you find Hero Lab to be useful. It has helped me a lot in understanding some of the D&D rules.