D&D 5E Project Monsters by Level (not CR)

[dave2008]

That might be a good starting design guideline to try out – i.e. a monster whose level equals a PCs' level deals 1/3rd of the PCs' hit points in damage on its turn.

I think that is a good baseline. I've got the concentrate on my work week now, but hope to take this back up soon. Thank you for all the input and ideas!

 

[dave2008]

I'm just not sure this isn't just CR by another name.

CR is specifically geared to the group. I am looking for a reference to the individual PC. I am not looking for something that will solve for every potential PC or group of PCs. Just a rough baseline. It is, and always will be IMO, on the DM to understand how that baseline relates to their group.

 

[dave2008]

But, a level 7 monster in 4e was not equal in power to a level 7 PC. In fact, 4 of them where a medium difficulty challenge for 4 level 7 PCs.

The monster level was advice about what band of PC levels the mosnter was used for.

This made encounter building easy (together with how it measured XP: but you can pretty much ignore XP in 4e and use relative levels instead. 4e XP was basically 100* 2^((level-1)4) with rounding.

Which means a Level X+4 monster is worth 2 Level X monsters, a X+2 was worth about 1 and a half, X-4 is half, etc, regardless of X.

Easy encounter building needs easy math. 5e alread has it, mostly hidden.

But 5e PCs are balanced around adventuring days, not encounters like 4e PCs are.

My goal was never to mimic 4e. As a reminder, here are the goals I listed in the OP:

• Redefine monsters based on PC level, no more CR.
• Bring back monster depth* via 4e style monster roles: Solo, Elite, Standard, Grunt, Minion
• Make encounter building easier

The only time I mentioned 4e as the monster roles, and you will noticed that I never talked about monster roles again in the OP, because I haven't gotten that far yet. I also haven't talked about encounter building either - because I haven't gotten that far yet.

However, what I did talk about is what constitutes a challenge for 1 PC. That is the meat of what has been discussed so far. If I can't get that figured out, the rest of the exercise is pointless (which it might be anyway).

In you first post you mentioned CR and DMG encounter ratings (easy, hard, deadly, etc.), things I am explicitly trying to get rid of. Then in your second post you mentioned how this was different from 4e when being like 4e was never a goal. Do you understand now why I asked if you read the OP?

*note: "depth" is the wrong word. I meant "breadth" and have changed the OP.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Make encounter building easier

Encounter building was, and always will be, more of an art than a science. Say I have a relatively weak creature who has an AoE stun. A party with bad wisdom saves is stuffed, for a party with good wisdom saves it's trivial.

Encounter building is not a process that can be automated.

 

[dave2008]

Encounter building was, and always will be, more of an art than a science. Say I have a relatively weak creature who has an AoE stun. A party with bad wisdom saves is stuffed, for a party with good wisdom saves it's trivial.

Encounter building is not a process that can be automated.

I agree and I never suggested that it be automated.

 

[NotAYakk]

5e PCs are not designed to have a similar power budget in a single encounter? So trying to make monsters that are "equal" to a PC in a single encounter is like trying to find an animal that has the same weight as an airplane, when there is everything from jumbo jets to tiny general aviation craft.

If you want a monster that, if you fought 8 of them while taking 2 short rests, is supposed to be equal to a PC, it is a monster whose CR is roughly 1/2 of your level.

So for a level 6 PC, a CR 3 monster is very roughly a monster you could fight 3 in a row, take a short rest, fight 3 in a row, take a short rest, then fight 2 in a row. Your chance of winning in the end would probably be under 50-50.

Veteran: 17 AC, 58 HP, 20 damage output per round in melee at +5 to hit.
Level 6 BM PAM Fighter: 20 AC, 28 damage output per round in melee at +7 to hit, 52 HP, 11.5 second wind, 19.5 action surge. SD are worth at least 40 damage (at 100% accuracy) per SR, 45 short rest healing from HD.

Total Fighter HP budget: 52 + 11.5*3 + 45 = 131.5

Veteran DPR: 6
Veteran HP per short rest: 174 first 2, 116 last one.
Fighter DPR: 15.4
Fighter extra SR damage AS: 10.7, BM: 40
174 - 40 - 10.7 = 123.3, divided by 15.5 is 8 rounds of Veteran damage.
Fighter wins initiative half the time, shaving off 1.5 rounds of Veteran damage (from Vets who die before making the attack that round), leaving 6.5 * 6 = 39 damage taken in each of the first 2 SR.

After 2nd rest, it takes ~5 rounds, with initiative victories dropping it to 4. Another 24 damage.

So the Fighter takes 102 damage over this day of duels, and has 131.5 total budget; ends the day with a bit under 30 HP left.

This is a very close day and a relatively optimized fighter (without magic items). But the danger is roughly what I expected.

I also neglected crits, which would help the veteran a bit more.

For non-Fighters, you'll get more daily power budget and less sustained, and often less durability. For some classes (like Rogue), a duel is going to make them usually non-functional (as 5e PCs are designed around working in a party).

But the above appears to be how 5e PCs are balanced; a sequence of fights over a day against a foe. But in a group setting, not solo.

...

If your definition of "even" is something different, I suspect you will have to rework PCs.

When you make it all occur in one fight, piles of the Fighter's abilities stop being nearly as useful. Almost 1/3 of the above Fighter's offence came from SR refresh abilities, and the majority of its durability.

Meanwhile, if you did the same with a Wizard, almost all of its offence could be dumped in one fight.

A level 6 Wizards at-will damage output is roughly 11 at +7 to hit (6.6 DPR on the above Veteran). It has 19 total spell levels, of which it recovers 3 once from a short rest, on top of that.

In a single fight, the Wizard's main is rounds is stays alive to dump high level spells. Each fireball is 28 damage (save for half), and they can dump 3 in a row, before subclass abilities and any optimization!

 

[robus]

I'm regularly surprised by the fact that Giffyglyph's work in this area doesn't get more attention. Here for example is their work on mapping monster levels to CR so that we can easily convert from CR to monster level (for existing D&D monsters)

https://giffyglyph.com/monstermaker/grimoire/2.1.2/en/ratings_and_levels.html

But when you want to roll your own their approach to making monsters, in general, was a revelation to me at least:

https://giffyglyph.com/monstermaker/grimoire/2.1.2/en/making_monsters.html

 

[NotAYakk]

I'm regularly surprised by the fact that Giffyglyph's work in this area doesn't get more attention. Here for example is their work on mapping monster levels to CR so that we can easily convert from CR to monster level (for existing D&D monsters)

https://giffyglyph.com/monstermaker/grimoire/2.1.2/en/ratings_and_levels.html

But when you want to roll your own their approach to making monsters, in general, was a revelation to me at least:

https://giffyglyph.com/monstermaker/grimoire/2.1.2/en/making_monsters.html

Nice.

The elite monsters are overtuned against raw damage, and weak against control. (they are roughly 2.4x as tough and do 2.6x the damage, but are worth 2 monsters).

Solo monsters are even moreso. With no legendary resists, they are control-spell fodder. Against 4 players, a Solo does 5.8x the damage and is 4.8x as tough, but is supposed to be 4x the monster (before phase transitions).

Paragon Actions don't make up for control-spell fodder problems. The phase transition does.

Unlike legendary actions, Paragon Actions are a full set of actions. Which makes them a lot more oomph on them and less on the monster's turn.

It also relies heavily on DMs spreading out threat.

The table has a bunch of granular detail. It definitely can't be used to wing it without a computer helping you or a print out.

The entire thing lacks design notes? I mean, the claim you can convert from CR to Level as described is a bit of a stretch.

Lots stuff like "-1 to saving throws" is honestly too much detail.

 

[dave2008]

I'm regularly surprised by the fact that Giffyglyph's work in this area doesn't get more attention. Here for example is their work on mapping monster levels to CR so that we can easily convert from CR to monster level (for existing D&D monsters)

https://giffyglyph.com/monstermaker/grimoire/2.1.2/en/ratings_and_levels.html

But when you want to roll your own their approach to making monsters, in general, was a revelation to me at least:

https://giffyglyph.com/monstermaker/grimoire/2.1.2/en/making_monsters.html

It is interesting, and I have been aware of their work for years, but it is different from what I am suggesting

 

[dave2008]

5e PCs are not designed to have a similar power budget in a single encounter? So trying to make monsters that are "equal" to a PC in a single encounter is like trying to find an animal that has the same weight as an airplane, when there is everything from jumbo jets to tiny general aviation craft.

If you want a monster that, if you fought 8 of them while taking 2 short rests, is supposed to be equal to a PC, it is a monster whose CR is roughly 1/2 of your level.

So for a level 6 PC, a CR 3 monster is very roughly a monster you could fight 3 in a row, take a short rest, fight 3 in a row, take a short rest, then fight 2 in a row. Your chance of winning in the end would probably be under 50-50.

Veteran: 17 AC, 58 HP, 20 damage output per round in melee at +5 to hit.
Level 6 BM PAM Fighter: 20 AC, 28 damage output per round in melee at +7 to hit, 52 HP, 11.5 second wind, 19.5 action surge. SD are worth at least 40 damage (at 100% accuracy) per SR, 45 short rest healing from HD.

Total Fighter HP budget: 52 + 11.5*3 + 45 = 131.5

Veteran DPR: 6
Veteran HP per short rest: 174 first 2, 116 last one.
Fighter DPR: 15.4
Fighter extra SR damage AS: 10.7, BM: 40
174 - 40 - 10.7 = 123.3, divided by 15.5 is 8 rounds of Veteran damage.
Fighter wins initiative half the time, shaving off 1.5 rounds of Veteran damage (from Vets who die before making the attack that round), leaving 6.5 * 6 = 39 damage taken in each of the first 2 SR.

After 2nd rest, it takes ~5 rounds, with initiative victories dropping it to 4. Another 24 damage.

So the Fighter takes 102 damage over this day of duels, and has 131.5 total budget; ends the day with a bit under 30 HP left.

This is a very close day and a relatively optimized fighter (without magic items). But the danger is roughly what I expected.

I also neglected crits, which would help the veteran a bit more.

For non-Fighters, you'll get more daily power budget and less sustained, and often less durability. For some classes (like Rogue), a duel is going to make them usually non-functional (as 5e PCs are designed around working in a party).

But the above appears to be how 5e PCs are balanced; a sequence of fights over a day against a foe. But in a group setting, not solo.

...

If your definition of "even" is something different, I suspect you will have to rework PCs.

When you make it all occur in one fight, piles of the Fighter's abilities stop being nearly as useful. Almost 1/3 of the above Fighter's offence came from SR refresh abilities, and the majority of its durability.

Meanwhile, if you did the same with a Wizard, almost all of its offence could be dumped in one fight.

A level 6 Wizards at-will damage output is roughly 11 at +7 to hit (6.6 DPR on the above Veteran). It has 19 total spell levels, of which it recovers 3 once from a short rest, on top of that.

In a single fight, the Wizard's main is rounds is stays alive to dump high level spells. Each fireball is 28 damage (save for half), and they can dump 3 in a row, before subclass abilities and any optimization!

I'm not saying it will be easy or even possible. This is a thought exercise. I imagine you have some good ideas here, but I don't have time to go through them now. Any thoughts are welcome, but constructive ones even more so!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'm regularly surprised by the fact that Giffyglyph's work in this area doesn't get more attention. Here for example is their work on mapping monster levels to CR so that we can easily convert from CR to monster level (for existing D&D monsters)

https://giffyglyph.com/monstermaker/grimoire/2.1.2/en/ratings_and_levels.html

But when you want to roll your own their approach to making monsters, in general, was a revelation to me at least:

https://giffyglyph.com/monstermaker/grimoire/2.1.2/en/making_monsters.html

Thanks for sharing. Its complexity/simplicity points are slightly different than I would use, but otherwise has a lot of what I'd like monsters to look like. I'll keep looking at it and see what it does for my current thinking on the subject of monsters...

 

[NotAYakk]

Thinking about https://giffyglyph.com/monstermaker/grimoire/2.1.2/en/ratings_and_levels.html again.

I'd be tempted to merge Solo and Elite.

Elite(X) means "X times harder". They get (X-1) paragon actions. During a Paragon action, you can move half your movement speed and do about half a standard action's worth of damage, and you have X times as many HP, and +2 to all defences and accuracy.

Now your damage output is BASE * (X/2+.5) and your defence is BASE * X.

X monsters have X times the HP. If you kill them one at a time with constant damage each one taking 1 round, then you take X + X-1 + X-2 + X-3 + ... + 1 monsters damage output, which is (X)(X+1)/2.

For the solo above, it takes you X rounds to kill it. Each round it does (X/2+1/2) damage. So the total damage you take is ... X(X+1)/2.

You can then add in whatever mechanisms you need to deal with the fact it is one big monster (and hence vulnerable to single target control), and not multiple (and hence vulnerable to AOE and harder to pin down). Like a +2 to all attacks and defences, and some kind of 'shrug off failed save' ability (legendary resists, reroll saving throws, whatever).

 

[dave2008]

I'm regularly surprised by the fact that Giffyglyph's work in this area doesn't get more attention. Here for example is their work on mapping monster levels to CR so that we can easily convert from CR to monster level (for existing D&D monsters)

Do take note that Giffy uses Monster Level (ML) not character level and ML =/=PC level.* That is fundamentally different from what I am trying to do.

*Note: I actually find this more confusing than CR. Why call it "level" if it is not equivalent to a PC level?

 

[robus]

Do take note that Giffy uses Monster Level (ML) not character level and ML =/=PC level.* That is fundamentally different from what I am trying to do.

*Note: I actually find this more confusing than CR. Why call it "level" if it is not equivalent to a PC level?

I guess I'm confused then, from "Build a monster:"

Your first step is to assign a level to your new monster. Quickstart monsters don't use challenge ratings—instead, they use monster levels to determine their base strength. Monster levels are a one-to-one match for character levels—one 4th-level monster should be a decent contest for one 4th-level player character.

 

[dave2008]

I guess I'm confused then, from "Build a monster:"

Let me clarify, that may be the intent, but it is not how it is working. From their examples:

"From the conversion table, we see that this CR 11 remorhaz may be used in place of a ML 11 Solo, a ML 16 Elite, a ML 20 Standard, or a ML 28 Minion."

A CR 11 remorhaz is not equivalent to one lvl 20 PC. That is my point. It is not far off, IMO, but not equal.

 

[robus]

Let me clarify, that may be the intent, but it is not how it is working. From their examples:

"From the conversion table, we see that this CR 11 remorhaz may be used in place of a ML 11 Solo, a ML 16 Elite, a ML 20 Standard, or a ML 28 Minion."

A CR 11 remorhaz is not equivalent to one lvl 20 PC. That is my point. It is not far off, IMO, but not equal.

Well there's a huge variety of capabilities when you get to a Level 20 PC of course Are we talking a wizard or a fighter?

Anyway, I'll leave you be. Glad to know you're aware of that resource even if it isn't what you're looking for.

 

[NotAYakk]

Let me clarify, that may be the intent, but it is not how it is working. From their examples:

"From the conversion table, we see that this CR 11 remorhaz may be used in place of a ML 11 Solo, a ML 16 Elite, a ML 20 Standard, or a ML 28 Minion."

A CR 11 remorhaz is not equivalent to one lvl 20 PC. That is my point. It is not far off, IMO, but not equal.

A L 20 fighter, L 20 wizard, and L 20 rogue are not equal. So there is no set of stats that is equal to a level 20 PC, as there is more than one level 20 PC.

They are not far off, but are not equal.

And the CR 11 remorhaz is about as close to those level 20 PCs as the level 20 PCs are to each other. You know, depending on build.

The Remorhaz does about 70 damage per round (ish) and has about 200 HP. Its saves aren't great, but aren't complete garbage. It has decent senses, and a burrow speed.

A naive level 20 rogue does about 40-50 damage per round with higher accuracy than the Remorhaz and has 122 HP. The rogue has a few defensive abilities, including uncanny dodge, that make it tougher than it looks. Its save are going to be better. It has quite impressive skills.

The AC of the two (without magic items) is going to be similar.

With (typical) magic items on the rogue and a subclass, I could see it going either way.

There is enough balanced fudge-room in D&D (and 5e in particular) that being more accurate than a certain amount produces false confidence.

Like, we might be better off if monsters where tier-based instead of CR or level based.

T0 monsters are level 1 and under, T1 are level 2-4, T2 are 5-10, T3 are 11-20, and T4 are 21+. Each of these windows is about a factor of two in power. If we stick the monster in the middle of the window (so 1.4x bottom and 0.7x top), then add in Minion and Elite(X), we'd have a toolkit.

Ie, tier based monsters look like:
L0.7 equivalent (roughly)
L3 (roughly)
L7 (roughly)
L14 (roughly)
L28 (roughly)

Elite(X) scales HP by a factor of X and damage by a factor of (X+1)/2, adds +2 to d20 rolls, and gives Elite Actions.

Instead of the "type modifiactions" of the linked system above, I'd have packages you add on to monsters that are strict bonuses. Then adding a package makes the monster tougher.

A side effect of tier based monsters is that the DM cannot trivially use a sliding scale of monster power to nullify PC advances. Instead, each tier is narratively distinct. It resists the temptation to have Orcs just auto-gain levels as your character gets more powerful. Instead, you fight more Orcs, or something narratively distinct (a full tier up) like Ogres.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Personally, I don't think we should worry all that much about level 20. I think levels 15-20 are poorly designed (both Monster-wise and PC-wise) and are likely to get a severe overhaul of both in the next year-and-a-half. If we can get this working for level 1-12, we'll be doing quite well.

 

[dave2008]

Well there's a huge variety of capabilities when you get to a Level 20 PC of course Are we talking a wizard or a fighter?

Anyway, I'll leave you be. Glad to know you're aware of that resource even if it isn't what you're looking for.

It may be, but part of this is digging in to see what I come up with. In the end it may be very similar to what Gliffy is doing. But I don't want to reverse engineer what they are doing. I want to try it on my own.

 

[dave2008]

A L 20 fighter, L 20 wizard, and L 20 rogue are not equal. So there is no set of stats that is equal to a level 20 PC, as there is more than one level 20 PC.

They are not far off, but are not equal.

And the CR 11 remorhaz is about as close to those level 20 PCs as the level 20 PCs are to each other. You know, depending on build.

The Remorhaz does about 70 damage per round (ish) and has about 200 HP. Its saves aren't great, but aren't complete garbage. It has decent senses, and a burrow speed.

A naive level 20 rogue does about 40-50 damage per round with higher accuracy than the Remorhaz and has 122 HP. The rogue has a few defensive abilities, including uncanny dodge, that make it tougher than it looks. Its save are going to be better. It has quite impressive skills.

The AC of the two (without magic items) is going to be similar.

With (typical) magic items on the rogue and a subclass, I could see it going either way.

There is enough balanced fudge-room in D&D (and 5e in particular) that being more accurate than a certain amount produces false confidence.

Like, we might be better off if monsters where tier-based instead of CR or level based.

T0 monsters are level 1 and under, T1 are level 2-4, T2 are 5-10, T3 are 11-20, and T4 are 21+. Each of these windows is about a factor of two in power. If we stick the monster in the middle of the window (so 1.4x bottom and 0.7x top), then add in Minion and Elite(X), we'd have a toolkit.

Ie, tier based monsters look like:
L0.7 equivalent (roughly)
L3 (roughly)
L7 (roughly)
L14 (roughly)
L28 (roughly)

Elite(X) scales HP by a factor of X and damage by a factor of (X+1)/2, adds +2 to d20 rolls, and gives Elite Actions.

Instead of the "type modifiactions" of the linked system above, I'd have packages you add on to monsters that are strict bonuses. Then adding a package makes the monster tougher.

A side effect of tier based monsters is that the DM cannot trivially use a sliding scale of monster power to nullify PC advances. Instead, each tier is narratively distinct. It resists the temptation to have Orcs just auto-gain levels as your character gets more powerful. Instead, you fight more Orcs, or something narratively distinct (a full tier up) like Ogres.

Like I said, Gliffy may be right. But I've got to come up with my own approach.