CHALLENGE RATING | The ONE Thing You Need To Know

Challenge rating can be used like an art or a science to create fun encounters in Dungeons & Dragons 5e, so let's break down CR to the one thing you need to know when using it in your game! ⏬ More below! ⏬

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00:00 Challenge rating overview
01:20 Dungeon Master's Guide CR basics
01:59 Challenge rating at low levels
03:21 CR & average party level
04:03 Damage & multiattack
05:01 Grittier D&D
05:43 Read the statblock!
06:28 CR has no context
06:53 Building encounters
08:07 DIY fun encounters!

#dnd #dungeonsanddragons

[donatszabo]

Dm Book: dont drop a cr2 for a lvl1 party.
Icewind dale: ok. I understund. I drop cr3

[AndromedaMusic]

Regardless of CR being unbalanced and Rolls being unlucky or Lucky I think it is important to Tweek the encounter on the Fly. Id love to see a Follow-up Video on some of the things a DM can do behind the curtain in the moment of running an encounter to maintain the fun for everyone.

[Aligariusful]

That is a really good point about the amount of damage a monster can do, especially for the first few levels.

[___iambi]

I was taking cr pretty seriously, but then my party of 3 level 2s had no trouble vs a cr 3 Yeti. Now they do have a moon druid and they made enough smart decisions to draw aggro to that tank, but I was still impressed.

Shows how you can definitely skew pretty high on the imbalance if the characters have opportunities to plan for the encounter and actively strategize with well built PCs.

[WallyDM]

The only way I use CR is the way you stated at the very beginning, "at a glance". CR (along with alignment) give me a split-second insight into a monster that I am interested in using. If they look to be what I want, then, I'll dive deeper to see what the monster is all about. Great information in your video here Bob... I definitely learned a few things here. Well done!

[phoenixdzk]

This is pretty informative! I usually use the XP threshold table in the PHB to match players to NPC challenges, but action economy can be so important to determine the success or failure of the party. I used to just use a bunch of lower CR monsters instead of a big deadly one but the fact that they all took turns tended to give the party a much deadlier challenge than anticipated. That made me realise why legendary actions can be such a big deal

[TheGray]

I take CR under advisement, but I focus more on what the creature adds to the story and how prepared the group is for such a monster. I will also slightly alter the monster to fit the party; for instance, a low-level party encountered a mummy. I halved the mummy's damage for two turns to prevent a TPK and described it as an effect of just waking up and not being at full

[DungeonClass]

Outstanding video, Bob. We agree wholeheartedly. Your point about giving Wizards a break in coming up with a a number to quantify an encounter was spot on.

[natbaby]

I’ve just started DMing and love these vids. I basically use all the rules as suggestions and adapt accordingly. The only rule that matters is at the start of most of the books... FUN IS THE FUNDAMENTAL GOAL.

[AlexnicholasBlakely]

It always comes back to the importance of feeling it. How you need to adapt accordingly to the situation, making it easier or harder to make it as fun as possible. Nice vid.

[samleonard]

Great video. I for one, love CR. I use all the modifiers and calculations. It's the first thing I look at when designing encounters. I think it gives me a great base to start from. Of course it's not the only tool I use, but it really helps give an idea of "mechanically" what does the math say is reasonable. From there it's picking monsters and checking stat blocks and making fine adjustments.

[WraithMagus]

My game: Players are optimized. I basically have to add an entire CR 4 monster just to keep the level 3 paladin occupied while a whole other CR 4 challenge takes on the rest of the party. When the cleric got access to Spiritual Guardians, it basically invalidated any melee monster that isn't in GROUPS of CR 4+ monsters. Hitting level 5 is not just a one level increase that requires upping the level of CR in monsters by one or just adding a few more orcs in, parties suddenly get the ability to deal twice as much damage in melee and eliminate whole mobs of monsters in one fireball. (But seriously, Spiritual Guaridans is THE WORST SPELL EVER for encounter balance if the player knows the super-secret trick of "just walk backwards and make the enemy have to charge through difficult terrain while taking DoT".)

Meanwhile, there are DMs who tell me they have players who say that making a character that makes sense is "not role playing" and go with a monk that throws battleaxes in spite of not being good at that at all and never uses any class features, has a cleric that only memorizes healing spells and then melees without using any buffs. That DM treats the party as a character level lower and as if the monk doesn't exist when setting encounters, and they still have constant PC deaths.

Player skill has a lot to do with how powerful a group of monsters players can reasonably take on, so as far as CR goes, you should only use it as a rough measurement of one encounter's difficulty against another encounter's difficulty. Make your first encounter based on the CR rules, see how the party does against that. Bump the challenge up or down for the next one. The point of CR isn't to have some precisely metered experience, no matter how much WotC desperately WANTS to drain the game of all its charm to make some one-size-fits-all experience, it's to give you an at-a-glance estimate of whether the encounter you're putting together now is going to do more or less damage than the last encounter you threw at the party.

Of course, you do want some encounters to be more or less challenging, but you should hopefully avoid encounters where you make everyone roll initiative, and then the party kills the supposed boss monster on the first round before it's even gotten to move. Which honestly brings up the more important rule of building encounters that 5e doesn't bother to teach you: *Never present the party with a single enemy, even if they have legendary actions! They WILL be ganked because of the action economy before doing anything of value unless the monster gets a total fluke AoE SoD off. All bosses need minion speed bumps to keep the melee monster frappe machines away for at least one round.* (I remember one guy saying he was worried about using a juvenile black dragon as a boss for a level 3 party which had a monk being "too strong for the party". I pointed out the juvenile dragon lacked the "automatic success on saving throws" legendary action, so the monk in his game's party could effectively one-shot the supposedly massive threat with stunning fist and a failed save. Not so overwhelming, is it?) One of my favorite tricks is to have the party burst into a room with curtains along the sides and back, and maybe have an illusion of the big bad standing on the impressive-looking dias monologuing, created with minor illusion by two apprentices (one for visual, one for audio). The actual boss doesn't walk out from behind the curtains until their turn, so that they can introduce themselves with a Slow or Fireball spell before the party can react. (And for bonus points, they then walk back behind the curtain and run away behind another line of defenses, because nothing riles the party up like seeing the big bad toss a spell, laugh, and get away. Way more cathartic when they track him down and murder him at the end of his funhouse than if they gank him in the first round.)

[AlkanetEXE]

Thanks for this video! I've been running Curse of Strahd fairly by-the-book, but now I'm coming to a point in the campaign where my players' actions have impacted the world enough for me to start building more unique encounters brought about by their actions. This vid was REALLY encouraging and helpful for getting started putting together a set of monsters for them.

[lilitbeglarian]

Thank you, finally- this makes ALL the sense. i was following the book (new dm) and I was very confused as to why players were steamrolling or being steamrolled when the book said it was all supposed to be great.

[Bluecho]

It's not that CR has _no_ context. Rather, it cares about a very narrow subset of encounters: the ability to deal and take damage.

That's it. That's how CR is calculated in a vast majority of cases. You examine a chart that compares average damage, attack bonus, AC, and average HP. Average it all together on the chart, and it spits out the raw CR. This can change based on various monster abilities (Regeneration, for example, will give a monster like a Troll or Vampire more _effective_ HP, thus skewing the calculation). But this only indicates the ballpark of how much damage the monster can take and dish out.

And, as the DMG states, the CR of the _encounter_ - rather than the monster itself - can change based on 1) the number of enemies (the action economy strikes again), 2) environmental factors such as ledges or hazards that give one side an advantage, and 3) the specific PCs involved in the fight (a bunch of fire-spitting monsters will do much less damage to a party full of PCs with Fire Resistance, like Tieflings or some Draconic Sorcerers).

Further, CR was specifically designed around the assumption that the party had few to no magic items (so the system would still work in a low magic setting; unlike 4e, where PCs not getting regular magic item upgrades caused the challenge rating system to hilariously break down). A magic weapon can pierce the resistance of monsters that resist physical damage from non-magic weapons, whereas the correct situational magic item might completely trivialize some encounters.

[vigilantgamesllc]

You hit the concept of "balance" in ttrpgs right on the head man.

[ejcohen]

Thanks, Bob! Honestly, I never got my head around the whole "CR" rating until now! I always thought that a PC Character's LEVEL was his CR rating! So, HOW do you figure out the CR for a party, anyway? I have a party of basically, 3-4 players every session. Some guys only show up when they feel like it! (I only take off for important religious holidays, or if there's a death in my family--both coincided last month, my dog died.) Right now, they are 2nd Level, but they're about to be boosted to 3rd Level. They're in Vogler, just about to face an invasion of the Red Dragon Army, having to protect 400 villagers as they panic while getting into small rowboats, to escape down the river to safety in Kalaman. In other words, I have "squishy" PCs, 3rd Level, about to face I guess CR 3 or higher monsters...and a single red dragon has a CR rating of 17!!! YEESH! Even if they are helped by NPCs, including my own creation, a Level 5 Wizard of High Sorcery, I can't see how they're going to survive this! (And yeah, one of the supplements I bought on Dungeon Master's Guild DOES throw in Kamala--Kansaldi Fire-Eyes on her Red Dragon, who's after the party, and sets the village ablaze!) Even replacing a real, live, fire-breathing dragon with a Boilerdrake--which is essentially a bloody TANK with a flamethrower!--and a listed CR 3, I don't see HOW they're going to survive this unless I deliberately fudge the dice rolls behind the DM screen! I -think- that I'm just going to have Kamala Fire-Eyes fly her red dragon in the distance, fighting the Ironclad Regiment (which are I guess, Level 10 mercenaries) but 200 of them, leaving "just" JUST! around 80 or so Dragon Army soldiers, officers, and an ogre or two, not counting squishy goblins, who are pouring through the village gate (which has been stuck in the "Open" position for decades!) all intent on burning the village down and killing just about everybody! So...picture a party of just 3--4 if I'm lucky!--party members--with a half-dozen NPCs of higher level, to protect 400 people. Alurian is a Level 5 Wizard of High Sorcery, Becklin is a Level-8 Knight of Solamnia (I would've made her Level 10, at LEAST!), Cudgel is a Level 9 Veteran, Raven is a Level 3 Scout, and the militia (those not dead or injured) are only Level 2 Guards! Well, at the very least, each Army Soldier is only Level 2--BUT--there are dozens of them! Not just burning the village, but stealing, and killing--and other assorted nastiness--commoner villagers who are fishermen, plus their wives, children and old folks! In other words, total chaos. I'm going to have to seriously think this through! I definitely want to boost Lady Becklin and Cudgel to something like Level 14. Darrett shouldn't be anywhere near Level 8, not as a squire, but I'll let that slide. The wizard is only 16, Darrett's cousin, and Level 5, having literally just passed his Test of High Sorcery. His most powerful spells are Fly and Lightning Bolt. (What we really NEED is Doctor Stephen Strange, with Superman and Batman thrown in--never nomind they're from two different comic book companies!) and those are just the NPC helpers! The party consists of all 3rd Level, Sorceress, Ranger, and two Solamnic Squires--one of which has a magic, haunted +1 Shield, which I boosted to an Animated Shield. So, Bob--any advice?

[evanwhite]

I use challenge rating! What I do is calculate what CR would be considered a deadly encounter, then pick some monsters from around that CR, then I totally throw out the CR and decide whether it's balanced based on what the monsters actually do.

[zube]

Great video to make CR approachable for newer dms! I was a little confused at first at what direction you were going, but I forget that not all DMS are also math nerds. I am pretty new to dming {comma} but I started doing math in my head at age two, pretty consistently practiced with at least basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division either daily or almost daily for almost 30 years now. when I jumped into dming, just about the first thing I did to create encounters was go learn some things about cr, and then compare average DPR to average HP for both sides of a given combat. I would never have thought to walk a new DM through this the way that you did, and this is a better approach than what I would have done. Great job!

[Bondanalloy]

good video. i just tell new dms to run phandelver and see how broken cr is. just follow action economy and adjust hp/damage done by enemies on the fly. it takes time and practice.