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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roljui - Seasons
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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

[@BobWorldBuilder]

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[@donatszabo141]

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

[@benjaminwormsley2275]

That's the fun of the game (for me). Watching my players come up with cool ways to take out monsters that they shouldn't be able to.

[@reyntime8735]

DM’s Guide: Challenge Rating should always be watched closely when balancing an encounter for lower level characters Icewind Dale: lmao frost giant skeleton

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Haha, yeah I usually go for hard encounters but not that hard for level 1

[@reyntime8735]

Honestly, Rime’s early game can be easily described as “running away simulator” instead of the valiant heroes ordeal

[@donatszabo141]

@@BobWorldBuilder sephek get two NAT 20 in my game xD

[@Andromeda7Music]

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.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

That's a great idea! I think that's something a lot of new DMs need to be practicing!

[@TheAmbex]

I will always have a range of extra baddies prepared that I can naturally introduce to an encounter. It's always a mix of low to high CR, casters, fighters, bow etc. I did my first DM last year and the table loved the fact that there were no easy fights and that every encounter truly represented a death risk.

[@Keimoj]

Feel ya, I have only been running test campaign to teach myself and one of my future players about the game and I've added and removed encounter resistance depending of the situation just because I still don't have a good grasp on the CR stuff :D having creature more damaged or so helped a lot to balance encounter on fly. I did test a way to give solo player a slight advantage with whetstones cause I liked the idea they having a use. adv on attack if use roll was over n-amout and +1 if nat 20. If roll is nat 1 the whetstone breaks and might ding your weapon so that there is disavantage (These applied to only first attack with weapon)

[@reloadpsi]

I just did the first boss of my campaign and ended up having to change one of his attacks to only ever having one use because I kind of overtuned it :P

[@Quandry1]

Making sure you understand the monsters you're going to use and tweaking on the fly is important. Partly because Some monsters and encounters don't really fit the CR ratings they are given when calculated, and more importantly, Many battles do not actually represent the overall calculation they come out to mathematically. I'm not quite so exclusive on Balancing as Bob. But I agree with him that it is vastly more important at the lower levels and the higher the Party gets in level, and the more overpowered you let them start as and build into. The less balance matters. Even the creators of the game admitted that balance was just never worked on in any real capacity in tier 4. But there are a lot of low level encounters that turn from manageable to deadly just by adding one or two weak monsters that die easily in, And at higher levels there are encounters that calculate as deadly but they really aren't except for in that one anomalous exceptional situation where luck for the dm and being unlucky for basically the whole party match up for that one particular moment, So in reality they are so much less of a challenge and there is so much more room to basically go into completely incalculable area's that are still well within the realm of even the average by the book parties capability. I've seen things like Level 10 encounters that calculate up as deadly with 5, 6, or more monsters in one battle against a party of 4 level 10's that really shouldn't have be because half of those monsters will die in one hit and are unlikely to do much to the PC's, One is a support monster that kind of needs things to go their way a bit to really add much to the fight, And there is only one, or maybe 2 monsters that are actual threats to both life and resources in any real way for the party to deal with and only equate to an average encounter to begin with. While another deadly encounter that calculates to no more, and sometimes a bit less than the bigger encounter. But the party's odds of surviving it get exceedingly low the closer to the average character that they get at the same level. depending on the situation they are in, in the past I've actually done things like revealed certain opponents were wounded to weaken things, Added in a few monsters, or even found reason to draw a second encounter into the situation as an additional wave in a couple situations where they walked through something that should have been hard.

[@Aligariusful]

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

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Yeah it’s the main mechanical part of a monster that I worry about!

[@elgatochurro]

Nah even after some monsters got too high damage to be fair fight

[@Antoniusan]

Yeah I'm currently looking at how to balance things I want to swap out in LMoP to fit my players backstories and I happened to look at a certain Venomfang....a CR8 young green dragon for my 3-player 3rd level party??? Eh noooooo.........

[@bolosandninjarolls]

@@Antoniusan he flees at half hp. It doesn't make him easy, but it makes him defeatable

[@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!

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Thanks Wally! I do the same (don’t think I actually said it in the video), and mostly look at what cool features the monster has!

[@___i3ambi126]

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.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Exactly! I always lean on the deadly side because my players are good at strategizing!

[@pouncerlion4022]

@@BobWorldBuilder Of late I only have one, maybe two, experienced players, I'm teaching groups of newbies. Heck, my current group, after 5 levels, I still know their abilities better than most of them. Still, it's a relatively large group (average 6) and, with the exception of the fighter being a crit magnet (my dice truly seem to hate him) they've shredded large groups of monsters with slightly higher CRs on several occasions. Of coursed on other occasions moderate encounters have gone horrifically wrong for them.

[@TheGray524]

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 strength.....yet.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Lore and cool features always before CR!!

[@Antoniusan]

Perfect!

[@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

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Totally! I often lean on one big interesting foe with maybe a few simple minions

[@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.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Thanks guys! And hey, congrats on 2k subs!!! :)

[@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.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Yes, adapting on the fly is a tricky skill to learn, but one of the most valuable things a DM can practice!

[@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.)

[@SamueleVitaglione]

I think optimized characters, especially in the hands of expert players, necessarily call for a specific style of gameplay, one that is very tactical and combat focused. The reason for this is that the DM is forced to put a huge amount of attention into encounter planning, leaving him/her/they with little to no resources left (especially time wise) for planning other things such as interesting social encounters or interesting plots. Of course, a very skilled DM (or just one with a LOT of free time) could always create tactical combat AND interesting social encounters AND intricate plots for is players. I'm just saying, the average DM simply wont be able to, let alone a beginner DM. Therefore, players who inted to optimize their characters should make it clear with their DM and make sure the whole table is on the same page.

[@WraithMagus]

@@SamueleVitaglione I don't think it's that hard, but at the same time, I do want to spend my time making encounters interesting and varied, at the very least, and to avoid making fights too much of a cakewalk. There is a problem when a player uses an Armorer Artificer that can crank his AC up to 24 using nothing but class abilities from a very early level, and also have an attack that forces disadvantage on any enemy that tries to attack any other party member, but that's actually less disruptive than just having a cleric who realizes how good Spiritual Guardians is. Magic as a whole is completely screwed in 5e, and honestly Concentration and "streamlined rules" makes it worse than even the 3e SoD stuff this is supposed to be fixing. But anyway, my game has some optimized characters, but optimizing in 5e is not hard and anyone can do it, so the experienced players just give pointers to the new ones, and they're good to go. In spite of having a party that I struggle to find challenges for (trying to target AC is basically meaningless unless I give extra Strength/Dexterity/caster stat to monsters), this party also will have whole sessions of basically nothing but socializing, and although I have to go out of my way to set it up, they'll bite on trying to negotiate with the lizardfolk that are territorial and militant but not MONSTERS rather than just exterminate them on sight, and actively try to trade with them. (And great fun was to be had when the remainder of an orc tribe surrendered after the party killed its demon-worshipping leaders, only to now have scared orc - mostly children and their mothers - minions they're now plotting to train into the first serfs of the land they're claiming.) Being skilled at character creation is not at all an impediment to good role-playing.

[@samleonard2557]

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.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Yeah! If running those numbers is fun for you, do it! I'm glad it works for you and your group!

[@nat1baby]

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.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Exactly! :) Thanks for your support!

[@gariko]

One thing I learned recently was that CR relates to an NPC's proficiency bonus. 0 to 4 = 2 5 to 8 = 3 9 to 12 = 4 13 to 16 = 5 17 to 20 = 6... Problem is, there's no real way to figure out what the challenge rating of an adjusted or made up enemy should be. If I add undead traits to a monster, or have a previous npc come back as a werewolf or as a higher level spellcaster, how does that affect the CR? But I guess that's where advice to change enemy stats and the health on the fly helps. An enemy too tough and wiping out people, and your barbarian player is too far to hit with their great axe but has a hand axe to throw? Maybe let that desperate attempt to do something actually kill the creature, despite its 40 remaining hit points. Enemy you made up to be a cool battle getting wiped out too easy? Maybe add more health (or just have a number of rounds it will continue to survive), or suddenly allow them an extra action on their turn that breaks the rules. 2 fireballs in one turn? Sure, why not. Maybe they had a special amulet which cracks after they do it. Once they're defeated, your players now have a magic item they want to repair or find (amulet that lets you activate 1 spell twice but only once) that could be a side adventure.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Great observation! Note that the DMG does provide some tables about how to calculate CR for custom monsters!

[@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.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Glad it was helpful! You'll definitely like the video that just came out this week!

[@evanwhite5704]

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.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Bingo, I lean way more on the cool abilities monsters have, then adjust HP/AC to make it work

[@vigilantgamesllc]

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

[@BobWorldBuilder]

I really appreciate that! I never know how others will react to my takes on these topics, but it's worked well for my groups. Glad it works for you too! :)

[@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.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Practice is definitely the key. New DMs often just need the confidence to make the game their own!

[@Bluecho4]

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.

[@lilitbeglarian7942]

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.

[@sloppyjalopy9749]

More videos on encounter building would be dope, especially adding flavour to avoid slogfests or boring fights?

[@BobWorldBuilder]

I agree! In the meantime, check out one of my other videos in this 'DM & player tips' playlist: 4 Tips for Fast Combat! That might have some ideas you're looking for

[@buskavonalupish]

Thank you! This was just the explaination and depth of discussion I needed. About to run my first campaign. Thanks again

[@live4twilight4ever]

Am I the only one who uses the daily XP budget to balance encounters? Genuine question. It feels so central to me, like the whole CR system is actually about adventuring days and not single encounters. I mean, of course an encounter will be more dangerous when you've expended most of your resources, right? But I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone else talk about CR that way.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

You're surely not alone, but I would bet you're one of a very small number! Many DMs find it tedious, but if crunching the numbers is part of what makes prep fun for you, then crunch those numbers like you've never crunched before!

[@punishedwhispers1218]

I believe you are probably the only person that drinks pure vanilla extract

[@markhill3858]

eh you damn kids and your new fangled CR .. youre first level and its a bunch of owlbears lol

[@ShadeSlayer-2200]

How do you do the budget, it seems pretty interesting

[@stevdor6146]

Budgeting implies that the party is moving from encounter to encounter without rest and resupply, so if you want the party to live you can load a lot exp/challenge to the first half of the session when characters are fresh and "budget" less challenging challenges later in session to match remaining resources. But parties that i have been in have no regards to wasting time and full resting between encounters to regain abilities and slell slots means screw the budget full challenge all the time

[@jaykelly5161]

You explain this so well! Thank you 😊

[@Enn-]

Seriously. Last night I was laying in bed wondering why 5e didn't come up with a better system for CR. Something that makes sense would be nice. Thanks for the vid!

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Yeah, it's really just a lofty goal for any game designer to try narrowing down all those variables into a simple system... especially when disregarding balance can be just as fun!

[@AnArmAndAGreg]

Fantastic tips. Thanks, again, Bob.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

You are very welcome, Greg!

[@GreyLovelady]

Bob. You are a great talker and explainer of things! Amazing content

[@BobWorldBuilder]

That is what I aim to be, Frog. Thank you!!

[@tylerking4158]

I always plan encounters according to the story. Recently, I wanted a beholder fight as a suprise to my players as a head of a dragon cult instead of a dragon. I also customized its stat block so that the beholder could last longer in combat and to fit the lore of the dungeon they just completed. Its the best encounter to date.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Well done! And hey, it's been awesome to see your comments on my videos over the last year (or two now?) and to see how you've become more confident as a DM!

[@tylerking4158]

@@BobWorldBuilder Thanks Bob. Its D&D youtubers like yourself that help other DMs get better at DMing the game we all love.

[@craven1927]

Super helpful as always! As a new DM I feel like CR is one of the more confusing aspects of the game to figure out, I'm glad it's not just me lol. I kind of just naturally fell into the concept of using damage output vs hp to get a better idea of how difficult or challenging an encounter may be, so I'll keep working on it with these helpful tips, thanks!

[@fernandozavaletabustos205]

Thank you for another great video!!

[@katana4919]

Great video! Keep up the good work bob!

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Thank you very much!

[@bobross9253]

This really helped, thanks!

[@BobWorldBuilder]

No problem! :)

[@bobross9253]

Love your videos! Just found your channel recently and have really enjoyed it. You have earned a subscription good sir!

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Awesome, thank you and welcome! I've been called the Bob Ross of D&D numerous times, so it's great to have you here lol 😆

[@bobross9253]

Well, they aren’t wrong about the Bob Ross of dnd thing! And my username is honestly just a coincidence!

[@cameroncarter3880]

I don’t know how you keep making videos on questions I have right when I have them but please keep it up!!

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Haha, well what other questions do you have? Other people seem to need the same answers based on the unusually high views on this one!

[@davecironelibrarykid]

More great advice! Thanks Bob

[@zube410]

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!

[@RyuSpike]

I once ran an encounter where my party of five 4th level adventures tried fighting a group of three dragonclaws. Figured that three CR 1 creatures would be an easy enough fight. Somehow, they killed the biggest, buffest party member on the first turn and beat the rest of the party into a bloody pulp. The party didn't even kill one of them and chose to run away and hide. Can't tell if this encounter was unbalanced because dragonclaws have pack tactics or if the players were just unlucky with their rolls. Maybe both?

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Your ending point is exactly why I made this video! Even unlucky/lucky rolls can throw off CR!

[@Quandry1]

it may well have been a combination of things. But I'll let you know from experience. CR of monsters is not always trustworthy. Try to learn what monsters are capable of so you can get an idea what they can do together. Things that calculate up as deadly, specially as level increases, might not be, and things that don't calculate as that bad could turn practically player wipe in nature just because of the combination. The Advantage of pack tactics probably played a bit of a part, But luck on the rolls whether good or bad probably played a pretty good part as well. Some of the hobgoblins are a fine example of things that can get out of hand quickly and are likely a lot tougher than their CR, Particularly when combined together. They don't seem like they do much individually, But when they do things like what is effectively an extra hits worth of damage each round just for standing in an adjacent square to an ally and successfully hitting, Have High AC and pretty good to great HP for their Challenge Rating, and a whole host of other little fun things just because they are meant to be kind of an elite but ultimately low level goblinoid threat. They are something that can potentially overwhelm a party. Even if it's fairly powerful at creation. When you look at them at a glance though. Their highest one is only something like CR 6 or CR 7 and they make sense to have a few hobgoblin allies. It can all snowball pretty fast when you actually build encounters that way however and they sometimes might be better suited to be just one or two mixed with regular goblins or the like more often than not. But Many DM's just paying attention to the CR calculations won't know that and most CR calculators don't take that into account and won't know the difference between a whole encounter of hobgoblins, or an encounter with like 1 hobgoblin and a bunch of regular goblins in support.

[@ricardo.sander]

Thank you. I really needed this.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

I'm very glad to hear that! I always wonder what topics will be useful for the most people. Let me know if you have other burning questions!!

[@ricardo.sander]

@@BobWorldBuilder nice. I would love to know more about how to run traps and puzzles. I watch Wally DM for puzzles. It is a really good channel but I would love a different approach or tips on how to create my own puzzles.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Ahh fun topic! I don't use a lot of puzzles in my games, but making a video like this would probably help me use them more! Definitely adding this to the list

[@mrmaster9801]

A really good video 👍🏻. I've learned the hard way not to rely on CR as the sole indicator of difficulty for a combat encounter, the part of "read the whole stat block" is your best friend in that regard. Also, I've found that XGtE has a better way of calculating a combat encounter's difficulty and the Sly Flourish's way of defining a deadly encounter is far easier. As always, these two methods don't take into accounts all the nuances of a fight, so your advices should still be followed.

[@octaviousdutolan4270]

My rule of thumb is to combine the levels of your players in order to give you a decent gage of the total CR value that an encounter should have. D&D is a world of magic and mayhem which needs the players to be in it, and as a result I tend to sprinkle in a fair allotment of magic vendors and treasure. Base DMG CR value tables do not take into account any additional items/abilities/homebrew content which leads me to believe that combining their levels for the encounter strikes a nice balance. This takes into account the heavy-handed nature of short or long rests as well as healing options a party has. However, a word of caution - if you are going to have a strong individual monster the party has to fight, input some foreshadowing and give the party a chance to use items they already have in creative ways or incorporate quest hooks to acquire items that nerf the monster or are especially effective against the environment or lair of the monster. Smart players, using just the basic player's handbook Items, should be able to wiggle their way through most every encounter. Lastly, the theme of your campaign or the mini-arc of a story should be the most important thing. Sure, throw that really dangerous monster into your campaign, but have it make sense for your individual world. Best of luck out there, and may your kobold ambushers ever always get crits.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Hmm, that is an intriguing rule of thumb. I'm going to have to try that!

[@curtisholsinger6023]

I have an awesome one-shot booklet published by an indie company that has been great for putting together a loose serial campaign. Only problem: the monsters are WILDLY variant in terms of CR and toughness. Case in point: the level 2 adventure, tailored for four adventurers, has encounters with 3-6 frostworms, a Greater Wight, and a - I kid you not - wyrmling Time Dragon. the combat sequences were insane, but at the end of it, a player rolled a 20 on a death saving throw while inside a spatial rift, got kicked out of the rift with one of her arms cut off - and the arm turned into a cursed magic weapon that they promptly buried under a church and doomed a whole town to blight because of it. They also got a campaign Big Bad and tales of having rode and killed a dragon at level 2. So... yes, sometimes CR can be wildly inappropriate, but if you commit to the Rule of Cool and your players are okay with the high potential of having to roll new characters, then you can come away with some awesome stories when the stars align and your PCs survive.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

That's literally one of the most wild D&D stories I've ever heard haha, my games are usually low-ish magic :P

[@mikemays7512]

Thank you! Very informative, but I really enjoy your format! No crazy dubstep and background music while you're talking. Thank you for staying on brand for DnD

[@albertnorman4136]

I really like the idea of 'lower threshold' warnings for monsters, the 'this can kill a squishy in as little as X hits', or 'this kind of class must be minimum Y level in order to contribute to combat against this creature'. (Squishies, of course, being Wizards, Warlocks, or Sorcerers, with their d6 hp.) Beyond that, however, I'd like to see spellcasting semi-separated from NPCs who can cast. How exactly this would be done, I don't know, but I imagine something where various loadouts are available for selection (rolled randomly or chosen by the DM), a single large loadout being the primary, with a few side loadouts, and each loadout is summarized by theme. Offense, defense, utility, quality of life, amusement, etc. A spellcaster who has picked spells primarily for their amusement or quality of life value, with only a side loadout for emergency defense, is going to be a lot easier to fight than a spellcaster prepped to go to war.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

You know, maybe my love of foreshadowing danger is why I'm always forced to use extra powerful baddies against my very strategic players!

[@Quandry1]

@@BobWorldBuilder If you like to foreshadow... I'm not sure how much you do... but maybe consider the enemies in somewhat tactical ways and strategies as well. Such as spying and ambushes on the players for disruption. Because in a way many Adventuring Parties tend to foreshadow their capabilities and preferred methods to the bad guys as well in the encounters with the powerful baddies minions.

[@marcosmiotti7399]

Excellent video, dude! I see many people out there complaining about CR, but just a few really took time to the DMG's section on CR. There's a lot of misunderstanding about it.

[@DrAndrewJBlack]

Great stuff!

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Thanks Doc! :)

[@Jpteryx]

To be fair, the encounter balancing guide does account for number of enemies, environment, and resting; the only thing it doesn't take into account is magic items. Personally I think CR and encounter difficulty are valuable as a starting point. Not every encounter should be Medium or Hard, but regardless of level I've found that the guidelines are good for predicting how much an encounter will challenge the party.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Definitely agree about number of creatures and resting, but by environment I mean that something as simple as pillars vs open room vs hallway (or even "the high ground" if we learned anything from Star Wars) can allow the players and the DM to strategize in ways that CR cannot account for. That's not to mention really fun locations with swinging vines, dropping chandeliers, rocks sinking into lava, etc. These types of environments are way too complex to incorporate into one easy number!

[@davecironelibrarykid]

I’ve pretty much disregarded CR- I watch the variables like you mentioned, and adjust stat blocks if necessary. My players have learned the hard way to pick their battles. Ultimately, it’s about story: if it makes sense for an enemy to be there, big or small, then the adventure stays fun.

[@Ragejaw]

I only really use CR till lvl 5 at which point most PC's really come into their own. After that I up the deadly effect of encounters and it seems to work pretty well for my group.

[@jonahyogman6282]

My dungeon master takes a rather unorthodox approach! He told us to take max hp instead of rolling to 'give him more to work with' and likes to throw real scary things at our party (but with powerful npcs ti help us out). The result? Fun, cinematic, high stakes combat that keeps even me, an rp nut, vibrating in my chair. He's the best dungeon master I've ever had.

[@jackkent3398]

Great video, CR really is a bit useless for what it's trying to achieve

[@BobWorldBuilder]

It’s a quick nod in the right direction, but it’s about as useful as just noting the sheer size of the stat block lol

[@WraithMagus]

As much as I don't like 4e, 4e's idea of how to use CR was better than 5e's. A huge problem with how CR works in 5e is that it's written starting with a presumption of using a single monster for an encounter. You should *never* send only a single monster against the party. Even an over-leveled encounter can be ended in one round before the monster gets a go if the party uses a class ability or spell that can stun or otherwise incapacitate a monster (like, say, the monk's stunning fist, the basic bread-and-butter move of the class?) if the monster just happens to fail a save. Even creatures with legendary actions need minions to act as speed bumps for the melee monster frappe machines. Battles against groups of enemies using tactics unique to their creature type are always more interesting than a big punching bag that just rolls dice to deal damage. The only way that a single monster can threaten a party is if it can take out at least one party member per turn, probably two, and that's not going to be too fun for the party. Most battles, therefore, should be the party against crowds of enemies with the danger being succumbing to multiple hits in a battle of attrition rather than one crushing blow. (This also makes area spells or class features with tactical applications more useful than just spamming whatever does the most damage, so there can be room for actual tactics in this tactical combat.) The 4e idea of CR was that "This is a CR 1 orc. That means one orc *per party member* that is level 1." This takes the action economy into account, and starts from the presumption that both sides are going to be fielding equal numbers of combatants hypothetically capable of threatening each other (but really, the players have all the advantages of they wouldn't be assumed to win), and you can tweak the encounter by having some more lower-level monsters or less higher-level monsters, but know that you're starting from the baseline presumption of equally-sized forces. (Although especially when you get to level 5, and there's fireball in the mix, you need to outnumber the party and give the monsters reinforcements that arrive AFTER the fireball so that there are fresh forces for the other party members to stab after the wizard has his fun.)

[@MyNameIsNotPa]

My level 16 party had no problem fighting a lich and then all the forms of Auril back to back. I tend to use CR as a means to go way into the deadly encounter territory as otherwise it feels like the party doesn’t even lose health before the combat is over. Daily XP budget works really well!

[@youeyez]

I finally subscribed. Realized I've watched like 5 videos and probably should lol

[@BobWorldBuilder]

I appreciate that! Thanks 😊

[@Morec0]

God I'm glad I watched this. Having never run DnD at all before, and basically doing it off of scraps of information now, I looked at CR and thought "okay, so let's match the total level to the challenge rating" and nearly dropped an Ice Troll on level 3s for a one shot.

[@wvm06]

I think you have a great perspective.

[@HowtoRPG]

Good advice.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Thanks Fred!

[@Admin-rn6ym]

Ty!

[@mikfhan]

If total hp after long rest < 16 then add the difference as temporary hp, gives a buffer to avoid random wipes early on so you can run more encounters and short rests.

[@chrisf9156]

It depends on your party too. Regardless of level, if your party wants to kill everything in sight and never flees, you should take CR into account. Learned that lesson after having a near TPK because the players ignored the multiple warnings and then stood their ground when they really shouldn't have. I think they were level 7.

[@ShatteredAutomaton]

Just ran my first campaign using 5E and the Essentials Kit that has the "Dragon of Icespire Peak" module, and i have to say, you NEED a Session Zero. It's invaluable. I tried jumping right in and substituted a Young Manticore for the recommended Manticore, nerfing all the stats because every video on KZbin usually account for a maximum of 4 players and the 5 characters overkilled it in 3 turns. It wasn't the bbeg but, I wish I would have known the idea for a challenge rating before now.

[@quantum_ogre]

I really wish they had a more clear portion of the DMG where they list some sort of easy to follow match up between ' What your Party is Good at, Weak as vs What the Monsters might debilitate them with'. It's a lot of trial and error, but if there was a way to easier categorize things in a way where you could say " This party has three characters without damage mitigation, and two of your three monsters have 'damage spikes'" there would be a lot less TPKs from newer DMs.

[@andylaugel4241]

Multiattack with 3 melee attacks are of special note, as you can drop a PC on the first attack, and the next two attacks have advantage and will make the target autofail two death saves per hit if they connect--high odds of a PC death with no chance for others to offer healing or distraction.

[@atsuskyreign7083]

I do find encounter builders make the calculations quicker to guesstimate the difficulty of the encounter like Kobold Fight Club. Picking creatures that have a reasonable CR range is a good place to start then actually read their abilities and compare it to the players to see how they may fare. Action economy matters a ton as well one CR 5 creature will probably get stomped by a group of 5 lvl 5 players and even 4 players will probably do pretty well. Overall experience and knowing how to adjust the creatures on the fly is your best bet for balancing encounters early on.

[@jerrywhoomst1116]

When I was a new DM I assumed CR was meant to be the total level of the party. I had three level 1 players so I thought: "Challenge Rating three". Learned pretty fast to adjust monsters on the fly.

[@jcow4311]

Helpful!

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Thank you! :)

[@wperdew6078]

Hey there Bob. Long time gamer here. Played pathfinder since '11, as well as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd edition starting back in the olden days. The CR system in 5th edition was something I could not get. Through pathfinder I was able to make creatures from scratch, set a CR, and pick and choose custom creatures and book stats alike to create awesome encounters. That said, when I stared looking at stat blocks, I couldn't see where the developers were basing their CR numbers on. So, it looks to me like custom made stuff requires way more research than I have time to go dig around and find. Which is unfortunate. The system itself was just to convoluted to try and make sense of. Forget about trying to make some kind of really cool creature if you can't even figure out how to make an encounter for 4 level 3 characters. This was the point in the DMG that I failed. Went back and tried to grasp it, but couldn't really master it quick enough to get to writing an adventure. So, I have never ran anything. Trust me I get the concept. It's just that where everything else in the game has a simple eloquence to it (especially compared to pathfinder), this essential part was just to clunky for me to get by. If you have a quick and dirty way to get through this roadblock, I would like to know.

[@pwuhl]

I had some serious problems in my first game to find the perfect challenge rating. That helped a lot! Thank you very much :) Ps: I really like your voice !

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Like a lot of D&D, it takes practice! Thank you 😊

[@MaxLSilver]

The CRs in the Monster Manual can cause some heartburn as well. Was playing in a group of four at level 6, got surprised by a young black dragon (CR 7), and we got destroyed pretty much immediately. Definitely anything with an area effect needs to be treated with that extra caution. :)

[@user-cf6ee2ud2y]

Cr is an easy fight: 1 cr 5 monster will be out actioned by the party, but it will put up a fight. So if you want some combat to break up an rp session or someone “about that powerful” to fight, cr will give you 3 rounds max, and generally won’t down a pc. For more “balanced” encounters I recommend ignoring the horde multiplier (essentially when calculating monster xp to cr you multiply it by up to 2X based on the number used). This makes the fights actually harder since now the action economy can swing out of the players favor even if the enemies are weaker, it doesn’t make sense to double charge for cannon fodder. I personally kinda work in the opposite direction, I calculate how much xp the party is worth, experienced PCs can handle more then new players, and then “buy” monsters based off of that. It also goes hand in hand with mismatched levels for the party and not double charging cannon fodder, so a normal combat session for use lasts 6 rounds and downs 1-2 PCs per fight. As the party gets magic items and broken class feature or spells they are bumped higher and higher, generally by the mid game they are all counted as 1 “cr” above their level and end game 2-3

[@BlackPenzo]

My rule of thumb is that encounters survive about 3 rounds and deal 50-70% of the squishy players HP in damage per round. Depending on prep that can both go up or down

[@hollowryder2732]

Here is my method for building encounters. Its not to math heavy and can be used to alot of creatures to alot of different player levels so if you want to have a kobold band that could challenge your 14th level party this is what ive found that works well. step 1: The action economy. Look at the average number of actions your players can make in a turn disregarding movement and bonus actions as each monster in the encounter will only get 1 take into account the number of attacks or spells your players can make in a turn now give half of the total amount of actions rounding up to the monsters for spellcasters at a higher level consider giving them the ability to cast a cantrip or first level spell as a bonus action. Step 2 Health and resistances. In general you can leave any resistances and the AC of the monster as is, but may want to add or take a few away based on your players as far as health goes I use 3 tiers of enemies trash, mini boss, and boss to determine how much HP to give my creatures. For trash enemies look at the average damage a round your entire party can do in a round and double it. That total will be spread across all creatures in the encounter. So if your parties average damage is 60 a round and you want 3 creatures each will have 20 hp. For miniboss use the same method but using 4 round of damage, and for boss use 6+ rounds. Step 3 damage of the creatures. Using the damage by level chart of the DMG and the trash, miniboss, and boss method above set the average damage that can be done to the tankiest member of the party in a single round. Trash mobs should need 6+ rounds to knock out the tankiest member of your party, miniboss should take the same number of rounds, and boss monster should be able to down them in half the number of rounds you set the boss HP too. so if you gave the boss enough health to last for 8 rounds you should look to down the tank in 4. Of course due to things like healing spells and items, missing attacks and making saves it wont be exactly a 4 turn clock but a big round of damage that takes about a quarter to a third of your tankiest part member gives some really quick tension and urgency

[@bob8mybobbob]

I will generally use challenge rating as one of my starting points as it’s a quick way to roughly gauge a creature’s strength. If I’m in a desert, I’ll have a list of monsters that could reasonably appear in the desert along with their challenge rating. If I want a single gate guardian there’s no reason for me to look up a the stat block of CR 2 creature.

[@Rabijeel]

...and then, you are at a Convention and the GM wants to throw a "Horror-Survival" where Dragons roam the Lands. He ordered us to make Chars for that. We ended up with an Eldritch Archer (Arcane Archer + Hexblade who Eldritch Smites with a Longbow), 2 Sordins (Light and Darkness, coopplay of a celestial and a Shadow Sorcerer, Oath of Devotion and Conquest) and a Echo Rogue plus "Walther, the Undertaker" - a literal Undertaker and Tempest Cleric who is ought to "wrestle the World from the Lizzards Fangs". We were ought to loose and run (Level 12) as most were adult and ancient. Well, did not turn out so well and turned into a nice "Wild Hunt" from our side.

[@uchihajunior5648]

I played with a dm that uses the intelligence of enemies to decide if they do the optimal choice to take out your party or if they do dumb shit, ex: A cr 4 oger that can one shot both of our level 3 casters in 1 turn choses to attack the threatening looking shiny heavy armored paladin with a all the defensive buffs we could stack instead, while a pixie would use polymorph on the party member with the lowest chance to succeed in a saving throw without accouting their current buffs or who have the highest chance of killing her, while a lich would use a complicated spell combo to try and take out the party as effectively as possible, while also using the perfect strategy to survive what we throw at him.

[@m3w]

You are saving my from much embarrassment at my table. Thank you!

[@roberttrevino2280]

I just pick something higher than they could think is possible just to boost morale when they kill it... Then throw in something like orcus

[@BobWorldBuilder]

That’s been my go-to lately! Then sometimes the dice are in the players’ favor and they still make it look easy!

[@donidewit]

5:23 OMG, that's exactly why I clicked on this video xD I'm a new DM; bought that starter module and almost killed the whole party with 1 Ankheg :') (I had to decrease quite the amount from its health so my players would be able to defeat it)

[@bardofvoid174]

I feel like CR is just as much of an interpretive, semi-abstract guideline as the entirety of the rules of dnd, which in the large picture, are useful to consider (especially when in a rush or don't have much leftover brainpower) since they're ensured to vaguely correspond to the reality of the monster, or in dnd's in general case, vaguely correspond to the notion of balance and fun, but following to a T is putting a bit of blind faith on the effectiveness of a *very* specific interpretation, that may not necessarily be inherently wrong, it is ensured to vaguely correspond to it, but also isn't necessarily inherently right either, or in simpler terms: is far from perfect. Idk I just wanted to put it into fancy words

[@Zarnirox]

Thank you for this. I'm DMing a one shot for the first time with some brand new players. I'm so nervous about giving them a fair challenge while not outright killing their characters.

[@SweetLuups]

I started a frostmaiden campaign with a yeti ambush. 6 lvl 1 characters. By round 2 i had to introduce a second yeti so everyone could have a fair amount of turns in combat. Then they encounter 6 goblins and 2 people almost died lol

[@Jpteryx]

1 Yeti is a Medium encounter for that party, 6 goblins is Hard. Plus I'm guessing they used up some of their strongest abilities in that first fight.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Geez! I'm surprised they survived!

[@SweetLuups]

@@Jpteryx The goblins are wrote into the adventure as one of the beginning quests, I planned the yeti encounter as a sessions 0 intro. A sorcerer used sleep on each yeti so his spell slots were gone and he chose to not participate in the goblin encounter. The only player who went down was the artificer who took a 10 in CON and got one shot by a goblin that rolled well and did 8 dmg. The goliath also got hit by one goblin for minimal damage. The yetis literally had no chance. 2 yeti are a deadly encounter, it was more like 1.5 by the time the second one was involved on round 2.

[@SweetLuups]

@@BobWorldBuilder They didn't just survive, they conquered. This party is already beastly at level 1 and 2. They wanted a feat at level 1 but I told them if their characters make it to level 4 in Icewind Dale they can have a Feat and an a Ability score increase, they just came off the carriage swinging

[@wardhuckabay8262]

Oddly enough, if your players are rolling terribly during an encounter, then the CR kind of goes out the window. I had a party of level 3 nearly destroyed by a couple of Sprites... embarrassment ensued.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Totally! I’ve had the opposite happen recently where my party wrecked a monster that was supposed to be a big challenge!

[@douglaswilliams6834]

Back in early D&D (late '70s, early '80s) almost anything could kill a low level caster with one hit. Players who played magic users learned to stay out of melee range or they rolled up new characters very often, heh. At the higher levels this was, of course, a totally different story.

[@keanueugene6331]

Meanwhile me:- All players have max hit points available when they level up. The world exists and doesn't care for your level.If you die you die.

[@johnsmith3085]

Also why I'm not a fan of the video game "Boss fight" concept being adapted to TTRPGs. If you end up opening the wrong door and it's a "big bad," guess you better run. No need for a bunch of little encounters leading up to it. Just scatter things thru the dungeon and keep CR reasonable (not necessarily "balanced").

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Yeah, my style is normal HP (roll or take average) and the same mentality about the world! I usually play with experienced players who know when to run!

[@r.s.2890]

This reminds me of a comment I saw on another video talking about CR: "The world doesn't scale with you" That comment brought to mind the pokemon games, on how the wild pokemon in the starter routes are always low level even at endgame. If the players take a wrong turn and end up on a more dangerous route, have them get bloodied up a bit as they try to escape while going: "As you enter the safety of the forest, you take a breather and as you do, you immediately recall every villager you asked for directions telling to turn _left_ at the crossroads. They were all to terrified to say why. Well, now you know why."

[@SilveOfisial]

amazing.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Thanks for your support! :)

[@SilveOfisial]

@@BobWorldBuilder Thank YOU for your help lol X.D

[@Cyberlisk]

In my campaign, there's usually only a few encounters per adventure day, meaning my players have more resources per combat. Therefore my rule is, if it is not at least rated "hard" by official calculations, it's not even a battle.

[@charles3840]

What might be better is if CR measured players vs a monster one on one. A CR 1 is equally matched to one lvl 1 player. This then stacks. If you have 4 lvl 1 players, throw 4 CR 1 monsters at them. Or 3 lvl 1s and 1 lvl 2, 3 CR 1s and one CR 2. And so on. Maybe not actually feasible, but that feels like what CR should mean.

[@whitemansucks]

How to fix CR's and bounded accuracy. In the 90's we had the same problems. Its easy, use the D4 thru the D12 as minus modifiers to the DC. Using the minus D12 mod on CR 25-30 creature makes it 5% to 60% harder per player. Respectively, a D4 minus mod makes the creature 5% to 20% harder per player.

[@davidegrasso364]

I have to say I have always used The table wich is super useful

[@TheRealBrit]

RIP Kobold fight club, you served us well 🙏

[@TheAurgelmir]

I use CR, more or less as an indicator, but that's it. But I try to balance it around the players. They had 5 lvl3 characters and took down a Young Black Dragon. (although technically the Dragon could have killed one of the players, but he ended up being knocked out for most of the encounter) That I'm noticing more and more is that the area you fight in matters a lot to how strong an enemy becomes. In my Dragon fight I deliberately gave the players some pillars to hide behind when they got an indication that the breath was about to be used (Since I wasn't sure if the CR7 Dragon was appropriate I decided to use a tell every time it recharged it's breath and prepared to use it next turn, it just makes the fight more interesting I think) Similarly 4 monsters might not be scary if they can't fit next to eachother in a slim hallway, but this works the other way around too. (As my players realized when they accidentally summoned the badguy in a 5ft wide tunnel.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Very good point about the combat environment! That's why all the tips in the DMG for fun combat environment beats CR after it's already on the ground :P

[@TheBoardGamer]

My DM while we were level one dropped a cr9 monster on us as a random encounter, it was actually our very first encounter. And we all escaped alive and with all of our limbs attached somehow

[@beatdownerz]

Hey Bob, since we are in the dimension of this discussion: Do you use the HP mentioned at the monster stat block? I tried to design encounters with a number between the mentioned HP and the max HP if you roll dice for it. Then it seems to work better for my party and the fights are more intense.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

I flip flop on HP. Lowering AC is my go-to because hitting is more fun than missing, and sometimes I raise HP to compensate. Ultimately I want monsters and players to hit more and miss less. Whittling down HP quickly makes a fight much more intense!

[@beatdownerz]

@@BobWorldBuilder This is as simple as it is smart! :D Thanks Bob. (: I will try that!

[@Quandry1]

I'll just mention in reply to this. That I kind of base HP of my monsters on how I let the party calculate their HP, and how I let them make their base stats at creation. If I let them have a higher array or just go with max hp or something like that. I tend to up or even max the monsters possible hp, If they are rolling... I tend to go more with average hp or if they are something special I roll up their Hp as well. I do a variation on Bob's adjusting AC as well to adjust fights sometimes. Because it can quickly make a fighter easier or harder and make enemies go down quicker or last longer at any level and regardless of balance just because AC is much more limited range in adjustments and maximums and just a couple points can dramatically change a fight for pretty much any and all groups.

[@crimfan]

I use Kobold Fight Club (well the reconstituted one Kobold Plus now that the original is dead) to help plan things out. However, what I tend to do is pick out a bunch of monsters and use it to help reality check me. (It also calculates XP for me.) I know for most experienced player groups, an encounter that's *just* past the Deadly threshold will be rather easy. CR is rough, rough math, though, especially at medium to higher levels. A well-synergized party with smart players will do way better than a group that works at cross purposes and fails to keep their fire focused. I also tend to have a few "quantum" reinforcements of weaker monsters that might or might not show up if things are getting boring or if we're running out of time. That way, monsters can attack from the flanks. Smart PCs will section off and focus their fire on the first monster. I'll also have a few monsters that have shaky morale and will nope out if things start going bad or if fear effects are used on them. Goblins (without leaders) or ambushers like bugbears will do that. Some monsters have extremely strong morale and usually fight to the death: Monsters known for rage (boars, wereboars, barbarians, etc.), mindless undead (unless turned), or elite warriors (hobgoblins, dwarves). Having monsters appear in waves is both good and bad for the PCs: It sections the monsters off, allowing them to concentrate their fire. However, it also means they can't just nova whenever they want, if the big guys haven't showed up yet. Waves also help keep the fight more dynamic because the DM turns aren't so long. These are kind of advanced things, though, but I do wish more prepared adventures had been written with some of these ideas in mind.

[@RedrumZombies]

Fought a Rakshasha at level 8-9. He had 2 powerful weird goons, that were aberrations I think? He ruled the Bazar.

[@lucasterable]

CR is the most important number in the stat block. It should be show in bold on the topright corner, not in a bulleted list in the middle.

[@MrBrianofarrell]

It so much depends on the experience of the players not just the characters. And again this reinforces how the CR system is only for organised play where you don't know the group dynamics and experience when either setting the encounters or adapting the ones you got from a published adventure.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Yup! Experienced players (or unbalanced dice) can really shift an encounter! :P

[@MrBrianofarrell]

@@BobWorldBuilder Just had 5 level 2 experienced players that have played together for at least a year just wrecked the Verbeeg cave without any adjustment. Tasha's took the Verbeeg out for 3 rounds and Dissonant Whispers twice on the Ogre.

[@ironkeepgaming1936]

Can you use a lower CR monster in late game? Because me and my friends are designing a dungeon in the Shadowfell with a Rug of Smothering at the entrance. We wanted to have this dungeon in the later part of the game.

[@paulcoy9060]

It makes sense, as the dungeon creator or current inhabitant wants to keep low level villagers out. Might be a whole bunch of "mouse glue traps" in front, or on the first level.

[@Parodox306]

Maybe the real CR was the friends we accidently killed along the way.

[@nephalos666]

Bold of you to assume I use CR at all when designing encounters. You've never run with my group. I threw a Death Tyrant at them when they were 4 level 10s and despite casualties, they still killed it.

[@ADT1995]

I use CR for comparing monsters to each other, but not the party. The party can shred monsters much faster than CR suggests after about level 5

[@BrendanDonnelly51395]

I love the squishy characters at level 1. Some of my favorite sessions of D&D have been when I ran my party at level 1. I personally like how deadly the game is at that level. In my level 14 game players get knocked unconscious a lot but death is all but impossible with the amount of healing a level 14 life domain cleric has

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Can’t agree more! Tier one is may favorite, at least as a DM

[@CampervanCookout]

Hit the cleric ;)