As far as I can tell, per WotC the official definition and use of the CR category is to showcase the monster designers' favorite number within the span of 1/4 - 25. I have thrown a CR 4 monster at a group of level ones, which they pounded into dust, and I've looked at monsters that have a CR of 6 that could potentially wipe out any lv6 character short of a d10 for HP in a single turn and anything other than a barbarian would be along shortly, unlikely perhaps, but certainly doable.
My table experience has improved immeasurably when I stopped trying to match encounter balance to the party level, but instead toward the middle of a tier. That way, there’s this lovely wobble of “we can’t take any threat for granted...now we’re rising to the challenge...now we’re kicking ass!” And then it resets to a new level of power.
Great advice as always, sir. One pearl of wisdom that you've given before is to start low and add monsters to combat later. Not sure your party can handle 4 wolves? Start with 2. If the party is wiping the forest floor with them, suddenly 2 more run out of the bushes!
Also keep in mind that you can change the power of the monster, such as removing an attack or lowering hit points. So, the 1st level group fights the runt ogre.
I would love a video on the largest factors in your mind when evaluating our own dnd parties. Party Composition, player experience, player habits, sharing the spotlight, specific spells or abilities… What is most important in knowing our own party, and how can we use that in our prep?
I've stuck to the Lazy DM Benchmark system ever since I gave up on the DMG guide! It's much more reliable as a way to create challenging encounters. I would be interested in a couple more bullet points addressing environmental effects though. For instance, I recently ran an underwater ambush fight that I set a few less than the benchmark for deadly, but my monsters barely scratched up the players. One did almost drown, so it wasn't a total wash. I was attempting to accommodate for the disadvantage that the majority of them would be suffering to their attacks, since none of them had daggers, but they kept making their saves that would have had them drowning and/or being grappled. Was it just the luck of the dice, or perhaps disadvantage on all attacks and 15ft of movement isn't worth lowering the benchmark?
For sure the CR is just a rough estimation but it's good to have it for preparing encounters. Other RPGs don't even have this help (e. g. Warhammer). The LEB is a very good indicator!
I had players that believed a character dying meant the end of the campaign for them and they would quit the game entirely (dumb I know) so I always had to do my homework on the party when designing encounters. I would look at what the max damage a monster could do against my toughest pc and my weakest pc, to include max crits because I rolled them fairly often. I would then look to see how many rounds could the toughest character survive. It was a great method to use until the party came across fights where they rolled really bad or one of the characters decided to run further into the dungeon instead of helping. Even when the odds were looking bad as the fight progressed I also learned they would never ever run away to fight another day…they would just rather TPK and quit instead. Lesson is that it doesn’t matter if an encounter is balanced or not on paper. You need to know your players. If they play sub-optimally and goof off in combat, toss out any notion of balance out the window. If you are using optional rules like multi-classing and feats then CR is definitely worthless when PC’s are each doing 15+ dmg minimum or effectively stun locking your melee creatures with Pole Arm+Sentinel.
Using the D&D Beyond encounter builder, I usually make it deadly and a click or two beyond. It generally doesn't matter, as the PCs of today are so jacked they can take almost anything designed for a significantly stronger group. I do have to be more careful with AoE spells and breath weapons though, which makes me think there needs to be more "save for half" attacks. Maybe monsters could have a static attack number (subtract the d20 and add a flat 10) and the character's AC could be rolled like a save (subtract 10 and add a d20). Since most of their HP represent things like fatigue, pain, and luck running out, it makes sense that even strikes deflected by armor could wear them down eventually. It's the last hit to knock the character to zero that actually causes an incapacitating wound that matters.
I found this very useful. The only question is, if I go by your benchmark equation, should I throw multiple encounters at my party per day or one, maybe two?
I've never understood why the CR to PC level math had to be so dense. How about a system where we add up the character levels, add up the monster CRs and compare them? If the numbers match or are close, then you probably have a reasonable encounter.
Please make a video soon addressing the confirmed OGL changes to bring awareness. WotC's move to end the OGL is unethical and bad for the community and should be condemned by it.
IMO, nothing blows up CR faster than enemy crits. That on any given roll there is a 5% chance of extra damage is devastating. Then figure in action economy and the probability of a nat 20 on any given round against the PCs goes up significantly. Six attackers with one action dice have a 33% chance of having a 20 roll naturally on that round. Couple it with "smart" monsters who will use elementary group tactics like focusing their fire and players can get deleted in a snap. So, I took enemy crits out of my game long ago because no player wants to be told the encounters look underpowered because of action economy risk to their toon. By eliminating crits, I can up the action and the "visible" danger. Worst case i will just add a condition like stunned or prone where it makes sense and it teaches working around conditions at low levels. That and they dont know I removed monster crits....
