I tried to revamp the entire Encounter building system so that it becomes intuitive and really easy to use. Mostly because I found XP budgets too much of a time sink for me to prep my games as a dungeon master.
The general concept: To find the appropriate CR of the encounter, add together the levels of all the player characters. The Total Challenge Rating of the enemies in the battle should equal this number for an average difficulty battle. The Total Challenge Rating of the enemies is equal to the combined CR value of the enemies. So if you want to run a quick unplanned encounter, use an equal number of enemies each with the same CR as the player's levels, or just one creature with a CR equal to the combined levels of the players, or combinations there-of.
Sounds great right? Well, the equal number of same level monsters bit is fine ala 4th Edition's system. That was elegant and works great. However, everything else doesn't work. It won't work for any system which even vaguely looks like 5th edition D&D. Even 4th edition D&D wouldn't work. No edition of D&D has ever supported a challenge rating system like this.
The problem is, monsters aren't balanced like that in D&D. Monsters aren't balanced so that a CR2 enemy is twice as powerful as a CR1 monsters and a CR3 mosnter is 3x as strong as a CR1 monster. Reallocating the CR to different monsters won't do it. The issue is that enemies are balanced to be opponents for player characters. The monster progression are balanced around player progression, not the other way around. The only way for this sort of CR system to work is for the player character progression to be balanced around the monster progression instead. If a CR2 monster is to be twice as powerful as a CR1 monster, then a Level 2 PC must be twice as strong as a Level 1 PC.
This was what I failed to understand when I first ventured into this attempt of revamping the eoucnter building system. The monster progression is currently dependent on PC progression in order to be balanced. Since PC strength does not improve by a whole level 1 PC's worth of strength with every level, neither do the monsters. So we can't have a system where we intuitively throw in monsters based on CR rather than XP budget. Instead we have to use an XP budget which is indicative of the relative strength of the monster.
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If you understand the reasoning already, don't read this bit. Otherwise, here's some math.
For 5E, the health of a PC increases by half hit dice + con modifier. For a cleric (a moderate character class) that would be half of a d8, assuming Con modifier of 14 would be +2. At level 1 this cleric would have 10HP, at level 2 the cleric would have 17HP. The cleric gains 7HP every level, or 70%.
If we use a warrior's health as our benchmark instead, they'd start with 12HP and have 20 HP at level 2, gaining 8HP or 67% HP per level up.
For 5E, it's even trickier to compare a level 1 PC and a level 2 PC because warriors gain extra attacks in jumps (level 5). For clarity's sake let's say they gain 1/4 of that extra attack every level up until they have full extra attack at level 5. So the offensive ability of PCs increased by 25% every level up.
Since a moderate PC gains about 25% more damage output and about 70% more HP on a level up from level 1 to level 2, the monsters likewise gain 25% more health and 70% more damage.
By level 5, PCs do double damage but have about quadruple (380%) the health of their level 1 counterpart. So to keep up, monsters have gained double the HP but have quadruple the damage the damage.
So one level 5 monster really isn't the equivalent of 5 level 1 monsters. In fact, if you average out it's improved offence and defense, it's about the strength of 3 level 1 monsters. Under the XP budget system, it may be worth 3 times as much XP as a level 1 monster. So if a level 1 monster gives 100 XP, a level 5 monster would give 300 XP.
So unless we change the way PCs progress in order to to make it easier to build encounters, the XP budget is here to stay.
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Well, all that math doesn't really apply to 5E actually. Each monster is NOT balanced for a single player character in 5E. Instead, monsters are balanced as a solo monster vs against a full party of players of the same level. A CR1 monster is an appropriate challenge for about four level 1 PCs.
I don't really get why 5E balances their monsters like that. Apparently the monster CR is also an indication of "Players should only start seeing this monster at this level". So the monster's CR is a big honking sign saying "Not this monster!" to DMs wanting to throw it at lower level parties. Seriously? Shouldn't they make CR more helpful to knowing what you SHOULD throw at players rather than what you shouldn't?
4E did it so much better in my opinion; a level 1 monster is a decent match for a level 1 PC. If you want an average challenge, put an equal number of those monsters as the PCs in that fight. Settled.
One thing 4E did NOT do was take into account enemy numbers when considering the difficulty of the fight in the XP budget. 5E does consider that sheer higher numbers of enemies in an encounter is much harder than solo enemies (which 5E's CR and XP budget is specifically balanced for). And so 5E has a XP multiplication table based on how many enemies there are. 2 enemies adjusts the XP by a factor of 1.5. Three to six enemies adjusts it by a factor of 2. And so on. But having a whole multiplier makes it really difficult to tweak the numbers and meet the target XP budget. After experiencing using this system as a DM, I'd rather not use it again in the same way.
Having to adjust the XP multiplier when you even have 2 monsters may seems a bit extreme. But this is because of how the CR system is designed in 5E: for a solo monster vs a full party of players. So having even two monsters messes up the way 5E's CR system is balanced.
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I'd like to propose a better system, as I often do. We'll be using an adjustment of 4E's encounter building system.
Rule 1: The same number of monsters as player characters of the same level as player characters will yield an average difficulty battle. (same as 4E) Otherwise, the XP value of the monsters should be equal to the total XP budget for the players (same as 4E &5E).
Rule 2: If the number of monsters is greater than the number of player characters, the effective XP value of the additional weakest enemies are considered doubled. (And maybe if there are even more enemies than double the number of players characters, the effective CR of those even weaker enemies are tripled?)
Rule 2: If the number of monsters is greater than the number of player characters, the effective XP value of the additional weakest enemies are considered doubled. (And maybe if there are even more enemies than double the number of players characters, the effective CR of those even weaker enemies are tripled?)
In other math language:
Say the number of players is X. The number of monsters is X+Y,
Then double the challenge rating of Y weakest monsters in the encounter.
Example: Say there are 4 player characters, and 6 enemies. 5 of those enemies have a CR of 3, 1 of the enemies have a CR of 2. Since the enemies outnumber the players by 2, we double the effective XP of the two weakest enemies, that is a CR3 and a CR2 monster. These two monsters grant double XP to reflect that the additional monsters are much more difficult than they normally would be due to the monsters outnumbering the players.
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(Consideration: Also maybe if the number of enemies is more than 2X, let the number of enemies be 2X+Z.
Then triple the effective challenge rating of the Z weakest enemies. Then double the challenge rating of X next weakest enemies.
Example: Say there are 4 player characters, and 10 enemies. The enemies have five CR3 creatures, four CR2 creatures, and one CR1 creature. The 2 weakest creatures, that is one CR1 and one CR2 enemies, are considered three times as challenging and thus their XP values are tripled. The next 4 weakest creatures, three CR2 and one CR3 enemies, are considered twice as challenging and thus their XP values are doubled.
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This is a lot easier to work with than multiplying all the monsters. Since DMs (should) often work with close to the number of players in monsters, so often you don't need to do any multiplication at all. And even when you do exceed the number of players and need to do multiplications, you can easily adjust the total adjusted XP by adjusting the strength of the last few monsters. It's much easier than adjusting according to 5E guidelines since the multiplier changes if you move from 2 monsters (x1.5) to 3-6 monsters (x2) and then to 7-10 monsters (x2.5).
Part of the reasoning for this estimation method is because the each monster is balanced with the individual player character in mind ala 4E, not as a solo monster vs the entire party at once ala 5E. Players should be prepared to fight at least as many monsters as their own numbers (this sounds perfectly fair to me). So any additional monsters are harder to deal with as the players don't have the means to control those extra monsters. The reason why we multiply the XP of the weakest monsters is due to the assumption that the party members will try their best to control the strongest monsters rather than priorities the weakest monsters since the weakest monsters will do less harm to vulnerable party members. That's the reasoning anyway.
Of course, there are loopholes. The method outlined above is a "best estimate" of the challenge of the encounter. Game masters and players; please don't try to use loopholes in this method of estimation in order to artificially increase or decrease the estimated difficulty of the battles. Game masters who want a faster or more accurate method of estimating the total adjusted XP of the encounter should feel free to use their own method of estimation, particularly if the context calls for it.
For instance, sometimes it may be more indicative of the difficulty to double or triple the challenge rating of the strongest creature instead of the weakest if the large number of weak enemies make that strongest creature much more dangerous. For example, if there are many weak zombies which are slow but good at grappling, and there is a powerful enemy that can teleport across the battlefield at-will. Another example: A beholder is much more dangerous if the party has no means to circumvent a many minions blocking their path while the beholder is blasts the party with rays.
Basically if the monster that should have double XP value is the monster that the players aren't able to control because of the enemy numbers. Using terms from 4E, that will more often be a lurker-type monster or an artillery monster.
Hrm. Maybe it would be better to recommend which monster to multiply based on the monster's role? Using 4E terms,
2. Skirmishers, same reasoning as Lurkers but not so extreme
3. Artillery/Blasters, same reasoning as the two above but less extreme since the party's own skirmishers/artillery can deal with them
4. Minions aka Fodder, because if the frontlines leak any monsters, it had better be monsters which are easiest to deal with
5. Soldiers, 2nd last because easy to tie to the frontlines, but if let past the front lines are hard to deal with by the party's own backlines
6. Brutes, last because they have no mobility advantages yet do high damage, and therefore should be the highest priority for players to tie down
and never Controllers/Buffer types (because they make other monsters more effective, not the other way around). DMs, you're not going to send in a whole gang of controllers to face the party are you? Really? Well they don't get multiplied no matter how many of them there are in the encounter because their sheer numbers do not make them EVEN harder to handle generally. (buffs and debuffs generally don't stack)
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Since we're using 4E's design paradigm for monster balance, no monster is going to be suitable as a solo monster against a full party of PCs unless it is specifically labelled as a solo monster just as 4E did it. That isn't really a problem. Solo monsters and double strength monsters are incredibly easy to build on the fly.
To convert a regular monster into a tougher version, like a boss which has some minions in the battle, just double the HP, damage output and XP. And you're done! Easy-peasy. If you want the fight to be tougher, use a higher level monster as your base.
To convert a regular monster to be more suitable as a solo monster against a party of 4 PCs, quadruple the monster's HP, damage output and XP. Then divide out the monster's damage into separate attacks so it doesn't one-shot PCs so easily. If there are 5 PCs, quintuple the HP, damage output and XP instead. And so on for 3PCs or 6 PCs or whatever.
What's that? Dragons and other monsters which are traditionally solo monsters? Fine, we'll use the "solo" tag on them. Or maybe 5E's "legendary" tag.
What's that? You want to throw MULTIPLE "solo" monsters at a higher level party? You could with no severe repercussions. It's just less exciting. Generally, throwing a lot of lower CR enemies at players is a bad idea because lower CR mosnters deals relatively little damage and relatively more health for it's level. As I mentioned earlier, players gain proportionately more health than damage every level up. Thus, monsters gain proportionately more damage than health every level up. Inversely, a lower level/CR monster would have proportionately lower damage to health ratio. Tanky, but low damage. Hence less exciting.
Yeeesh that's a little confusing. I hope I wrote that out correctly.
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So to summarise:
Rule 1: Equal number of monsters as PCs of same CR as PC level will give a standard difficulty fight. Otherwise, use the XP budgets.
Rule 2: If there are more monsters than players, double the XP of the additional weakest monsters.
To build a stronger monster, double/triple/quadruple the damage, HP and XP. Break up the damage into separate attacks to prevent one shot kills as needed.
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It seems like the only way to get a really intuitive system is to control how the monsters progress, which in turn is determined by how the PCs progress. Is it worth completely retooling how the PCs progress so that building encounters which challenge the players becomes much faster?
I'm starting to think it is.
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