The DMG's Creating a Monster section (DMG 273) is not so helpful to me when, say, I create a an evil cleric basically using the PHB class-creation rule to build. I would appreciate anything you can share about both your read of the DMG on the and.your. personal approach. What would, for example, a 9th level fighter's CR and XP be? Jan 08, 2017 dnd-5e-cr-calculator. An npm module that calculates Challenge Rating for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. The main function of the CR Calculator is is calculate and it takes five arguments: Hit Points, Armor Class, Damage per Round, Attack Bonus, and Save DC.
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by Mike Shea on 28 December 2020
Note: This article has been updated since the original written in February 2015.
The following tools are intended to make it easier to improvise situations in your D&D games. These numbers are designed to be simple and straight forward enough to keep in your head. You can, of course, write them out on a 3x5 card or sticky note and paste it in the inside of your DM screen as well. These numbers help you create challenges, traps, encounters, environmental effects, and horde battles without needing to look anything up in a complicated chart.
Most of these numbers are based on a challenge rating for the sitiuation. This challenge rating is roughly equivalant to the average character level of a group of adventures between 1 (1st level characters) and 20 (20th level characters). This challenge rating is based on the situation, however, not the actual level of the characters in the game. The world does not conform to the level of the characters.
For more tools like these, check out the Lazy DM's Workbook.
Here's a summary of D&D numbers you can keep in your head:
- DC, AC, Saving Throw DC: 10 (easy) to 20 (hard)
- Attack Bonuses, Trained Skills, Primary Saves: +3 (easy) to +12 (hard)
- Single Target Damage: 5 (1d10) per challenge level.
- Multi-target Damage: 3 (1d6) per challenge level.
- Hit Points: 20 per challenge level.
- Deadly Encounter Benchmark: 1/2 or 1/4 of total character levels. An encounter may be deadly if the sum total of monster challenge ratings is greater than half the sum total of character levels, or one quarter if the characters are below 5th level.
- Fighting a Horde of Weaker Monsters. 1/4th succeed. About one quarter of the horde succeed on attacks or saving throws; adjust up or down depending on the situation.
Difficulty Check, Armor Class, Saving Throw DC: 10 to 20
When a situation comes up requiring a difficulty check, choose a number between 10 (easy) and 20 (hard) as the target. The harder the challenge, the higher the number. A 10 is considered relatively easy yet still challenging enough to warrant a roll. A 20 is considered nearly impossible for most common folk.
This number also works for an improvised armor class and saving throw DCs if needed. If you happen to improvise a trap or an effect of some sort, or the characters start attacking a stone statue, you can use this range to set the AC of the statue or the DC of the trap's saving throw.
Example: The Icebolt Trap
Say you've decided a particular room has an icebolt trap in it. How tough was the wizard who planted the trap? Was he an apprentice or an archmage? Choose a number between 10 and 20 to determine the difficulty of finding and disarming the trap. For this example, let's say this icebolt trap has a DC of 14 to detect and disarm.
Note, we're not setting the trap based on the level of the characters. The world is a dynamic place and the characters are just living there. The world does not change it's DCs based on the characters who face it.
Attack Bonus: +3 to +12
If we ever need to improvise an attack score, choose a number between +3 (not particularly accurate) and +12 (very accurate). Anything lower is going to be unlikely to hit and not worth rolling. There are some situations where the attack is lower or higher than this but this range is likely for most situations. When you have an improvised attack, choose a bonus based on the accuracy of the attack.
Example: The Icebolt's Attack
Going back to our example from before, let's look again our icebolt trap. If a character fails to detect it or disarm it, it fires an icebolt at the one who triggered the trap with a +6 to attack.
5 (1d10) Damage Per Challenge Level
If you need to inflict some improvised damage, 5 (1d10) damage per challenge level is a good rule of thumb. It's roughly the challenge faced by four characters so a challenge 6 is the equivalent of four level 6 characters. If this damage would affect more than one creature, reduce it to 3 (1d6) per challenge level. As mentioned before, this challenge rating isn't necessarily based on the level of the PCs but instead the level of the challenge they face.
Note, for the examples below I'm using the average of a die to determine the static damage, rounded down. Thus, 5 is the average of 1d10 but 11 is the average for 2d10 (5.5 x 2).
Example: The Icebolt's Damage
Returning to our icebolt trap example, we'll have to decide how dangerous this icebolt is and choose 6 damage per challenge level. Assuming the goblin wizard was a challenge rating of 3, the ice bolt inflicts 16 (3d10) cold damage. If this ice bolt had been placed by the lich Xathron, a challenge 16 monster, the bolt might inflict 90 (16d10) cold damage instead. The challenge rating of the villain setting up the trap gives you the idea how much damage to dish out.
20 Hit Points Per Level
If you need to improvise hit points for an object, use 20 hit points per challenge level. This doesn't match up perfectly to the hit points of monsters in the Monster Manual or the Monster Statistics by Challenge Rating chart on page 274 of the Dungeon Master's Guide, but it's close enough.
Example: Xathron's Icy Automaton
Let's say the PCs have invaded the lich Xathron's treasure vault and inside is Xathron's Icy Automaton. This isn't Xathron's best guardian, but it's pretty solid. We'll consider it a level 5 challenge.
The PCs fail to notice the Automaton's danger (failed on a DC 15 perception) and it begins to fire icebolts at random PCs (two attacks, +7 to attack, 15 damage). The PCs can't seem to get it disarmed (failed on three potential DC 15 Arcana or Athletics checks) and now they want to bash it down (AC 15, 100 hps). After inflicting 100 damage to it, the automaton falls apart.
Not Intended for Monster Building
Looking at these number ranges, you may be tempted to use them to build a monster. Instead, consider reskinning existing monsters from the Monster Manual rather than building a monster from scratch with these numbers. While you might be able to build a reasonable monster with these scores, the asymmetrical nature of the stats in the Monster Manual makes creatures much more fun to fight than a static box of perfectly aligned scores.
Deadly Encounter Benchmark: 1/2 or 1/4 of total character levels
When building combat encounters, you can skip the complicated math outlined in the Dungeon Master's Guide and instead use this simple encounter building benchmark:
First, build encounters based on what makes sense for the story and the situation. Let the story drive the number and types of monsters.
Then, if needed, check to see if the encounter may be deadly. An encounter may be deadly if the sum total of monster challenge ratings is greater than one half the sum total of character levels, or one quarter of character levels if the characters are below 5th level.
This isn't perfect and lots of variable can change up how difficult a battle is but it's a good rough benchmark that, I'd argue, is as good as any of the fancier methods for benchmarking encounter difficultly found in the Dungeon Master's Guide, Xanathar's Guide, Kobold Fight Club, or any other encounter calculator.
Here's a Youtube video on the Deadly Encounter Benchmark.
Running Hordes of Monsters: One Quarter Succeed
Sometimes the stories of our games lead to the characters facing large hordes of monsters. Rolling tons of attacks and saving throws can suck the energy out of what would otherwise be a really exciting fight. The Dungeon Master's Guide includes rules for adjudicating a lot of attacks from a large number of monsters. So does the [Lazy DM's Workbook]Lazy DM's Workbook.
For an easier method requiring no table, we can start with a baseline assumption that when a large force of weaker monsters attacks the characters about one quarter of them hit. Likewise, when a character hits a large number of monsters with a big area-of-effect ability, about one quarter of them make their saving throw.
For example, our party of 8th level characters gets attacked by fifty skeletons. Many of the skeletons slash with swords or fire splintered recurve bows. Split the attacks evenly across the five characters so each character gets attacked ten times. Instead of doing a bunch of comparisons of attacks to AC, we can assume one quarter of them hit. If the character is particularly well armored we round down. If they're wearing lighter armor, we round up. Thus each character takes between 10 and 15 damage when attacked.
Now the cleric casts Turn Undead. We can likewise assume one quarter of the skeletons succeed on their saving throws and three quarters fail and are destroyed as a huge wave of radiant energy blasts them to dust. Now only twelve of the skeletons remain.
We can do a lot of math to figure all of this out but the result is essentially the same after we round it out.
Instead we can just remember a simple rule: when a large number of weaker monsters faces the characters, about one quarter of them succeed on attacks or saving throws..
A Quick Summary
In summary, here are some numbers to keep in your head:
- DC / AC / Save DC: 10 to 20
- Attacks, Trained Skills, Primary Saves: +3 to +12
- Single Target Damage: 6 (1d10) per Challenge Rating
- Multi-target Damage: 3 (1d6) per Challenge Rating
- Hit Points: 20 per Challenge Rating
- Building Encounters: 1/2 or 1/4 of total character levels. An encounter may be deadly if the sum total of monster challenge ratings is greater than half the sum total of character levels, or one quarter if they're below 5th level.
- Fighting a Horde of Weaker Monsters. 1/4 succeed. About one quarter of the horde succeed on attacks and saving throws.
With those numbers in mind, you have a simple toolbox for running all sorts of challenges for your D&D 5e group.
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Contents
- Introduction.
- Step 1: Subtract CR from AC.
- Step 2: Attack bonus for all attacks is CR/2+3.
- Step 3: Leave Damage as is. Leave Multiattacks at full attack bonus from Step 2.
- Step 4: Save DC; take the listed monster ability DC, halve the part above 10, and add it back to 10.
- Step 5: Hit Points, leave as is.
- Step 6: Ability Stat Scores, STR,DEX, etc, (you don’t need them, see Step 7).
- Step 7: For monster Saving Throws, and Ability Checks, use the Fort/Ref/Will save bonuses divided by two.
- Step 8: For skills use half the Fort/Ref/Will save bonus as the base ability, add +5 for being trained.
- Step 9: Initiative bonus, leave as is.
- Step 10: Last remaining bits.
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Introduction
This comes from jamesmanhattan on the EnWorld D&D5e forums.
So this isn’t perfect, but it should get you very close to being able to use any Pathfinder or 3.5 monsters in D&D 5e. It should even allow you to run a 3.5 or Pathfinder adventure on the fly, including NPC’s. This document tries to keep it to a very small amount of adjustments, which you can mentally do and pencil in. For all the calculations in here; round down.
I went and got the entire database of Pathfinder monsters from the web. I grouped them by Challenge Rating and calculated Median Hit Points, Median Damage, Median AC etc.
You should be able to go to www.d20srd.org or www.d20pfsrd.com and get monsters. You can try on your own by downloading the raw data of all of Pathfinder’s monsters here: www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/tools/monster-filter
Step 1: Subtract CR from AC
Subtract the CR (Challenge Rating) from the Armor Class to get the D&D 5e appropriate AC.
For example: An Iron Golem has an AC of 30 and a Challenge Rating of 13. Its D&D 5e AC should be 30-13 = AC:17
Note: Pathfinder has an Iron Golem’s AC as 28, while the 3.5 system has the AC at 30.
Step 2: Attack bonus for all attacks is CR/2+3
To figure out a monster’s Attack Bonus for melee and ranged attacks vs AC. Cut the Challenge Rating in half and add 3 to that number. Usually you should round down, but if the monster has an extremely high Strength score you may want to round up or even add 1.
For example: A CR:7 Flesh Golem should have a melee attack that is +6 vs AC. That’s half of 7(rounded down) +3.
Step 3: Keep Damage as is. Make Multiattacks at full attack bonus from Step 2.
Leave the damage just as listed on the stat block. If a monster gets multiple attacks with declining attack bonuses, keep them all at the same Attack Bonus calculated in Step 2 above, with the damage as listed.
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For example: The Challenge Rating:20 Balor attack line says:
+1 vorpal unholy longsword +31/+26/+21/+16 (2d6+13),
+1 vorpal flaming whip +30/+25/+20 (1d4+7 plus 1d6 fire and entangle)
This would be 4 longsword attacks at +13 vs AC for 2d6+13 damage each, plus 3 attacks with the flaming whip at +13 vs AC for 1d4+7+1d6 damage. That’s an average damage of 119 per round.
That’s a good target for a CR:20 D&D 5e creature. You’ll notice it’s a little higher than the Balor in the D&D 5e Bestiary, but that’s because this is CR:20 and the Bestiary has the Balor at Level 16. We aren’t making level adjustments. If you are converting a Pathfinder adventure that calls for a DC:20 Balor, we want to make sure it stays as challenging as the adventure calls for, not how D&D 5e thinks it should be in the Pantheon.
Allow monsters to keep their extended Crit Ranges, but make critical hits do max damage for monsters instead of double. Don’t roll to confirm critical hits, assume they always confirm.
If you want to double the damage, and make fewer attacks, feel free to do so. For instance you could make 2 longsword attacks, each for double damage. It’s tough to do that if you have a monster that makes an odd number of attacks.
Step 4: Save DC’s; take the listed monster ability DC, halve the part above 10, and add it back to 10.
To figure out what the characters need to roll to make a saving throw against something the monster does to them; Take the Save DC’s of monster attacks or trap that is listed, subtract 10 from it, divide that number in half, and add it back to 10. For example: An Adult Silver Dragon has a breath weapon that requires a DC:23 saving throw. Take 23-10 = 13. Divide the 13 in half to become 6, and add that back to 10, so the saving throw DC becomes 16.
Step 5: Hit Points, leave as is.
Note: Yes, these monsters will have more HP than the ones in the Bestiary. A major complaint I’ve been seeing on the forums is monsters die too easily. If you graph damage output of the players for D&D 5e side by side with Pathfinder it is spot on at higher levels.
I also checked for differences in Hit Points between the 3.5srd and d20srd, and surprisingly the Medians for HP are all the same! Pathfinder only shifted things, like increasing Outsiders to a d10 Hit Die from a d8, but they reduced Ooze Hit Die down to d8 from d10. All the adjustments must have been in parallel. For every Hit Die size Pathfinder increased over 3.5srd, they must have decreased another one.
Step 6: Ability Stat Scores, STR,DEX, etc, (you don’t need them, see Step 7)
If you use half the Fort, Ref, Will save bonuses for everything it will save a LOT of calculation.
Step 7: For monster Saving Throws, and Ability Checks, use the Fort/Ref/Will save bonuses divided by two.
For example: A CR:6 Girallon has Fort+9, Ref+8, Will+5. If it has to make a DEX saving throw it would get half the Ref save of +4. If it had to make a STR check to escape being grabbed, it would use half the Fort save of +4.
Even if D&D 5e calls for STR or a CON save, you can use half the listed Fortitude save bonus for both. If the creature has a negative save, don’t divide it in two, leave it as a negative.
You may think this cheats the players a bit. If you start to dig you’ll notice a few things.
There are no spells that call for an INT saving throw.
It’s also extremely rare for a monster to ever need to make an INT check.
Anything that calls for DEX saving throw, simply use half the listed Reflex save bonus.
There are no spells that call for a STR saving throw. STR usually only comes into play when grappling, escaping, disarming or other maneuvers. Usually STR and CON are either both high or both low, so it’s ok to use half the Fortitude save bonus for both, even resisting maneuvers or escaping. There are very rare cases of extremely low STR combined with high CON; those are all incorporeal, swarms, or formless creatures and players won’t be disarming or grappling with them anyway.
There are only a tiny handful of spells that require a Charisma saving throw. These are mostly charm spells, or banishing spells. I think it's ok to lump Charisma and Wisdom saves together into Will save.
Also use half the Will save bonus to detect hidden creatures, to detect lies etc.
Step 8: For skills, use half the Fort/Ref/Will save bonus as the base ability, add +5 for being trained.
If a monster needs to use a skill, simply use half the relevant Fort, Ref, or Will save as the base ability modifier, and if the monster has the skill listed in their stat block give them a +5 for being trained. For example: A Cloaker has Fort+6, Ref+5, Will+7 and has the skills listed of Disguise, Perception, Stealth. If it needs to make a Disguise Check, use half the Will save bonus of +7/2=+3 and add +5 for being trained. So a total of 3+5 = +8 for Disguise checks.
Step 9: Initiative bonus, leave as is.
Most of the initiative bonuses are very small in Pathfinder, the ones that aren’t are usually because the monster has the Improved Initiative feat. This is normally because going first is important to the monster and helps define how the monster plays.
Step 10: Last remaining bits, try to keep things feeling like D&D 5e.
Monsters that can Sneak Attack, can get Advantage if any of their allies is adjacent to the target, and then give up the Advantage to take a Sneak Attack (just like a Rogue). They also have Advantage on anyone they beat in Initiative, and when hidden, target is prone, etc.
Depending on your knowledge of feats, you could allow monsters with Spring Attack to be able to move 10 ft. without provoking an opportunity attack. You should give out other general feat abilities like that, but don’t worry about feats too much, ignore most of them.
Level Drain: -5 to max HP, -1 to all d20 rolls, -1 to Spell DC's
Ability Damage:Keep the same dice (i.e. a Shadow does 1d6 STR damage) Each number gets translated straight to the below. 1d6 hours duration.
STR dmg: penalty to damage rolls - skill checks/Saves
CON dmg: penalty to max HP - skill checks/Saves
DEX dmg: penalty to AC, and skill checks/Saves
INT dmg: penalty to Spell DCs skill checks/Saves
WIS dmg: penalty to Spell DCs and Skill Checks/Saves
CHA dmg: penalty to Spell DCs and Skill Checks/Saves
For any paralyze/stun/frighten effect a player can make a saving throw if they spend an Action to do so.
If a creature has Magic Resistance, simply let them roll twice on all Saving Throws vs. Spells.
If a creature has Damage Reduction, simply let them take half damage from that source: “Resistance” as it’s called in D&D 5e terms.
Any duration’s that are listed in 1d4+3 rounds or some such, simply change to 1 minute. Also, give all players and monster the ability to get another Saving Throw if they spend an Action to do so.
Breath Weapon, says it recharges every 1d4 rounds, simply roll a d6 every round and recharge on 5 or a 6, the same as 4th edition recharges.
Any Petrify, is restrained for the first round, and if they don’t spend an Action to save against, it becomes Petrified.
Any “Save-or-Die” simply does Caster Level*d8 in damage, save for half.
Any Charmed or Dominated person gets another saving throw if they take any damage, or if they are forced to do something that would cause themselves harm.
Most Poison you can change into flat damage, instead of Ability Damage.
D&d 5e Point Calculator
Any damage to equipment, such as Black Pudding damaging armor and weapons, simply stack -1 penalties to damage or AC.
grab = whenever you see an attack that 'grabs' the target must make a DC of (1/2 monster's Fort save) STR check or become 'grabbed'. The monster would get Advantage on all future attacks vs that target. The grabbed target must spend an Action to make STR or DEX check to escape.
If a creature has “constrict” then they immediately do that extra damage listed when the grab succeeds. They also get to automatically inflict the constrict damage every round when they act.
rend = if both hit, do an extra X damage (it’s listed)
trip = simply make a quick opposed STR or DEX check, player’s choice, or be knocked prone.
pounce = as an Action the creature can move its speed and make a full attack. This means they can Move, and then spend an Action to Move and Attack, essentially double moving (like a charge).
rake = consider this free automatic damage that happens to grabbed foes at the start of creatures turn.
Try your best on spells, some work just the same.
Encounter Building Guidelines – (Challenge Ratings)
In older editions of D&D (before 4E) a “standard” encounter was targeted to be 50% of the party’s strength. If you had a party of six players with a total of 18 class levels between them all, a standard encounter would be around 9 total Hit Dice of monsters. A “Tough” encounter could be 100% of the party’s strength, and a super-duper hard could even be up to 200%. Download pdf to mobi online converter free. (Source: Frank Mentzer Dragon#101)
The following is Speculation: ----What they did with Challenge Rating is say: a monster with this “Challenge Rating” is a “standard” difficulty encounter for a party of 4 players of a level equal to that Challenge Rating. Remember, “standard” difficulty means: 50% of the strength of 4 players. What does that tell you? That means that a monster of a given Challenge Rating is roughly equal to 2 players. I should say that again, because if it’s true, it makes thinking of creating encounters very easy! A monster of a given Challenge Rating is roughly equal to 2 players.
Pick any single monster of a Challenge Rating, and it is equal to 50% of the strength of 4 players of that level. It will have the Hit Points and damage output of 2 players. So this was my “Eureka” moment. Say you want to figure out what the damage output and HP of a single player is expected to be. If you divide the HP and damage output of a monster in half, you will get the average expected damage and hit points of a single character of the level equal to its Challenge Rating. Don’t assume Fighter is the baseline; Fighters have immense advantages to damage and HP. These numbers are meant to be the average of the party where Fighters do a lot of damage, Cleric’s swing their 1d8 mace, Thieves don’t get Dex bonus to damage, wizards do 1d6+0 most rounds. Also, these numbers represent the average ho-hum party, not the super optimized, all 18’s in their primary stats, type party.
Calculating Cr D&d 5e
One more Challenge Rating fact to remember: if you ever combine 2 monsters of the same Challenge Rating, the Challenge Rating of the entire encounter becomes 2 higher. Combining 2 monsters of 50% difficulty creates an encounter of 100% difficulty. Therefore if you ever see a Challenge Rating 2 higher, it means this encounter is 100% of the strength of the party.
Experience Points (using packet 10/14/13)
This assumes what they call a Standard encounter is 50% of the party’s strength, and a Tough Encounter is 100% of the party’s strength and that Challenge Rating is roughly 2 lower than the equivalent D&D 5e Level.
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