Monster/NPC Generation - CR seems incredibly broken

[Gwazi Magnum]

After playing in two 5th edition campaigns as a player I figured I'd start dabbling on the DM's side of things, or at the very least start developing a world and NPCs to fill it.

Now, having played 3.5, Pathfinder and 4th Edition I was expecting 5th edition to follow the pattern of CR being an almost useless system that should be taken loosely at best...
But, I didn't realise just how chaotic it really was, to the extent I feel like I have to be missing something here with what results I'm getting, and how much other people have praised this editions NPC creation compared to earlier editions.

So I'm going to list my general process in experimenting with it, the issues that came up and hopefully someone here can shed some light on something I did wrong.

My first main attempt was creating a sort of Legionare, a well armed soldier that although a solid combatant themselves excels fighting in groups.

So I give them a Longsword (I know shortsword would of likely been more historically accurate, but nyeh), a Spear, a Shield and some Half-Plate. I borrowed the attributes from Gladiator for a base so STR 18, DEX 15, CON 16. Then removing Gladiators abilities I gave him Martial Advantage and Pack Tactics, to get the point down of working well in a group.

And then I begin calculating his CR...

1. Check to see AC 19 (10 Base, +2 Dex, +5 Armour, +2 Shield) apparently warrants a CR of 17...
Wait, what? A Level 1 Fighter can get an AC of 18 (10 Base, +2 Dex, +3 Armour, +2 Shield, +1 Fighting Style), which is just one below the Legionare. And a Level 1 Fighter would rightfully be CR 1, but increase the AC by 1 and suddenly it's CR 17? In fact, AC 18 is CR 13... Which is still ridiculous. I get the Fighter can get the highest AC of any class, but it's starting values shouldn't be getting valued like someone more than 10 levels higher, right?

2. Compare the AC to the HP, only to see Gladiator's HP being at 15 Hit Dice and over 100 HP.
Now remember, a Gladiator is CR 5. Meanwhile a Level 5 Barbarian, at Max Hit Points, with the Durable Feat would be at 90 Hit Points (60 From Levels, 10 from Feat, 15 from CON, 5 from Hill Dwarf). So the highest amount of Hit Points a player can get at Level 5, and a CR 5 creature can beat it? Note, since I could find no actual reason or source listed for him being handed so many Hit Dice, I lowered his hit dice to be 6d10+18, which felt more in life with an Elite Fighter... But that knocks me down to CR 1/2... What? Having the HP's of a Level 6 Fighter isn't even worth a single level?

3. Move onto damage
So I actually don't have too much complaints with these values, where my Legionarres 2d8+4 damage per round (Longsword with Martial Advantage) equals out as CR 1. Which is fair, a lot of Level 1 adventurers can reach that damage value.

4. And then handle Accuracy
His total accuracy is +7 (+4 STR, +3 Proficiency), though that needs to raise to +8 cause of Pack Tactics. His CR for that is 11, which is where Proficiency would be +4 for players, so if a Level 11 player had an accuracy of +8 they also need either an Attribute of 18, or something like a Ranged Combat Fighting style going on, which is fine.

So calculate all of this out and...

Defences: CR 17 + CR 1/2 = CR 17.5 / 2 = CR 9
Offences: CR 1 + CR 11 = CR 12 / 2 = CR 6
Total: CR 9 + CR 6 = CR 15 / 2 = CR 7

So after several modifications on my end, a Legionarre with an AC 1 higher than a Level 1 Fighter, the Hit Points of a 6th level Fighter, the damage of a level 4ish Fighter (Not 5, cause Multi-Attack would make it 2d8+8), and the accuracy of a Level 5 Fighter (Proficiency 3, ATT 18 from Level 4) is valued as being a CR 7?

He under delivers in all four categories for a Level 7 creature/character, but is deemed to be as powerful as a level 7 character.

And note this is after taking away abilities from the Gladiator template like 3 attacks per round, or an insane amount of HP's, stuff that was deemed acceptable for a level 5...

So, basically my question is, why am I basically choosing between a CR 7 creature that fails to deliever anything at level 7? Or a CR 5 creature with damage and HP outputs no level 5 character should be capable of?

The main thing I can tell is that the game highly overly values AC... Where even CR 30 isn't supposed to have higher than AC 19.
When a Fighter, without Magic Items can get to 21 (10 Base, +8 Full Plate, +2 Shield, +1 Style)... And then we can make that 27 with Magical Items... Which by Level 30? I think it's safe to assume +3 Armour and Shields are on the table... But an NPC, at CR 30 can't go past 19?

Is there something here I'm missing or not understanding right? Or should I be ignoring this CR system entirely? Cause right now it looks insanely broken to me. :/

[Ninja_Prawn]

Two things:

1. You're doing the calculation wrong. To get defensive CR, you look up the HP, then shift depending on AC. Offensive CR is based DPR, shifted depending on attack bonus. So, if you have (say) 51 HP at 19 AC, that's a DCR of 3. 13 DPR @ +7 is OCR 3, for an overall average of CR 3.

2. CR =/= ECL in 5e. It's not supposed to; monsters are made out of different 'stuff' to PCs.

[MaxWilson]

So calculate all of this out and...

Defences: CR 17 + CR 1/2 = CR 17.5 / 2 = CR 9
Offences: CR 1 + CR 11 = CR 12 / 2 = CR 6
Total: CR 9 + CR 6 = CR 15 / 2 = CR 7

So after several modifications on my end, a Legionarre with an AC 1 higher than a Level 1 Fighter, the Hit Points of a 6th level Fighter, the damage of a level 4ish Fighter (Not 5, cause Multi-Attack would make it 2d8+8), and the accuracy of a Level 5 Fighter (Proficiency 3, ATT 18 from Level 4) is valued as being a CR 7?

He under delivers in all four categories for a Level 7 creature/character, but is deemed to be as powerful as a level 7 character.

And note this is after taking away abilities from the Gladiator template like 3 attacks per round, or an insane amount of HP's, stuff that was deemed acceptable for a level 5...

*snip*

Is there something here I'm missing or not understanding right? Or should I be ignoring this CR system entirely? Cause right now it looks insanely broken to me. :/

(1) Yes, CR is pretty broken. You need it to calculate kill XP, if you're using kill XP, but it's not a good measure of threat capability.

(2) But it's way less broken than it looks to you, because you're not computing it right. E.g. for defensive CR, you don't ADD the defensive CR of HP to the defensive CR from AC. You just take the defensive CR of HP as a base (CR 1/2) and adjust it per DMG directions--I think it's +1 Defensive CR per two points of AC. Ditto for offensive CR--you take damage total as a base, and modify it by +1 per +2 to-hit. You're going to wind up with a Defensive CR of 3 or so, and an offensive CR of maybe 1 or 2. Average those and you'll get a total CR of about 2, which is the same as a centaur or a quaggoth, and makes sense because your soldier is about as tough as one of them.

[Foxhound438]

so just to put it all into perspective:

most of the time, players that are "optimized" should only have to roll an 8 on the d20 to hit an "average" enemy, which is where the super high CR on that front comes from. You can put a higher AC on something to make it more tanky, but remember that a low level PC would have to roll an 14 on the die to hit- absurdly high. Level 5 most can hit with a 12, but again that's very high.

HP for monsters of a given CR is absolutely not supposed to be equal to a PC's hp at the same level. Remember that CR (x) is meant to be a fair challenge for a -party- of level (x) characters, not in a 1v1.



and that stuff being said, I wouldn't ever rely on the CR calculation chart. You have a massive outlier in its AC which brings its calculated CR way over what it probably should be.

[MaxWilson]

BTW, here's a useful little tool if you're ever trying to build monsters away from your copy of the DMG: http://1-dot-encounter-planner.appsp...ter-stats.html

[Gwazi Magnum]

But it's way less broken than it looks to you, because you're not computing it right. E.g. for defensive CR, you don't ADD the defensive CR of HP to the defensive CR from AC. You just take the defensive CR of HP as a base (CR 1/2) and adjust it per DMG directions--I think it's +1 Defensive CR per two points of AC. Ditto for offensive CR--you take damage total as a base, and modify it by +1 per +2 to-hit. You're going to wind up with a Defensive CR of 3 or so, and an offensive CR of maybe 1 or 2. Average those and you'll get a total CR of about 2, which is the same as a centaur or a quaggoth, and makes sense because your soldier is about as tough as one of them.

... That, makes a lot more sense.

I was massively mislead seeing AC and Attack in the table and assuming I had to grab their CR value from the table as well. XD

so just to put it all into perspective:

most of the time, players that are "optimized" should only have to roll an 8 on the d20 to hit an "average" enemy, which is where the super high CR on that front comes from. You can put a higher AC on something to make it more tanky, but remember that a low level PC would have to roll an 14 on the die to hit- absurdly high. Level 5 most can hit with a 12, but again that's very high.

HP for monsters of a given CR is absolutely not supposed to be equal to a PC's hp at the same level. Remember that CR (x) is meant to be a fair challenge for a -party- of level (x) characters, not in a 1v1.

and that stuff being said, I wouldn't ever rely on the CR calculation chart. You have a massive outlier in its AC which brings its calculated CR way over what it probably should be.

Yea, I can kind of see the frustration there. But to be fair that's what good Armour does, it makes you more tanky.
Though for it to be what's boosting the CR that would tend to suggest it's at the expense of something else.

Granted, their Full Plate in comparison to the other stats was more a result of me fighting with the system trying to get a reasonable CR. Now that I know I've been doing it wrong, I'll probably be boosting the other stats accordingly.

BTW, here's a useful little tool if you're ever trying to build monsters away from your copy of the DMG: http://1-dot-encounter-planner.appsp...ter-stats.html

*Bookmarks it for later*

Thanks.

[FreddyNoNose]

I haven't studied or tried to analyzed the CR system but it doesn't sound correct accord to what the other poster wrote.

IMO, the stronger the defense the longer offense could go on. That is synergy.

[MaxWilson]

Yea, I can kind of see the frustration there. But to be fair that's what good Armour does, it makes you more tanky.
Though for it to be what's boosting the CR that would tend to suggest it's at the expense of something else.

Yep, specifically HP. Compare the Helmed Horror to the Chuul, for example. They are both CR 4, but Chuul has 93 HP and AC 16; Helmed Horror has 60 HP and AC 20. 5E's math doesn't really care how you get your defense; it just wants you to stay in the fight long enough to deal some damage to the players.

[Zman]

Reread the rules, you're doing it wrong.

You start with HP modified by AC to determine a defensive CR.
You use damage modified by to hit to determine Offensive CR.
Final CR is an average of those values.
Other factors can modify these values.

[Gwazi Magnum]

So I was trying to address 5e's HP bloat by giving the NPC's Hit Dice appropriate to their CR (I'm semi-ok with the fact NPCs follow different rules, what I'm not ok with is there being no explanation as to where those Hit Dice are coming from), and it's naturally resulted in NPC's with a higher AC, Attack and Damage than usual.

For example:

Legionnaire - CR 2
HP 45, AC 18, Attack +7, Damage 1d8+4 (Two per turn)
+When adjacent to an ally and both are in melee they effectively have advantage on attacks, deal an additional 1d8 damage and as a reaction give disadvantage to an attack on their friend (I stole Fighters Protection).

Inquisitor - CR 3
HP 37, AC 16, Attack +7, Damage 2d6+4 (Three per turn - Shortsword)
or Attack +9, Damage 1d8+4 (Twice per turn, Longbow)
+Also has 3d6 Sneak Attack, Advantage of Initiative, Perception and Survival checks, Cunning Action (Rogues), and Assassinate (Rogues)

Gunslinger - CR 2
HP 40, AC 16, Attack +9, Damage 4d6+4
+Can sacrifice their movement to get Advantage on the attack roll

Now, at first glance these seem like ideal stats for what I'm trying to represent, an elite and disciplined fighting force. Something that when groups should hopefully keep even higher level PC's busy (though not too high), but I can't help but think the damage might end up being too unforgiving, even when I plan to do the Max HD in HPs rule. Yet, it's what CR they are advised to have. Thoughts?