Unfortunately, 5e has followed 4e and has progressively weaker monsters the higher the CR (compared to PC level). See the chart below:
First level damage is a little off-the-hook and probably not something we want to carry through all 20 levels, but by level 20/CR 20 the damage caused by monsters is 1/4 - 1/6 the amount (relatively) of damage at first level. Since level 20 PCs have many ways to reduce and/or recover from damage it is actually even worse.
Thus, I propose a more linear increase in damage by CR, such as:
*EDIT: Dancy and Ungenheuerlich have convinced me, for the time being, that the damage below is to much because of increase in the to hit % that outpaces increases in AC. I have decided a much more modest damage increase, coupled with a mechanic to increase damage while reducing accuracy is the way to go. See the revised red dragon below for an example of the typpe of mechanic I am considering. I will hold of revising the damage by CR chart until I can gather mor information (an possible the release of the DMG).
MONSTER DAMAGE BY CR Low Med High
Single Attack Damage per CR: 2 3 4
Total Attack Damage per CR: 6 9 12
Dragonbreath 7-8
What do you think?
Now, here is a revised Ancient Red Dragon with the proposed damage values (and a few more tweaks). This is a much greater challenge for high level PCs Any thoughts?
*EDIT: Dancy and Ungenheuerlich have convinced me, for the time being, that the damage below is to much because of increase in the to hit % that outpaces increases in AC. I have decided a much more modest damage increase, coupled with a mechanic to increase damage while reducing accuracy is the way to go. See draconic might in the revised ancient red dragon below for the type of mechanic I am talking about.
Cr and xp value re too low for such a creature, tweak your famage output a bit more and the spell casting is already a variant as this dragon could cast up to 8th level spells
Cr/3
dave2008 wrote:
Thunaer wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
From what little we know of the monster building guidelines, there are two aspects of CR: damage and defence. So you figure out the CR of each and then average them to get the final CR of a creature. So a creature that does CR 5 damage but has CR 15 defences would be a CR 10 creature. That's an extreme example though.
As such, linear damage by level doesn't make sense as there should be some brute creatures that do high damage but have piddly defences, some creatures with low damage but that last longer in combat, and creatures in the middle. And the variety is rather essential to avoid the syndrome of knowing all the numbers of a monster based on its CR/level.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Bounded Accucay exists for a reason. The numbers don't need to be this high.
FFSAA wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
MonsterEnvy wrote:
vonklaude wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
Thunaer wrote:
I think people are getting to hung up on the CR as a number. Look at the xp the Dragon is worth and then look at what the PCs can face it as. Said Dragon is worth 36500xp.Looking at the DM guidelines the Dragon is roughly a deadly encounter of 5 PCs of 16th level RAW.
The rule do also tend towards the easy side as well and only when the xp budget is around double the recommended amount to things start to get very hairy for PCs. CR24 is not for level 20 PCs its for level 15-17PCs IMHO. 6 man party the Dragon is fine for level 15 maybe even 14.
For level 20 you would be looking at CR30 critters or multiple CR24 critters or CR24 critter+friends. I had level 8 PCs (5 of them) kill a CR14 Dragon. They probably should not have used CR/EL or levels as a way of measuring monster power.
Zardnaar wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
I did a breakdown of monster HP and attack scaling vs character HP and attack scalin in another MM-related thread (I'll find it later) and my findings were, that despite what most people seem to see intuitively, they actually keep pace very evenly.
I think your initial chart is not accounting for the fact that monster +hit/DCs scale much faster than AC/saves (if they scale at all) which needs to be facotred into the damage. When you do it that way, the rate is actually even between monsters and PCs (obviously level 1 is a little wonky, but it still works out fine). I actually think someone at WotC did the math, given how perfectly it works out.
dave2008 wrote:
danyc wrote:
UngeheuerLich wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
Do not forget that most fights do not occour in a whiteroom inverment. That Acient Dragon in most cases will be fought by a party who would have been weakend by lair actions as they work through the lair, attacked and had resources depleted by minnions and heck prob even minnions during the dragons fight sure the damage wont be much but they can be overwhelimg and distracting and even 5 damage done by 15 kobolds every round addes up.
Not to mention that Once the final fight starts that dragon will be using his legendary actions to fly smash frighten between characters turns, he will be throwing down lair actions and working with his allies, hopefully letting them "sacrifice" themselves for his glory as a vain and powerful red would see it. Against a party of 4 that is a BIG deal of drain on them.
UngeheuerLich wrote:
mellored wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
DocSun wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
DaveDash wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
For giggles I decided to run an Ancient White Dragon against my standard level 17 party (from the other thread). This time though I replaced the Melee Fighter with a Level 17 Crossbow expert EK.
Argon: Ftr11/Sorc6
Druss: Clr17 (War)
Larry: EK17 (Crossbow expert)
Morindin Abjur Wiz 17.
Round 1 the Dragon did a lot of damage with its breath weapon and got into position for legendary action damage, but that was all washed away by mass heal from the Cleric.
Round 2 the Dragon is on 40% hitpoints, and despite using legendary actions every turn possible, and grappling* Argon and attempting to drown him (who misty stepped out of it), it was time to retreat for the Dragon. Basically combat now would degenerate into a mexican stand off as he flew from cave to cave waiting for his breath weapon to recharge.
Notes: Argon has haste and concentration icon, Druss has death ward icon, Larry has foresight icon, Morindin has blink (currently in the etheral plane hence the red cross), mage armour, and fire shield icons.
Could the Dragon eventually win? Absolutely, but the fight results in an absolutely tedius combat of hide and seek while the Dragon waits for breath recharges and party buffs to run out. Meanwhile the party just gets bored and teleports out. The melee damage the Dragon dished out was just seriously underwhelming.
Now as a side note in the Dragons defence.... without mass heal this fight would probably have been much harder.
*There were no good grapple targets. Druss's athletics is too high, Larry has athletics as well and foresight, Morindin isn't on the same plane of existence. That left only Argon, who is a good grapple target, but has access to Misty Step.
FFSAA wrote:
DaveDash wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
DaveDash wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
DaveDash wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
First, I went and found that link (searching this forum is a pain) to my previous post about monster scaling (shockingly in another 'the MM is broken' thread 
):
http://community.wizards.com/comment/51435181#comment-51435181
So hopefully you can take a look at how I did the math there, comparing the different types of scaling on monsters and PCs. I don't know if my methodology is flawless, but it comes out at very close to 1:1, and it really convinces me someone on WotC actually DID have some kind of math guideline in place for creature design.
Next:
dave2008 wrote:
Well said. Though in general I think theres not a very large discrepancy between unoptimized and highly optimized (at least as far as a single character goes). What's more important IMO is "group" optimization. Having characters that work synergisticly with others.
danyc wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
DaveDash wrote:
Using the core 3.5 ruleset only, I don't think so.
Fact of the matter is, many high level monsters as written are under powered and uninspiring.
The Balor, Marilith, etc all suffer from the same problem.
I'm thinking if they don't have spell casting or other tricks up their sleeve aside from just a damage statblock, their CE needs to drop. Ancient dragons are really "old", and spell casting variants are the only ones worth their CR.
I'm having the same problem with City of the Spider Queen. What is meant to be one of the most challenging dungeon crawls made is turning into a bit of a cake walk against my group, mostly due to monsters inability to defend themselves against spells.
DaveDash wrote:
17th level players have the power to dictate the initiative, unless the DM cheeses the scenario in his favour (and potentially ruining the suspenion of disbelief, BUT BUT ITS A DRAGON, IT KNOWS YOURE COMING!), which is granting an advantage to the monsters above their CR value already.
Take a look at a lot of higher level spells such as wind walk, gate, etherealness, arcane eye, scrying, etc, and you then come back and tell me that the players could not easily gain the initiative against a non-spell casting, non-true sight capable monster. Heck they have the means to rest smack bang in the middle of the Dragons lair if they desire, and there isn't a thing he can do about it.
All high level monsters should be packing True Sight and Magic Weapon attacks as a minimum.
DaveDash wrote:
DaveDash wrote:
mellored wrote:
mellored wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
DaveDash wrote:
FrogReaver wrote:
I am happy with the argument that the designers simply dumbed down the higher level CR monsters for the sake of RP first groups to have a chance against them without getting wiped (or for catering for a wider range of player abilities), that's fine.
But for those of us who run experienced min/max type groups DM's need to beware that you're basically giving free XP away by using this monsters., unless you want to script events in your favour, which I am 100% against in a game like D&D. The whole point is to let players be creative and inventive, otherwise you just might as well play a CRPG.
DaveDash wrote:
DaveDash wrote:
DaveDash wrote:
DaveDash wrote:
The disconnect here, I believe, is the correlation between CR and the adventuring day. Remember, the DMG says you're supposed to have 6-8 encounters a day. If you wanna lessen that, you can boost the CR of a single monster, or the CRs of smaller monsters (like a "triple threat" instead of just 1 or 2 mid-range baddies, or a hoard of hobgoblins instead of a horde of kobolds). Again, since these are guidelines, DMs should take special care when presenting the PCs with a particular enounter. Look at their spell list, their abilities, the magic items, and compare that to the CR+4 or so monster. Is it simply too much, due to high damage, the access to spells, or certain resistances/immunities making it tougher? Is it too easy due to vulnerability or sub-par in how it matches up with your players' fighting style/party composition?
Heck, you can still challenge high level folks with the right lower CR monster. Cleric+Fighter+Ranger+Barbarian might have a tough time against a large group of Intellect Devourers, if they're not careful...
So again, use the guidelines as guidelines. But remember! These guidelines are assumptive! They assume 4-5 PCs (or is it just 4 now?) who will have 5-7 MORE encounters today, with up to 2 short rests somewhere in there. The problem is how this compares to the CR system of 3.x (which was kind of a mess) and the Level system of 4E (which had its ups and downs), and how THOSE applied to an adventuring day. Not to mention a particular table's playstyle...
Timborama wrote:
dave2008 wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
danyc wrote:
It should be noted that ancient dragons are NOT stupid by any stretch. Most of them will have a ton of minions and traps to soften up the PCs before they even get to see it, and will more than likely know the PCs are coming unless said PCs are really really good at ambush-killing the minions before one of them can run away to alert the beast.
Also, given it's thousands of years of existence and knowledge, it has more than likely, if it cannot do so itself, hired (and probably subsequently killed) some wizards to create some sort of defensive wards in it's lair to prevent teleportation (conjecture as I don't actually know if such a thing exists). Remember, it has lived this long by taking every possible precaution. And likely has had to deal with adventuring parties many many times before.
The best way of dealing with a powerful dragon is to find some way of goading it out of it's lair and it's defensive entourage. Good luck with that.
In battle, the ancient dragon absolutely will pick out the most fragile party member in the group (i.e. not the barbarian) and burst him down. It'll also likely save it's breath weapon a round or two to see what the PCs do. If it's cave is big enough, it'll likely do fly by attacks to avoid the melee oriented PCs unless the PCs have prepared for it by having ready spells to ground the beast ... which may not work due to Legendary saves (the dragon is smart enough to keep those for strong disabling effects rather than just halving the damage from a weak spell).
I think the problem here is that people are expecting dragons to just act like mindless beasts, which they are most certainly not. A good DM can make an ancient dragon a terrifying threat for the party, and players should expect nothing less than a serious challenge and several back to back encounters if they step into it's lair.
KarlB wrote:
Heh, yeah, Faerie Fire is a <kitten> of a low level spell. I'd have had the dragon focus stomp the Bard/Druid of the party anyway given it's likely the primary healer of the group.
I know it's kinda sad to think that we are offering DM advice on how to best wipe out a party, but at the same time, it IS an ancient dragon ;)
KarlB wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
One entry in the monsters manual which is truely deseving of it's CR I think is the Solar.
I think its combat capability on its own, without having the DM to add in any extra help, stands up to what a CR21 monster should be.
It would easily TPK my level 17 test group, given it has the ability to pretty much kill the Archers in 1-2 rounds (2 if it gets unlucky).
It would also walk all over an Ancient Black Dragon - its equivalent CR monster - over the course of three rounds it's pumping out about 378 damage vs the Black Dragons 285 (1 breath two melee rounds, including legendary actions). It has magic resistance, damage resistance, condition immunities, magic weapon attacks, a huge advantage in manouverability, spells, and the ability to kill stuff under 100 hitpoints if they fail a save with it's longbow.
About the only place where it is lacking is hitpoints, however given how easily and quickly it can kill a PC then teleport (or 150ft FLY) back into cover, it's hardly a disadvantage.
Now that is what a CR20+ monster SHOULD BE LIKE. Pity it's meant to be on the players side (unless fallen).
They really dropped the balll with Dragons IMO.
"So after fighting through your 6 Dragons for the day, you finally encounter something scary.. a fallen Solar!"
DaveDash wrote:
DaveDash wrote:
There are three key factors you are missing which make the Solar a much greater ootb challenge than the equivalent Dragon.
The manoeuvrability factor (teleport, fly 150ft), means it can strike AND get back into cover on its turn or someone else's easier than the Dragon can.
The fact that its sustained DPR on its turn is huge compared to the Dragon, who gets a lot of DPR from its breath or its legendary actions, means the Solar has a better chance of actually killing PCs and breaking concentration.
Third, it can plink off at range meaning it can force those pesky shield spells to wear down before engaging, whereas a Dragon if it cant kill the players in round 1 or 2 (breath plus legendary action) needs to either be within range to do damage OR needs to hide.
The Solar simply had a much greater toolset at its disposal than Dragons, and this lack of toolset is my biggest gripe with many of the "end game" monster stat blocks.
Here's the thing, Dragons in older editions (say 3rd) did more breath damage, had magic weapon attacks, true sight, spell resistance (in many cases superior to legendary saves), greater flying speed, damage resistance, much more potent spell casting, higher comparative AC, and a whole range of other abilities.
Some of those abilities have been bundled up into lair actions, which means that they're now even less powerful now if they're out of their lair. The Gold Dragon has some nice lair actions for example, pity a party wont ever fight one there.
DaveDash wrote:
Seems to me the real complaint is that dragons are only CR 17, and not 25.
Rather then the balance of fighting a CR 17.
danyc wrote:
DaveDash wrote:
mellored wrote: