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   The Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Challenge Rating system is deranged

I've been running a D&D5 (Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition) game for two
years and I've yet to come to grips with the “Challenge Rating” system for
monsters. There have been times when what I think is a balanced encounter is
one sided with the players going “Okay, that must have been the minion—
where's the actual boss monster?” and other times when I throw something that
should end with a total party kill, but instead is just a “challenging”
encounter the party survives.

I think the theory is that a group of four players of level N should be
equally matched with one monster of a challenge rating of N. And I read
“equally matched” as “a 50/50 chance for either side to be killed.” Whether
that's a good reading of the term “equally matched” is debatable, but that's
how I'm initially reading it. It makes sense to me—if you have two combatents
(and let's face it—D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) involves a lot of combat) of
equal skills and equipment, then it should be a 50/50 toss up for the winner.
And in plenty of spots in the various D&D tomes I read that four level 1
characters should be an equal match to one CR (Challenge Rating)1 monster.

So I wrote a simulation to test that out. I have four level 1 characters that
are pitted against one CR1 monster for 10,000 simulated fights. For the four
players, I used the four archetypal types—a cleric, fighter, thief and
wizard. For the sake of simplicity, all four will always “run up” to the
monster and fight—no ranged attacks are done. I know this isn't completely
realistic, but for a “proof-of-concept” it should be good enough.

Anyway, our poor unfortunate victims:

The Cleric

       Has an an AC (Armor Class) of 14, 1d8+2 HP (Hit Points), no
       initiative bonus, +1 to attacks, and will do 1d8+1 worth of damage if
       the attack hits. The Cleric will not attempt to heal any damaged
       comrades as I don't expect the enounters to last long enough for that
       to matter.
The Fighter

       Has an AC of 16, 1d10+2 HP, +2 to intiative, +2 to attacks, and will
       do 1d8+2 worth of damage.
The Thief

       Has an AC of 13, 1d8+1 HP, +2 to intiative, +2 to attacks, and
       because of the strategy of the other players (“run up and hit”) the
       Thief can use their “Sneak Attack” feature to do an addtional 1d6
       worth of damage, on top of the 1d4+2 of damage normally done (here,
       the Thief will always use a dagger).
The Wizard

       Has an AC of 10, 1d6 of HP, +2 to intiative and no bonuses to
       attacks. Normally, wizards would be in the back of the party doing
       ranged attacks, but because I didn't want the complication of ranged
       attacks, the Wizard is right up front and close. But I do allow the
       Wizard the use of two Magic Missiles (the maximum allowed for that
       spell, which always hit) for the first two rounds (each doing 3d4+3
       damage), then Fire Bolt (which does 1d10, but doesn't always hit).

These are pretty bog-standard 1^ST level characters. I then went through
picking out a few CR1 monsters to throw against the party. The unfortunate
enemy victims include:

Animated Armor

       Has an AC of 18, 6d8+6 HP, no initiative bonus, +4 to attacks, and
       does do two attacks of 1d6+2 of damage.
Bugbear

       Has an AC of 16, 5d8+5 HP, +2 to initiative, +4 to hit, doing 2d8+2
       worth of damage.
Goblin Boss

       Has an AC of 17, 6d6 HP, +2 to initiative, +4 to attack, and gets two
       attacks, the second of which is at disadvantage both of which do
       1d6+2 worth of damage.
Half Orge

       Has an AC of 12, 4d10+8 HP, no intiative bonus, +5 to attack, which
       does 2d10+3 damage.
Lion

       Has an AC of 12, +2 to intiative, +5 to attack, and does 1d8+3 worth
       of damage.

And because it wouldn't be D&D without the dragons, there's one dragon at CR1
the Brass Dragon Wyrmling (a baby brass dragon):

Brass Dragon Wyrmling

       Has an AC of 16, 3d8+3 HP, no initiative bonus, a +4 to attacks which
       does 1d10+2 damage, or a breath weapon which can do 4d6 worth of
       damage if the victim can't jump out of the way (but only has a 1 in 3
       chance of regaining per round of combat).

For the Brass Dragon Wyrmling, I decided to have it lead with its breath
weapon always, and prefer the use of its breath weapon when it recharges, but
if not, do a normal attack.

It's not every CR1 monster, but I think it's a decent list to start with, and
it should give me a feeling for how this “Challenge Rating” system is
supposed to work.

On with the simulation!

Table: 10,000 battles between a 1^ST level party and some CR1 monsters
monster TPK (Total Party Kill)% #rounds #lived
------------------------------
Animated Armor  28.23   4       2
Brass Dragon Wyrmling   0.36    3       3
Bugbear 4.81    3       3
Gobin Boss      1.18    3       3
Half Orge       2.56    3       3
Lion    0.72    3       3

Well … [Deep subject. —Editor] I'm not sure what to make of the results.
Either the simulation is crap, or the whole “Challenge Rating” system is
crap. I've heard that it tends to break down at the higher levels, but even
here, it doesn't seem to work. A baby brass dragon is less dangerous than a
lion? An empty shell of armor is the most dangerous monster? What?

Okay, about those columns—the TPK column is the percentage time the entire
party was wiped out by the encounter. The last column is if the party killed
the monster, on average, now many party members were left standing? (rounded
to the nearest whole value)

So then I decided to throw some other monsters into the mix. And in keeping
with the “dragon” portion of D&D, I found a dragon of CR2, CR3 and CR4 (and
used the same strategy I used for the Brass Dragon Wyrmling—leading with the
breath weapon). And because I'm just mean, I decided to throw in one of the
weakest creatures of D&D into the mix—a single kobold. Behold:

Table: 10,000 battles between a 1^ST level party and some non-CR1 monsters
monster TPK%    #rounds #lived  CR
------------------------------
Kobold  0.00    2       4       ⅛
Black Dragon Wyrmling   27.83   4       2       2
Blue Dragon Wyrmling    71.86   6       1       3
Red Dragon Wyrmling     98.36   6       0       4

To be fair, there is a chance for one party member to be killed by the
kobold, as the actual average for the number of party members surviving is
3.93—a single kobold is not a complete cakewalk. And there's a slightly
better than 1% chance of killing a baby red dragon as a 1^ST level party
(better than I expected). But somehow, it still feels wrong that some
animated armor is still a bit more dangerous than a black baby dragon.

I guess I'll just have to throw my group (a mix of 5^TH to 7^TH level
characters) in front of an ancient red dragon and see what happens … oh wait,
did I mention that out loud?


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