Page 89 - DnD 5e - Xanathar's Guide to Everything

ber of rows a cone contains, divide its length by 5. For STEP 3: DETERMINE NUMBERS AND
example, a 30-foot cone contains six rows. CHALLENGE RATINGS
Here's how to create the rows. Starting with a square
adjacent to the cone's point of origin, place one token. The process for building fights that feature only one leg-
The square can be orthogonally or diagonally adjacent endary monster is simple. The Solo Monster Challenge
to the point of origin. In every row beyond that one, Rating table shows you which cha llenge rating (CR) to
place as many tokens as you placed in the previous row, use for a legendary creature opposing a party of four to
plus one more token. Place this row's tokens so that six characters, creating a satisfying but difficult battle.
their squares each share a side with a square in the For example, for a party of five 9th-level characters, a
previous row. If the cone is orthogonally adjacent to the CR 12 legendary creature makes an optimal encounter.
point of origin, you'll have one more token to place in the For a more perilous battle, match up the characters
row; place it on one end or the other of the row you just with a legendary creature whose cha llenge rating is 1 or
created (you don't have to pick the side chosen in dia- 2 higher than optimal. For an easy fight, use a legendary
gram 2.5). Keep placing tokens in this way until you've creature whose challenge rating is 3 or more lower than
created all of the cone's rows. the challenge rating for an optimal encounter.
Lines. A line can extend from its source orthogonally
or diagonally, as shown in diagram 2.6. SOLO MONSTER CHALLENGE RATING
Party Siz
Character
ENCOUNTER BUILDING level 6 Characters S Characters 4 Characters
This section introduces new guidelines on building com- 1st 2 2
bat encounters for an adventure. They are an alternative
2nd 4 3 2
to the rules in "Creating Encounters" in chapter 3 of the 3rd 5 4 3
Dungeon Master's Guide. This approach uses the same
math that underlies the rules presented in that book, but 4th 6 5 4
it makes a few adjustments to the way that math is pre- 5th 9 8 7
sented to produce a more flexible system. 6th 10 9 8
This encounter-building system assumes that, as DM, 7th 11 10 9
you want to have a clear understanding of the threat 8th 12 11 10
posed by a group of monsters. It will be useful to you if 9th 13 12 11
you want to emphasize combat in your adventure, if you 14 13 12
want to ens ure that a foe is n't too deadly for a group of 10th
11th 15 14 13
characters, and if you want to understand the relation-
ship between a character's level and a monster's chal- 12th 17 16 15
lenge rating. 13th 18 17 16
Building an encounter using these guidelines follows 14th 19 18 17
a series of steps. 15th 20 19 18
16th 21 20 19
STEP l: ASSESS THE CHARACTERS
17th 22 21 20
To build an encounter using this system, first take stock
18th 22 21 20
of the player characters. This system uses the charac- 22 21
ters' levels to determine the numbers and challenge 19th 23
ratings of creatures you can pit them against without 20th 24 23 22
making a fight too hard or too easy. Even though char-
acter level is important, you should also take note of If your encounter features multiple monsters, bala nc-
each character's hit point maximum and saving throw ing it takes a little more work. Refer to the Multiple
modifiers, as well as how much damage the mightiest Monsters tables, which are broken up by level ranges,
characters can deal with a single attack. Character level providing information for how to balance encounters for
and challenge rating are good for defining the difficulty characters of 1st-5th level, 6th- 10th level, 11th- 15th
of an encounter, but they don't tell the whole story. You'll level, and 16th- 20th level.
make use of these additional character statistics when First, you need to note the challenge rating for each
you select monsters for an encounter in step 4. creature the party will face. Then, to create your encoun-
ter, find the level of each character on the appropriate ta-
STEP 2: CHOOSE ENCOUNTER SIZE ble. Each table shows what a single character of a given
level is equivalent to in terms of challenge rating-a
Determine whether you want to create a battle that pits
one creature against the characters , or if you want to value represented by a ratio that compares numbers of
characters to a single monster ranked by challenge rat-
use multiple monsters. If the fight is against a single ing. The first number in each expression is the number
opponent, your best candidate for that foe is one of the
game's legendary creatures, which are designed to fill of characters of the given level. The second number tells
how many monsters of the listed cha llenge rating those
this need. If the battle involves multiple monsters, de- characters are equivalent to.
cide roughly how many creatures you want to use before
continuing with step 3.