Building Encounters in Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons

7/1/2019 Building Encounters in Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons: Sly Flourish
Sly Flourish
Building Encounters in Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons
by Mike Shea on 12 September 2016
Note: This article is a rewrite of the original from March 2015. Wizards of the Coast has
released new encounter building tables in Xanathar's Guide to Everything which gives us a
new way to build encounters on top of the rules in the Dungeon Master's Guide. Consider
these guidelines another alternative for fast, simple, and loose encounter building.
The following guidelines aim to help dungeon masters running the 5th edition of
Dungeons & Dragons build combat encounters quickly and easily. This article begins
with a set of quick encounter building guidelines and then get into the design
considerations later in this article.
These guidelines are intended to help DMs quickly build encounters and have a
rough estimate of whether an encounter is deadly or not. These guidelines, like the
underlying challenge rating of monsters, is not an exact science and will not build
perfectly balanced encounters. Nor will any other system. Instead, it gives us easy-
to-remember guidelines for building fun and interesting encounters that fit the stor
taking place at the table.
Quick Encounter Building Summary
1. Select the number and type of monsters that fit the story and the situation.
Many times, this is all you need to do.
2. If needed, use these baseline comparisons between monster challenge rating and
character level to see if the encounter is potentially deadly.
If a monster's challenge rating is roughly equal to the character's level (or
three higher than character level above level 5), it is the equivalant of
four characters.
If a monsters' challenge rating is roughly equal to 1/2 the characters' level
(or 3/4 if the characters are above fifth level), the monster is the
equivalant of two characters.
slyflourish.com/5e_encounter_building.html 1/9
If the monsters' challenge rating is roughly equal to 1/4 of the characters'

level (or 1/2 if the characters are above fifth level), the monster is
roughly equivalant to a single character.
If the monsters' challenge rating is roughly equal to 1/10th of the
characters' level (or 1/4 if the characters are above fifth level), two
monsters are the equivalant of a single character.
If the characters are above fifth level and the monsters' challenge rating is
roughly 1/10th of the characters' level, four monsters are the equivalant
of a single character.
3. If needed, adjust the difficulty of the encounter by adding or removing
monsters, increasing or decreasing hit points, or increasing or decreasing
monster damage.
A Deeper Dive Into the Encounter Guidelines
The following is a more detailed look at the guidelines above. Note, these are
intended to help you understand what a "hard" encounter looks like so you have the
freedom to tune the ba le to make it easier or harder depending on the story and
your goals for the encounter.
1. Choose monsters based on the story. What monsters make sense for the current
situation and direction of this story? You might know this ahead of time or might
want to improvise a quick encounter right at the table. When designing an
encounter, start with the story first and the mechanics second. When in doubt, read
the Monster Manual to get an idea what makes sense for the monster. Use the
monsters by challenge rating index or the excellent Monsters by Environment list in
appendix B of the Dungeon Master's Guide to help you pick the right monsters for
the situation.
2. If needed, determine if the encounter is deadly. Use some simple comparisons of

monster challenge ratings and character levels to see if the encounter is likely to be
deadly or not. If the encounter you designed goes above these baselines, it's
potentially deadly.
For Levels 1 to 4
If a monster's challenge rating is roughly equal to the character's level, it is the

equivalant of four characters.
If a monsters' challenge rating is roughly equal to 1/2 the characters' level, the
monster is the equivalant of two characters.
If the monsters' challenge rating is roughly equal to 1/4 of the characters' level, the
monster is roughly equivalant to a single character.
If the monsters' challenge rating is roughly equal to 1/10th of the characters' level,
two monsters are the equivalant of a single character.
For Levels 5 and Above
If a monster's challenge rating is roughly three higher than the character's level, it is
the equivalant of four characters.
If a monsters' challenge rating is roughly equal to 3/4 the characters' level, the
monster is the equivalant of two characters.
If the monsters' challenge rating is roughly equal to 1/2 of the characters' level, the
monster is roughly equivalant to a single character.
If the monsters' challenge rating is roughly equal to 1/4th of the characters' level, two
If the monsters' challenge rating is roughly 1/10th of the characters' level, four
Here's a quick lookup table with a more accurate comparison than the guidelines
above that compares monster challenge ratings with character levels. Note that this
table follows the encounter guidance in the Dungeon Master's Guide.
CR for two CR for one CR for one CR for one

Character
monsters per monster per monster per two monster per four
level
character character characters characters
1 Too hard 1/4 1/2 1
2 1/8 1/4 1 3
3 1/4 1 2 4
4 1/2 1 3 5
5 1 2 4 6
6 1 2 5 7
7 1 3 5 8
8 2 3 6 9
9 2 4 7 10
10 2 4 7 11
11 3 5 8 12
12 3 5 9 13
13 3 5 10 14
14 4 6 11 15
15 4 6 11 16
16 4 7 12 17
17 4 8 13 18
18 5 8 14 19
19 5 9 15 20
20 6 10 16 21
3. Adjust difficulty if needed. During the ba le we can adjust the difficulty on the
fly by increasing or decreasing the number of monsters as some flee or new monsters
show up, increasing or decreasing hit points within the monsters' hit dice range, or
increasing or decreasing the monsters' damage.
Design Considerations
The rest of this article discusses the design philosophy behind these guidelines. You
need not read further unless you wish to understand how and why these guidelines
were put in place.
Mix and Match Monster Types
The guidelines above let you mix and match a bunch of different monsters in a single
ba le by matching monsters with different challenge ratings with the level of the
characters. For example, if you have a group of five level 7 characters, you can build
an encounter with one challenge 5 troll (the equivalant of two level 7 characters), two
challenge 2 ogres (the equivalant of two additional level 7 characters) and two
challenge 1 bugbears (the equivalant of the one remaining level 7 character).
The math isn't perfect since 1/3 of level 7 and 1/4 of level 7 both round out to
challenge 2. Theoretically you could have five ogres and a troll instead of two ogres,
a troll, and two bugbears. That's certainly a harder ba le but it still falls within the
guidelines.
Loose Guidelines for an Imperfect System
"Once you analyze, it's obvious CR is imprecise, and any precision it has
diminishes the higher the character level." - Chris Sims, D&D Monster Manual
developer.
The challenge of any encounter in fith edition Dungeons & Dragons cannot be easily
measured or quantified. There are too many variables to know how any ba le is
really going to go. Some of these include variance between monsters at the same
challenge rating, the class mixture of characters, the particular spells a character
group has access to, who wins initiative, circumstantial or environmental
considerations, and the skills and proficiency of the players. The Dungeon Bastard
reminds us that whether a group is fully rested or worn down will have a huge effect
on how easily they can overcome the next ba le.
Thus, all systems to determine the difficulty of an encounter in 5e will lack

precision.
Due to the complexity of the encounter building rules in the D&D 5e Dungeon
Master's Guide and the lack of precision in any encounter building system, we aim
for a faster system that gives dungeon masters loose guidelines to balance
encounters while acknowledging that the actual difficulty will still vary.
A Guideline for "Hard" Encounters
The encounter building tables in the Dungeon Master's Guide or the DM Basic Rules
offer four levels of difficulty: easy, medium, hard, and deadly. As a rule of thumb,
however, we really only need to worry about the "hard" ba le. If we use fewer or
lower challenge monsters than the "hard" budget allows, the ba le is easier. If we use
more or bigger monsters, the ba le will be harder. This gives us a single baseline we
can use to balance each encounter instead of worrying where it fits within a range of
four imprecise difficulties.
We calculated these guidelines using the traditional encounter building rules aimed
at a "hard" encounter and using the multiplier for the number of monsters assuming
that the number of monsters will be roughly comparable to the number of characters.
We make the assumption that most ba les will have a roughly equal number of
monsters to characters. Adjusting the difficulty from this baseline is easily done by
removing monsters, choosing lower challenge monsters, or increasing or decreasing
hit points.
We intend for these encounter building guidelines to be easy enough to keep in our
head and usable right at the table when we want to build an encounter right now.
We intend for these rules to aid in improvisational DMing with very li le, if any,
preparation required before the game is run.
On the Action Economy
There's a good reason the Dungeon Master's Guide has two tables we must cross
reference to put together an encounter. Regardless of the individual power of a
monster, the difficulty goes up every time we add another combatant to the ba le
field. Regardless of how hard they swing a sword, two knights get twice as many
actions as one.
We call this the action economy. The more total actions on one side of a ba le, the
stronger that side is. The multiplier in the standard encounter building guidelines
intends to account for this. If there are three to six monsters, they are significantly
more effective than if there is only one. Thus we have a 2x multiplier on their
experience point budget when we include them into an encounter. This increase in
the action economy is why the rules for encounter building are so complicated. As
Benjamin Reinheart often points out, the overall threat in combat increases at a
geometric rate as you add more combatants to a fight.
For this reason, you likely want to have no fewer than one monster for the first four
characters plus one additional monster for each character above four. Even an
ancient red dragon is going to have trouble handling six high level characters and all
of the things they can do in a round.
Not All Encounters Need Be Balanced
The intent of these guidelines isn't to ensure that every encounter our characters face
is balanced. There should be many times our characters face small groups of easily
defeated monsters and a few occasions where they might run into a foe they simply
cannot defeat with straight-on combat. Instead, these guidelines are intended to give
us a gauge to help us understand how any given ba le might go. If we're way above
the baseline, we know things are going to be rough and can help our players see that.
If we're going way below, we know it will probably be an easy fight. Varying
difficulty is a good way to ensure the story and the game feel fresh.
Modifying the Guidelines for Individual Groups
As we begin to understand our group's actual power, we can alter these guidelines to
face them and D&D 5e's speed of combat makes it easy to do so. If a group of
experienced players is running a strong group of well-coordinated and well-built
characters, we can increase the challenge dramatically by increasing the challenge
rating of the monsters we choose, increasing the number of monsters in the ba le,
increasing the hit points of those monsters, or increasing their damage. We can also
go in the opposite direction with groups who aren't as experienced or well-
coordinated. Fewer monsters, monsters of a lower challenge rating, or both will
make ba les easier for less optimized groups of players.
Again, these are loose guidelines meant to give us a starting point. As DMs, we are
free to tweak these guidelines depending on our goals and the actual results we see
at the table.
The System Breaks Down at Higher Levels
As Chris Sims stated above, the higher level the characters, the more the standard
encounter building rules break down. Strong groups of characters played by
experienced players can fight deadly ba les far outside of the baseline for a "hard"
encounter and still win. Other less experienced groups will have a harder time with
such ba les.
As DMs, we can start by using these guidelines and then tweak them as we need
once we know more about the actual strength of our groups.
A Simple and Powerful Tool for Easy Game Preparation
We built these encounter building guidelines to make your life easier when pu ing
together a ba le. Keep the numbers above in your head so you can quickly build a
roughly balanced encounter for a challenging fight. Tweak to suit these guidelines to
match the skills of your players and the power of your characters and focus your
a ention on the grand story of the game you share together.
If you enjoyed this article please consider supporting me on Patreon and take a look
at Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, Sly Flourish's Fantastic Adventures, and Sly
Flourish's Fantastic Locations.
You can also support this site by using these links to purchase the D&D Starter Set,
Players Handbook, Monster Manual, or Dungeon Master's Guide. Need some dice?
Check out this pack of 105 dice by Easy Roller Dice!
Send feedback to @slyflourish on Twi er or email mike@mikeshea.net.

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7/1/2019 Building Encounters in Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons: Sly Flourish