suggestions about balancing CR


Homebrew and House Rules


Hi all, first time here!
I recently started mastering some one shot adventures after many many years of playing, but I'm still kind of unsure about balancing the power of my NPCs.
In this particular case, I'm working with a party of 5 lv.3 characters.
I'm trying to do a "hardcore" adventure, where tactical misplays and careless plays lead to harsher than standard consequences.
To do this, I build every one of my NPCs following that class's optimized builds, carefully plan the map so to have many tactical options, and so on.
This being said, I'm not sure about this particular challenge:
I plan the final boss of this session to be a lv.5 human witch.
The witch is optimized to be strong at controlling the battlefield, while her minions/creatures are supposed to attack the party.
Now, my doubt is about these minions/creatures: aside from crowd control spells, the witch has vomit swarm and summon monster 3; I don't think those 2 spells are gonna be enough of a challenge for the party, though. I was thinking of adding some sort of ally of the witch, so some natural ally or another NPC.
Any suggestions on this? Would it be balanced or not, in your opinion? If yes, could you suggest the CR of this natural ally/NPC?

Thank you in advance for reading this!
G


Are you making the Witch 4 levels higher than the Party's Average Party Level?

If your Party's APL is 3, then the Witch should be level 7, granting her 4th level spells.

Also remember that, if you're focusing on Summoning spells, there are several Feats which up the power of your summoned monsters.

Spell Focus (Conjuration), Augment Summoning, and Superior Summoning lets you summon 1 more monster per spell and all with +4 Str, +4 Con

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Avoid single-monster boss encounters. There's a variety of reasons why, but generally the single creature will have a huge action economy disadvantage.

Make the witch CR 3 (level 2 or level 3 with a PC build) and give her two CR 2 minions. This will result in a boss fight with 2000 XP (between CR 5 and 6). You can bump the witch up one level to make this a CR 6 encounter.


chbgraphicarts wrote:

Are you making the Witch 4 levels higher than the Party's Average Party Level?

Nope, the witch is a 5th level human witch(with PC build), while the APL is 3(5 members party).

Cyrad wrote:
Avoid single-monster boss encounters. There's a variety of reasons why, but generally the single creature will have a huge action economy disadvantage.

Yes, I can see that. Do you think that the level5 witch(with PC build) and one CR 2 minion(perhaps a tanky one) would be too much, anyway?

Thanks for your input, guys!


She can almost certainly have more than a single CR 2 minion,especially considering that she is specced to be a control mage. If she doesn't have much direct damage, then she needs minions to be a threat.

A pair of CR 3 minions might work, or three or four CR 2 enemies, as a party of five can probably kill them pretty fast. There isn't a hard and fast rule here.

If you're unsure, something that may work is starting with a smaller number of enemies,with the possibility of more arriving if tbe fight turns out to be too easy. If the fight is hard enough, simply don.'t introduce them, and the PCs never need to know. Learning to scale difficuty like this is a very useful skill to learn as a DM.


WithoutHisFoot wrote:

She can almost certainly have more than a single CR 2 minion,especially considering that she is specced to be a control mage. If she doesn't have much direct damage, then she needs minions to be a threat.

A pair of CR 3 minions might work, or three or four CR 2 enemies, as a party of five can probably kill them pretty fast. There isn't a hard and fast rule here.

If you're unsure, something that may work is starting with a smaller number of enemies,with the possibility of more arriving if tbe fight turns out to be too easy. If the fight is hard enough, simply don.'t introduce them, and the PCs never need to know. Learning to scale difficuty like this is a very useful skill to learn as a DM.

Thank you, you've all been very helpful.

G


Haggis.McMutton wrote:
chbgraphicarts wrote:

Are you making the Witch 4 levels higher than the Party's Average Party Level?

Nope, the witch is a 5th level human witch(with PC build), while the APL is 3(5 members party).

Cyrad wrote:
Avoid single-monster boss encounters. There's a variety of reasons why, but generally the single creature will have a huge action economy disadvantage.

Yes, I can see that. Do you think that the level5 witch(with PC build) and one CR 2 minion(perhaps a tanky one) would be too much, anyway?

Thanks for your input, guys!

I hope you realize, though, even a PC-build lv5 character is only a CR5 monster at most (more realistically CR4); it's not going to be a very tough fight for your party.

CR = APL is supposed to be an easy fight that expends fairly minimal resources.

CR=APL+2 is supposed to only be a bit challenging, while CR=APL+4 is an actual HARD fight. APL+4 should realistically be an even fight between the enemy and party, with the party only having a 50% chance of success.


I am not sure to be following you; let's assume for the sake of the argument that the PC-build lvl 5 character is a CR5.
APL is 3.
Based on this table
an encounter of CR=APL+2 is classified as "hard".
Am I missing something?

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Haggis.McMutton wrote:
Cyrad wrote:
Avoid single-monster boss encounters. There's a variety of reasons why, but generally the single creature will have a huge action economy disadvantage.
Yes, I can see that. Do you think that the level5 witch(with PC build) and one CR 2 minion(perhaps a tanky one) would be too much, anyway?

A single 5th level witch with a PC build is a CR 5 encounter. With two CR 2 minions, that would make it almost CR 7, which would be too much for a party of 3rd level characters. I recommend keeping the encounter no higher than CR 6. If you're adamant about making the witch a 5th level character, then either:

A) Give her to an NPC build (which reduces her to CR 4) and give her two CR 2 minions
B) Give her two CR 1 minions
C) Give her one CR 3 minion

I personally recommend A. If not, then go with B.


Here is a very good summary of how to make a CR appropriate challenge.

EDIT: It's a good read for any DM.

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