#Dmg 5e manual manual#

#Dmg 5e manual manual#

Even ignoring the demilich and the dearth of high level data, you can see that the Monster Manual Hit Points skew way low. And in fact, there are so few data points above level 10 that any analysis above level 10 should be taken with a grain of salt. That weird dip at CR 18 is because the demilich is the only CR 18 monster. HereвЂ™s a chart of the DMG-suggested Hit Points versus the average hit points per level from the Monster Manual: purple bar is the DMGвЂ™s Hit Point recommendations by CR, blue bar is the actual average HP from the Monster Manual. The CR 1/4 monster with the highest HP is the mud mephit, with 27 HP, still significantly less than the low end of the DMG-suggested hit point range.

However, letвЂ™s look at some CR 1/4 monster hit points. According to the chart, for instance, a CR 1/4 monster has 36-49 HP. The first clue that the DMGвЂ‹ chart is wrong is in the hit points column of the chart.

But the basic process is: figure out the monsterвЂ™s Defensive CR, which is primarily determined by HP but modified by AC, resistances, and some traits figure out its Offensive CR, which is primarily determined by average damage over three rounds of combat, modified for burst damage, area of effects, and various traits and abilities, and also by attack bonus or spell save DC and then average the offensive and defensive numbers to get the final CR. So thereвЂ™s lots of room for error, and I could have a lot of things wrong. Note: the process of creating a monster stat block is long and convoluted: according to the DMG itвЂ™s a 20-step process (!) and one of the steps involves executing another 4-step process detailed elsewhere. In this post, IвЂ™ll try to show the data that suggests to me that the chart is wrong. A fairly cursory search only turns up a few argumentative message board discussions and some pretty good Howling Tower posts (such as where Steve Winter graphs the discrepancies but backs off the conclusion that the DMG chart is incorrect.

This may be widely known and only new to me, but I havenвЂ™t found anything definitive or official on it. Based on my number crunching, it looks like the DMGвЂ™s central monster creation chart, вЂњMonster Statistics by Challenge RatingвЂќ, isnвЂ™t in line with the Monster Manual, and if you try to follow it you will get monsters that donвЂ™t look much like Monster Manual monsters. While messing around with monster creation, I started comparing 5e Monster Manual creatures with the 5e guidelines for creating monsters (DMG page 274).