Encounter difficulty indicator (5.5e XP budget) #18
Reference in New Issue
Block a user
Delete Branch "%!s()"
Deleting a branch is permanent. Although the deleted branch may continue to exist for a short time before it actually gets removed, it CANNOT be undone in most cases. Continue?
Summary
Add a live encounter difficulty indicator based on the 2024 5.5e XP budget system. The calculation compares total monster XP (derived from CR) against XP budget thresholds (derived from party level and size). Requires adding a
levelfield toPlayerCharacter. Only bestiary-linked combatants contribute to the calculation — MVP baseline does not include CR assignment for custom combatants.Acceptance Criteria
PlayerCharacterhas a requiredlevelfield (1-20), reflected in create/edit forms and storage validationcreatureId)playerCharacterId)creatureIdare excluded from the XP total (not flagged as an error)Notes
Context
docs/agents/research/2026-03-25-combat-state.mdRules in the 2024 DMG
Combat Encounters
The following features can make a combat encounter more interesting or challenging:
Changes in Elevation. Terrain features that provide a change of elevation (such as stacks of empty crates, ledges, and balconies) reward clever positioning and encourage characters to jump, climb, fly, or teleport.
Defensive Positions. Enemies in hard-to-reach locations or defensive positions force characters who normally attack at range to move around.
Hazards. The “Hazards” section in chapter 3 describes dangerous features, such as patches of green slime, that characters or their enemies can use to their advantage.
Mixed Monster Groups. When different types of monsters work together, they can combine their abilities—just like characters with different classes and origins. A diverse force is more powerful.
Reasons to Move. Use features that encourage characters and their enemies to move around, such as chandeliers, kegs of gunpowder or oil, and rolling stone traps.
Combat Encounter Difficulty
Use the following guidelines to create a combat encounter of a desired level of difficulty.
Step 1: Choose a Difficulty. Three categories describe the range of encounter difficulty:
Low Difficulty. An encounter of low difficulty is likely to have one or two scary moments for the players, but their characters should emerge victorious with no casualties. One or more of them might need to use healing resources, however. As a rough guideline, a single monster generally presents a low-difficulty challenge for a party of four characters whose level equals the monster’s CR.
Moderate Difficulty. Absent healing and other resources, an encounter of moderate difficulty could go badly for the adventurers. Weaker characters might get taken out of the fight, and there’s a slim chance that one or more characters might die.
High Difficulty. A high-difficulty encounter could be lethal for one or more characters. To survive it, the characters will need smart tactics, quick thinking, and maybe even a little luck.
Step 2: Determine Your XP Budget. Using the XP Budget per Character table, cross-reference the party’s level with the desired encounter difficulty. Multiply the number in the table by the number of characters in the party to get your XP budget for the encounter.
XP Budget per Character
Step 3: Spend Your Budget. Every creature has an XP value in its stat block. When you add a creature to your combat encounter, deduct its XP from your XP budget to determine how many XP you have left to spend. Spend as much of your XP budget as you can without going over. It’s OK if you have a few unspent XP left over. Examples are given below:
Example 1. A low-difficulty encounter for four level 1 characters has an XP budget of 50 × 4, for a total of 200 XP. With that, you could build any of the following encounters:
1 Bugbear Warrior (200 XP)
2 Giant Wasps (100 XP each), for 200 XP total
6 Twig Blights (25 XP each), for 150 XP total
Example 2. A moderate-difficulty encounter for five level 3 characters has an XP budget of 225 × 5, for a total of 1,125 XP. With that, you could build either of these encounters:
2 Nothics (450 XP each) and 9 Stirges (25 XP each), for 1,125 XP total
1 Wight (700 XP), 1 Warhorse Skeleton (100 XP), and 6 Skeletons (50 XP each), for 1,100 XP total
Example 3. A high-difficulty encounter for six level 15 characters has an XP budget of 7,800 × 6, for a total of 46,800 XP. With that, you could build this encounter:
2 Adult Red Dragons (18,000 XP each) and 2 Fire Giants (5,000 XP each), for 46,000 XP total
Troubleshooting
When creating and running combat encounters, keep the following in mind.
Many Creatures. The more creatures in an encounter, the higher the risk that a lucky streak on their part could deal more damage to the characters than you expect. If your encounter includes more than two creatures per character, include fragile creatures that can be defeated quickly. This guideline is especially important for characters of level 1 or 2.
Adjustments. A player’s absence might warrant removing creatures from an encounter to keep it at the intended difficulty. Also, die rolls and other factors can result in an encounter being easier or harder than intended. You can adjust an encounter on the fly, such as by having creatures flee (making the encounter easier) or adding reinforcements (making the encounter harder).
CR 0 Creatures. Creatures that have a CR of 0, particularly ones that are worth 0 XP, should be used sparingly. If you want to include many CR 0 critters in an encounter, use swarms from the Monster Manual instead.
Number of Stat Blocks. The best combat encounters often pair one kind of creature with another, such as fire giants paired with hell hounds. Be mindful of the number of stat blocks you need to run the encounter. Referencing more than two or three stat blocks for a single encounter can be daunting, particularly if the creatures are complex.
Powerful Creatures. If your combat encounter includes a creature whose CR is higher than the party’s level, be aware that such a creature might deal enough damage with a single action to take out one or more characters. For example, an Ogre (CR 2) can kill a level 1 Wizard with a single blow.
Unusual Features. If a monster has a feature that lower-level characters can’t easily overcome, consider not adding that monster to an encounter for characters whose level is lower than the monster’s Challenge Rating.
Rules in the 2014 DMG
Combat Encounter Difficulty
There are four categories of encounter difficulty.
Easy. An easy encounter doesn’t tax the characters’ resources or put them in serious peril. They might lose a few hit points, but victory is pretty much guaranteed.
Medium. A medium encounter usually has one or two scary moments for the players, but the characters should emerge victorious with no casualties. One or more of them might need to use healing resources.
Hard. A hard encounter could go badly for the adventurers. Weaker characters might get taken out of the fight, and there’s a slim chance that one or more characters might die.
Deadly. A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat.
XP Thresholds by Character Level
Evaluating Encounter Difficulty
Use the following method to gauge the difficulty of any combat encounter.
1. Determine XP Thresholds. First, determine the experience point (XP) thresholds for each character in the party. The XP Thresholds by Character Level table has four XP thresholds for each character level, one for each category of encounter difficulty. Use a character’s level to determine his or her XP thresholds. Repeat this process for every character in the party.
2. Determine the Party’s XP Threshold. For each category of encounter difficulty, add up the characters’ XP thresholds. This determines the party’s XP threshold. You’ll end up with four totals, one for each category of encounter difficulty.
For example, if your party includes three 3rd-level characters and one 2nd-level character, the party’s totaled XP thresholds would be as follows:
Easy: 275 XP (75 + 75 + 75 + 50)
Medium: 550 XP (150 + 150 + 150 + 100)
Hard: 825 XP (225 + 225 + 225 + 150)
Deadly: 1,400 XP (400 + 400 + 400 + 200)
Record the totals, because you can use them for every encounter in your adventure.
3. Total the Monsters’ XP. Add up the XP for all of the monsters in the encounter. Every monster has an XP value in its stat block.
4. Modify Total XP for Multiple Monsters. If the encounter includes more than one monster, apply a multiplier to the monsters’ total XP. The more monsters there are, the more attack rolls you’re making against the characters in a given round, and the more dangerous the encounter becomes. To correctly gauge an encounter’s difficulty, multiply the total XP of all the monsters in the encounter by the value given in the Encounter Multipliers table.
For example, if an encounter includes four monsters worth a total of 500 XP, you would multiply the total XP of the monsters by 2, for an adjusted value of 1,000 XP. This adjusted value is not what the monsters are worth in terms of XP; the adjusted value’s only purpose is to help you accurately assess the encounter’s difficulty.
When making this calculation, don’t count any monsters whose challenge rating is significantly below the average challenge rating of the other monsters in the group unless you think the weak monsters significantly contribute to the difficulty of the encounter.
5. Compare XP. Compare the monsters’ adjusted XP value to the party’s XP thresholds. The closest threshold that is lower than the adjusted XP value of the monsters determines the encounter’s difficulty.
For example, an encounter with one bugbear and three hobgoblins has an adjusted XP value of 1,000, making it a hard encounter for a party of three 3rd-level characters and one 2nd-level character (which has a hard encounter threshold of 825 XP and a deadly encounter threshold of 1,400 XP).
Challenge Rating
When putting together an encounter or adventure, especially at lower levels, exercise caution when using monsters whose challenge rating is higher than the party’s average level. Such a creature might deal enough damage with a single action to take out adventurers of a lower level. For example, an ogre has a challenge rating of 2, but it can kill a 1st-level wizard with a single blow.
Party Size
The preceding guidelines assume that you have a party consisting of three to five adventurers.
If the party contains fewer than three characters, apply the next highest multiplier on the Encounter Multipliers table. For example, apply a multiplier of 1.5 when the characters fight a single monster, and a multiplier of 5 for groups of fifteen or more monsters.
If the party contains six or more characters, use the next lowest multiplier on the table. Use a multiplier of 0.5 for a single monster.
Multipart Encounters
Sometimes an encounter features multiple enemies that the party doesn’t face all at once. For example, monsters might come at the party in waves. For such encounters, treat each discrete part or wave as a separate encounter for the purpose of determining its difficulty.
A party can’t benefit from a short rest between parts of a multipart encounter, so they won’t be able to spend Hit Dice to regain hit points or recover any abilities that require a short rest to regain. As a rule, if the adjusted XP value for the monsters in a multipart encounter is higher than one-third of the party’s expected XP total for the adventuring day (see “The Adventuring Day,” below), the encounter is going to be tougher than the sum of its parts.
Building Encounters on a Budget
You can build an encounter if you know its desired difficulty. The party’s XP thresholds give you an XP budget that you can spend on monsters to build easy, medium, hard, and deadly encounters. Just remember that groups of monsters eat up more of that budget than their base XP values would indicate (see step 4).
For example, using the party from step 2, you can build a medium encounter by making sure that the adjusted XP value of the monsters is at least 550 XP (the party’s threshold for a medium encounter) and no more than 825 XP (the party’s threshold for a hard encounter). A single monster of challenge rating 3 (such as a manticore or owlbear) is worth 700 XP, so that’s one possibility. If you want a pair of monsters, each one will count for 1.5 times its base XP value. A pair of dire wolves (worth 200 XP each) have an adjusted XP value of 600, making them a medium encounter for the party as well.
To assist with this approach, the Monster Manual presents a list of all monsters organized by challenge rating.
The Adventuring Day
Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer.
In the same way you figure out the difficulty of an encounter, you can use the XP values of monsters and other opponents in an adventure as a guideline for how far the party is likely to progress.
For each character in the party, use the Adventuring Day XP table to estimate how much XP that character is expected to earn in a day. Add together the values of all party members to get a total for the party’s adventuring day. This provides a rough estimate of the adjusted XP value for encounters the party can handle before the characters will need to take a long rest.
Adventuring Day XP
Short Rests
In general, over the course of a full adventuring day, the party will likely need to take two short rests, about one-third and two-thirds of the way through the day.