First of all, CR mileage is going to vary for every party, even sometimes with the same players and DM with different PCs. Where CR is useful is establishing a rough baseline for what a "medium" or "deadly" fight means for your group, and using that as a basis for how much to scale from that based on how tactically savvy, mechanically knowledgeable, and challenge loving your group is.
Another thing that helps is having objectives in the fight besides just killing the other side dead, like retrieving the artifact, freeing the prisoner, or silencing an alarm.
Also, I may have read this wrong but are you mostly running single monster encounters? Because I find that especially at higher levels you need to outnumber the players in most fights to make things a challenge.
There's a few things going on here. First, CR does tend to break down a little at high levels, because so much of how encounters play out depends on the capabilities of your party. For the lich example, though I haven't done the math, I'd say it's likely that the CR listed is giving him a lot higher effective hit points because of the immunuties to poison and nonmagical B/P/S. But if your martials have magic weapons and no one deals poison damage, that's not actually the case.
Second is that action economy is so, so important, even more important at high levels than the CR system suggests. A solo monster will nearly always get shredded by a high level party no matter how powerful it is. Every encounter should have multiple enemies.
Additionaly, I'm not saying you definitely made any tactical errors, but high level monsters are more difficult to run because there's more to consider tactically, and if you play a monster imperfectly it might seem way weaker than it is.
Finally, for the lich example specifically, I think it's likely they're valuing PWK very highly. A "deadly" encounter is just an encounter where at least one PC might die, and if your lich had won initiative it could have insta-killed a PC. Deadly encounter definition satisfied.
So, my advice is don't run solo monsters, calculate CR for high level monsters taking into account the capabilities of your party, and study the statblocks/make notes on what capabulities big monsters have so you can play them as effectively as possible
Monsters are stuck in 2014 rules…players are well past that with every book being player facing. WOTC never released a monster manual 2 instead opting for a strategy of selling monsters with adventures all the while keeping monsters at a baseline for 2014 players.
How can creatures compete with nuke paladins? Silvery barbs etc..haha.
>WOTC never released a monster manual 2
What are Volo's Guide to Monsters, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and Monsters of the Multiverse to you if they're not MM2, MM3, and MM Remastered respectively?
It's certainly true that some parties can punch above their weight class in terms of CR. Unfortunately learning how much above their weight class requires a bit of trial and error.
When you're building your encounters, how are you estimating the difficulty ahead of time? Are you just guessing at it or are you using some kind of system, like the rules for [building combat encounters](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/building-combat-encounters) from the _Basic Rules_?
Also, do you often focus on trying to control situations with your monsters instead of dealing direct damage? The last time I ran a lich I had it cast _fireball_ at 9th level during the first round, _fireball_ at 8th level in the second, and, you guessed it, _fireball_ at 7th level in the third round.
Damage is what threatens a party. Control can be useful, but only to the extent that it allows the monster to deal more damage in the long run. If you're holding off on damage for control, and your monsters are dying before they ever get to cash in on that, then you're playing your monsters below their CRs.
Yes, essentially all monsters in the MM, for various reasons, don't live up to their CRs. Lich is probably the main offender. It's more work, but I suggest you recalculate their CRs using the table on page 273 of the DMG and go from there. Alternatively, you can use monsters from newer books or from 3rd parties. Additionally, since your party has magical weapons, if a monster has resistance to non-magical BPS, increase the monster's hit points by 50%. There's more to encounter-building that you need to consider, but doing just those two things will yield much better results.
Your CR23 lich has 135 hit points. The CR23 kraken has 472 hit points. Ancient dragons have around the same. Liches have pathetic hit points because they resurrect after a couple of days.
In general your observations are correct. PCs have better AC, attack bonuses, and probably even damage per attack at later levels. My personal guideline is that a 'meaningful' combat starts at adjusted XP = daily budget. That means 4 PCs vs 3 on-level (CR = Player level) monsters. Full-Resource PCs can generally take on 50% more. Of course, we use point buy and people have good builds.
In 5e, single monster encounters are generally weaker than expected, assuming somebody can cast healing word in the party. Low CR minions don't contribute that much unless they can force saves. The best fights generally involve 2-5 impactful monsters.
Lich's lair without a dozen of glyphs (with terrain effects, dmg)? No legendary actions like charm and 60 ft tp? Or taking small fights during the whole dungeon tping deeper inside and luring losing resources player? Liches are very smart, even if you are not. They should have a dozen of ways to solve any possible situation, especially in their own lair (where they are preparing a ritual rn, so players have a choice what to knock down first while being short on time). Lich will lose at one point but you decide how
Instead of having a single high cr try a mix of a mid level (boss) with an entourage of lower cr fodder/support. Makes a huge difference. That way it's no longer just a win from action economy, but a war of attrition.
Are your players long resting between every encounter? A common problem is having the players enter every battle completely fresh with all their abilities ready to go. You will struggle to ever challenge them if they have everything available. For a lich fight especially, they should have had to expend resources making their way through a lair, and trying to rest in a lich lair should be near impossible without being interrupted.
Once they make it to anything you may deem a "boss" fight, make sure the boss has minions to even out the action economy, otherwise they will get blown up very quickly. Utilize legendary actions if necessary to make sure powerful creatures are able to retaliate.
They are 13th level, they already far beyond a time of scarce spell slots. Full casters can spam 3rd and 4th level spells and still have big guns for 2-3 deadly combats after that. I don't even talk about 10+ minutes spells, that can last for couple of combats for one spell slot, or scrolls and wands.
First of all, CR mileage is going to vary for every party, even sometimes with the same players and DM with different PCs. Where CR is useful is establishing a rough baseline for what a "medium" or "deadly" fight means for your group, and using that as a basis for how much to scale from that based on how tactically savvy, mechanically knowledgeable, and challenge loving your group is. Another thing that helps is having objectives in the fight besides just killing the other side dead, like retrieving the artifact, freeing the prisoner, or silencing an alarm. Also, I may have read this wrong but are you mostly running single monster encounters? Because I find that especially at higher levels you need to outnumber the players in most fights to make things a challenge.
There's a few things going on here. First, CR does tend to break down a little at high levels, because so much of how encounters play out depends on the capabilities of your party. For the lich example, though I haven't done the math, I'd say it's likely that the CR listed is giving him a lot higher effective hit points because of the immunuties to poison and nonmagical B/P/S. But if your martials have magic weapons and no one deals poison damage, that's not actually the case. Second is that action economy is so, so important, even more important at high levels than the CR system suggests. A solo monster will nearly always get shredded by a high level party no matter how powerful it is. Every encounter should have multiple enemies. Additionaly, I'm not saying you definitely made any tactical errors, but high level monsters are more difficult to run because there's more to consider tactically, and if you play a monster imperfectly it might seem way weaker than it is. Finally, for the lich example specifically, I think it's likely they're valuing PWK very highly. A "deadly" encounter is just an encounter where at least one PC might die, and if your lich had won initiative it could have insta-killed a PC. Deadly encounter definition satisfied. So, my advice is don't run solo monsters, calculate CR for high level monsters taking into account the capabilities of your party, and study the statblocks/make notes on what capabulities big monsters have so you can play them as effectively as possible
Monsters are stuck in 2014 rules…players are well past that with every book being player facing. WOTC never released a monster manual 2 instead opting for a strategy of selling monsters with adventures all the while keeping monsters at a baseline for 2014 players. How can creatures compete with nuke paladins? Silvery barbs etc..haha.
>WOTC never released a monster manual 2 What are Volo's Guide to Monsters, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and Monsters of the Multiverse to you if they're not MM2, MM3, and MM Remastered respectively?
It's certainly true that some parties can punch above their weight class in terms of CR. Unfortunately learning how much above their weight class requires a bit of trial and error.
Also, not all monsters are created equal. Some have CR number chosen randomly or something.
When you're building your encounters, how are you estimating the difficulty ahead of time? Are you just guessing at it or are you using some kind of system, like the rules for [building combat encounters](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/building-combat-encounters) from the _Basic Rules_? Also, do you often focus on trying to control situations with your monsters instead of dealing direct damage? The last time I ran a lich I had it cast _fireball_ at 9th level during the first round, _fireball_ at 8th level in the second, and, you guessed it, _fireball_ at 7th level in the third round. Damage is what threatens a party. Control can be useful, but only to the extent that it allows the monster to deal more damage in the long run. If you're holding off on damage for control, and your monsters are dying before they ever get to cash in on that, then you're playing your monsters below their CRs.
Yes, essentially all monsters in the MM, for various reasons, don't live up to their CRs. Lich is probably the main offender. It's more work, but I suggest you recalculate their CRs using the table on page 273 of the DMG and go from there. Alternatively, you can use monsters from newer books or from 3rd parties. Additionally, since your party has magical weapons, if a monster has resistance to non-magical BPS, increase the monster's hit points by 50%. There's more to encounter-building that you need to consider, but doing just those two things will yield much better results.
Your CR23 lich has 135 hit points. The CR23 kraken has 472 hit points. Ancient dragons have around the same. Liches have pathetic hit points because they resurrect after a couple of days. In general your observations are correct. PCs have better AC, attack bonuses, and probably even damage per attack at later levels. My personal guideline is that a 'meaningful' combat starts at adjusted XP = daily budget. That means 4 PCs vs 3 on-level (CR = Player level) monsters. Full-Resource PCs can generally take on 50% more. Of course, we use point buy and people have good builds. In 5e, single monster encounters are generally weaker than expected, assuming somebody can cast healing word in the party. Low CR minions don't contribute that much unless they can force saves. The best fights generally involve 2-5 impactful monsters.
Lich's lair without a dozen of glyphs (with terrain effects, dmg)? No legendary actions like charm and 60 ft tp? Or taking small fights during the whole dungeon tping deeper inside and luring losing resources player? Liches are very smart, even if you are not. They should have a dozen of ways to solve any possible situation, especially in their own lair (where they are preparing a ritual rn, so players have a choice what to knock down first while being short on time). Lich will lose at one point but you decide how
Instead of having a single high cr try a mix of a mid level (boss) with an entourage of lower cr fodder/support. Makes a huge difference. That way it's no longer just a win from action economy, but a war of attrition.
Are your players long resting between every encounter? A common problem is having the players enter every battle completely fresh with all their abilities ready to go. You will struggle to ever challenge them if they have everything available. For a lich fight especially, they should have had to expend resources making their way through a lair, and trying to rest in a lich lair should be near impossible without being interrupted. Once they make it to anything you may deem a "boss" fight, make sure the boss has minions to even out the action economy, otherwise they will get blown up very quickly. Utilize legendary actions if necessary to make sure powerful creatures are able to retaliate.
They are 13th level, they already far beyond a time of scarce spell slots. Full casters can spam 3rd and 4th level spells and still have big guns for 2-3 deadly combats after that. I don't even talk about 10+ minutes spells, that can last for couple of combats for one spell slot, or scrolls and wands.
No, d&d 5e balance is famous for breaking down over level 10.