Fixing 5e's Challenge Rating | Game Changer

Thank you soooo much! It's super helpful!

Highly impressed! Well done, sir!

Okay, this is only the second video of his that I've watched and already I don't know how I survived as a DM beforehand. All these things are so useful.

Cool… but I’d rather just play PF2e where their challenge monster rating is already fixed

Thank you…

What an incredible idea and tool. Incredible work, dude.

I do think it would be an interesting exercise to take the tool's results here and try to reverse engineer a fix to the DMG calculations though, im sure someone on like reddit or something will do it at some point.

The fact that the DMG CR calculation guide doesnt make any distinction between a 3 character party and 5 character party, is pants-on-head doorknob licking stupid. My god.

I wouldn’t call this a “fix” to challenge rating, since it’s entirely different from CR, but it’s still very impressive. I’ll have to try it and see how it compares to the other 5e combat encounter simulators.

Rather than advising DMs to throw out CR, my preference is instead to educate them on it better. In my experience CR is almost 100% reliable as long as you know how to use it. The most misleading thing about it is that the names of the difficulty levels make them sound far tougher than those encounters are actually supposed to be. (“Deadly” is supposed to mean “they can win this fight three times per day.”) And the other main thing is to tell DMs to scale the total XP upwards to account for the party’s magic items and optimization.

Thank you so much

I mean no offense and having checked out the tool it does seem useful (if effort intensive for someone who uses a lot of different/3rd party/homebrew monsters... but for someone that took a shot at people that discard the challenge rating system rather than trying to fix it - it looks like to me that you just discarded the challenge rating system instead of actually trying to fix it. In a video tittles "FIXING 5e's challenge rating"
Your argument simply explain why people stop using the system (it's too rigid and doesn't work for any game that doesn't follow it's very strict list of assumptions) and then you offer a tool that doesn't use the system nor fixes it, but just extrapolates what most DMs that ditch challenge rating already do: just looks at how interesting an encounter may end up being based on what the players and enemies will do - but in a simulation instead of a thought experiment.

Probably the most amazing tool I have seen for 5e since I started GMing. It deserves to be known world wide. Thank you so much for this!

Perfectly balanced, as all things should be

I really like this calculator, are you planning on expanding it, like adding resistance, and maybe an attack random option?

wow, this thing is gonna save me so much time! thanks for putting in so much time and work into this, what a great resource!

The tool is not really much usefull..It has very limited amount of options (like i can flag on great weapon master but no meaning to say if my fighter has a shield? Or which weapon he is using?) It does not take accuracy into account (attacks always hit) and has flay out rules errors (like cleric casting two leveled spells in a round)...not a very useful tool Indeed. I tryed a mind flayer and a troll vs a group of 4 lv 5 players and they last 2 rounds according to the simulator, dealing abysmal damage, while obviously not being a trivial or easy fight for that party....

This is so useful! Great UI, too.

That's amazing!

Dudeeee you are insane, thank you for all that work, Ill share this video with all my dm friends, keep it up ;)

Very cool

These days I just use Cr to determine the rough standing of the monster and its PB.

You're a lifesaver. I can't believe I found this video

Ngl I heard that a better way than point buy or standard array is to roll and then everyone uses those stats

The elder language of “jahveh-schript” is something I do not understand, but must respect.

This is an amazing tool, thank you so much! My players were just saying after the last session, that felt like a really epic fight! Good, I was hoping it wasn't a TPK because 5 level 12s vs. a Phoenix in the air should have been hard on paper, but I knew it wasn't going to be...so I added an adult red dragon's breath, an exhaustion aura, and like +250HP. It ended up being just right. I checked the simulator, and default without adding any extra items in or anything, the phoenix would've died in 3 rounds with nobody taking any damage.

Very much looking forward to using this!

I'm actually kind of shocked that a level 1 party of 4 can reliably beat an owlbear under the assumptions here. I mean, make no mistake players well go down, but it's not a TPK no matter the owlbear's strategy.

"Something that would take the CR 6 human mage one fireball."
Gandalf headbobs approvingly

Holy crap. I wasn't expecting such a well worked out and thought out tool! First time I've watched one of your videos, immediately subscribed - huge props!

The sim tool logic is still missing a lot to be desired, but it's a great starting point. Examples include when to use actions.

The funny things is that, as you know, CR was lauded as the "solution" to using levels. my queston is, what's wrong with just using levels to describe the strength of monsters?

I loved the simulator and I've been using it since it came out. Where I got the most benefit from it is in dungeon preparation.

Damn that is insane. If I were to DM which is something I look into currently - I would definitely make use of your tool!

Seems really useful. I hope I can figure out how to use the tool properly

Just discovered your channel and wow, INCREDIBLE takes. Keep at it!

This is a great help will have fun making an encounter with this, Thanks!

Looking forward to trying this and thank you for doing all this hard work and freely sharing it!

Absolutely great tool. One of the most deserved like and subscribes I have ever given.

alright, the animation that plays when you start the website is super smooth

Comment! For the almighty algorithm and to support a le epic channel❤

My thought on CR is that it offers information that really isn't helpful. It presents itself as "this number says what monster you should use for a party of level X", but really, CR gives something else entirely. It feels more like a bad approximation of "how much power it takes to knock this thing over".

Nice!

This is really great, the only problem I'm having with it is the computer will only use the action that is listed first, so enemies with hard hitting attacks and some soft hitting attacks looks easier than reality. Other than that and legendary actions it works great!

I want this for pathfinder 1st edition.

This is a lifesaver

I've been trying to figure out how to balance my encounters for so damn long

Right, PC's shouldn't run away, to live and fight another day. This is hilarious - standard array = "objectively right". As Bugs Bunny would have said - "It is - to laugh!" CR... Oh, yeah, that's right, everything is equal and valid, we all sit around and sing with the monsters around the campfire, only playing rock, paper, scissors when there may be a remote possibility of things needing to be decided. I'm glad I learned before D&D, with Chain mail, and can think rationally. Bye, WOtC... I've always preferred Rules Cyclopedia with additions from AD&D.

Holy fucking shit this is amazing your sim is a great tool man I'm a new dm a quickly visualizing the battle turn by turn is a life saver

This is amazing! Thank you for sharing

This is good shit

standard array is trash, love the video, but it had to be said