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Inspired by this, this, and this, I just processed this list of monsters to get the average (and standard deviation) AC in monsters, by CR. It comprises all the SRD monsters, I believe.

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A common DPR chart shows the average DPR of a character at a given level. DPR often depends on the to-hit bonus of characters and the AC of monsters. For example, at level 10, Bob can either:

  • increase his damage bonus by +2
  • increase his to-hit bonus by +2

We can't justify which one is better without knowing how often Bob hits his attacks against his enemies.

Can this graph be used in DPR charts? Ideally, it could be translated to find, for a character of a given level, the average AC of the monsters he faces.

One way would be to consider the character's level to match the CR of enemies. So, for example, Bob would calculate its accuracy against an enemy of CR10. Bob has a +5 to hit, does 9 damage per attack, 3 attacks per round, and a CR10 monster has an average of 18 AC.

  • With +2 damage, Bob has 40% hit chance, 11 damage per attack, and 13.2 DPR.
  • With +2 to-hit, Bob has 50% hit chance, 9 damage per attack, and 13.5 DPR.

If a MonsterCR to CharacterLevel matching isn't adequate, what would be? Can we use standard encounter-creation rules to build a chart that matches player level to average enemy AC?

BlueMoon93
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    What's your question exactly? The chart is a tool that can assist with encounter creation, but the body of your post seems to ask a different question about metrics that can be used to balance encounters. – JRodge01 Nov 15 '19 at 14:19
  • @JRodge01 I don't ask about encounter balancing. I ask how to obtain the average enemy AC for each character level, and if this graph (showing AC by CR) is adequate. I've reworded the question to make it clearer – BlueMoon93 Nov 15 '19 at 14:28
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    Related: "Average AC of monsters per CR?" and "Which Armor Class values should be used as controls when making damage calculations?" – Exempt-Medic Nov 15 '19 at 14:32
  • I'm confused, the list you linked mentions the Azer, which is a CR2 creature with an AC of 17, yet the CR2 entry for your chart seems to have 15 as its peak? Am I misunderstanding how your chart works and the blue background is not its minimum/maximum values, with the blue line in the center forming the average? – Theik Nov 15 '19 at 14:37
  • @Theik It's mean and standard deviation, I'll update it – BlueMoon93 Nov 15 '19 at 14:38
  • @BlueMoon93 are you suggesting that at level 12, a player's DPR should fall back to what it was at level 5 ? – Pierre Cathé Nov 15 '19 at 14:45
  • @PierreCathé If a character, after 7 levels, for some reason, did twice the damage, but missed attacks twice as often, he would do the same damage. I'm not suggesting he should, no. But when I calculate DPR of things, I often come across choices where I can increase to-hit bonus, or increase average damage. Without an adequate AC to measure accuracy, those choices are hard to justify. – BlueMoon93 Nov 15 '19 at 14:47
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    How are the mean and standard deviation supposed to be applicable? There isn't a known probability of encountering each monster. – Mark Wells Nov 15 '19 at 15:00
  • @MarkWells I've assumed all monsters have an equal probability of being found. If there were 3 monsters with CR 20 and ACs [15, 20, 25], the AC for CR20 would be 20+-4.08 – BlueMoon93 Nov 15 '19 at 15:02
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    Statistically, that's no more valid than assuming any other distribution, such as "all monsters are hobgoblins". – Mark Wells Nov 15 '19 at 15:17
  • @MarkWells How so? In a graph that measures AC by CR, is there a better way? That seems like a pretty unfair comment – BlueMoon93 Nov 15 '19 at 15:23
  • There isn't a better way. For a published campaign you could go through and count the creatures (all of them, or only the ones you expect to get into combat with?), and I've seen people do that with creature types or resistances, but trying to do it outside the context of one campaign or setting is pretty much doomed. – Mark Wells Nov 15 '19 at 16:03

1 Answers1

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No

As players level up, the difficulty of encounters increases, in general. However, that difficulty can be ramped up by including higher CR enemies, by including more enemies, or both.

Your chart would be helpful if only enemy CR increased. However, since a DM or adventure designer could simply include more enemies, that would throw off any simple relationship between character DPR and monster AC.

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Willem Renzema
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  • So you would agree that it is not possible? Even if XP and encounter building rules, etc, were used? – BlueMoon93 Nov 15 '19 at 14:53
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    This is the correct answer. You can't link "this is a CR15 encounter" with any meaningful AC value. It's possible to reach a CR15 encounter with nothing but CR2 AC11 Ogres with the encounter building rules. It's quite a few ogres, but it's a valid encounter, and nothing in it has more than 11AC. – Theik Nov 15 '19 at 14:57
  • Ok, it makes sense. Too bad, I was hoping there was some standard way of matching enemy CR to player level. +1 – BlueMoon93 Nov 15 '19 at 14:59