Dungeons and Dragons has taken an entirely new approach to Monster Challenge Ratings in its 2024 Monster Manual, designer Jeremy Crawford has revealed. In an official D&D livestream from January 07, Crawford says Wizards of the Coast “changed our methodology” when designing the difficulty level of monsters. Apparently, the new-and-improved rules will ensure that, during encounters, “the monster is going to stay on CR”.
Challenge Rating is a quick but somewhat clunky way to calculate how difficult a battle will be for players depending on their level. A CR 4 creature is supposed to be an adequate challenge for four level-four party members. However, most DMs will have discovered that the numbers in the 2014 Monster Manual can’t be relied on too much.
Crawford brings up the new attitude to Challenge Ratings while explaining the changes made to legendary creatures, some of the more powerful DnD monsters. “As we re-tuned all of our legendary creatures, we ensured that no matter what pathway the DM takes through that monster using legendary actions, the monster is going to stay on CR”, he says.
“A decade ago, the way we calculated CR was focused on ‘if the DM chooses the most powerful option every round, here is the monster’s CR’”, Crawford adds. “Many of us as DMs found that sometimes we don’t want to choose the most deadly option every round – and that often led to a monster feeling weaker than it should.”
“We have now changed our entire methodology so that when the monster says its CR – for instance, for a legendary creature – no matter which sequence of legendary actions you pick, that monster is going to be on CR.” According to Crawford, this will lead to monster fights that are more consistently threatening. These changes apparently “keep that monster terrifying in a way that’s appropriate for its Challenge Rating”.
Crawford doesn’t specify whether this new mantra applies to monsters of all levels, but we’d like to assume this is the case. In the decade since fifth edition first introduced its Challenge Ratings, it’s been widely criticized – to the point that one of its creators has openly admitted that it’s a problem in need of fixing.
Tuesday’s stream reveals that other work has been done to diversify low-level encounters, such as creating more low-level variants of existing monsters for players to face early in their campaign. We hope, then, that these CR changes don’t just apply to the big guns – which Jeremy Crawford once told me personally would “hit like a truck”, so powerful are their upgrades.
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