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The Lazy Encounter Benchmark – a Simple Measure for D&D and 5e Combat Encounter Deadliness

by Mike on 2 March 2020

This article was updated 31 October 2024 adding the benchmark for a single monster, adding a new table version of the benchmark, cleaning up the article, and adding a section talking about its compatibility with D&D 2024.

The Lazy Encounter Benchmark gives you a loose gauge to determine if your story-based 5e combat encounter may end up deadly.

This Lazy Encounter Benchmark uses two steps and all of it can be done without any online tool or referenced table.

In a given encounter, choose the monsters that make sense in the current story, location, and situation.
Determine if the encounter may be deadly. An encounter may be deadly if the sum total of monster challenge ratings is greater than one quarter of the sum total of character levels, or half the sum total of character levels if the characters are above 4th level. A single monster may be deadly if its CR is greater than the average of character levels or greater than 1.5 x the average of character levels if they're above 4th level.

Keep this guideline in your head and use it as a loose gauge to determine if encounters might be inadvertently deadly. For the sake of brevity, I define "deadliness" as "characters may die".

For publishers, the Lazy Encounter Benchmark is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license in the Lazy GM's Resource Document and the Lazy GM's Monster Builder Resource Document.

Calculating the Benchmark During Prep

You can calculate the benchmark during prep to help you improvise combat encounters during your game.

During prep, add the levels of all characters in your group. Divide this number by four if they're 1st to 4th level or by two if they're 5th level or above. This is your core Lazy Encounter Benchmark.

Also write down the average of character levels if they're 1st to 4th level or 1.5 x average character levels if they're 5th level or above. This is your Lazy Encounter Benchmark for a single monster.

During prep or during the game, choose the number and types of monsters that make sense given the situation and pacing of the game. Remember to include easy encounters. If you think a battle may be too hard, add the challenge ratings of all monsters in the battle and compare to your Lazy Encounter Benchmark.

A battle may be deadly if the total of monster CRs is greater than your benchmark. A single monster may be a deadly threat if its CR is greater than your single monster benchmark.

Adjust your combat encounter or run it as-is as you think best fits the game.

Examples

Let's say you have five 3rd level characters in your adventuring party. During prep you can figure out the group's lazy benchmark by adding all character levels together (15) and dividing by four since they're below 5th level, giving us about 4. Don't worry about rounding one way or the other – remember that this is a loose gauge. That number is your main Lazy Encounter Benchmark. Since they're 3rd level, a single monster above CR 3 might be deadly so we write the following in our notes:

Lazy Benchmark: 4 (3)

During the game, the characters run into seven orcs (CR 1/2 each). Adding their CRs together, we come to 3.5 which is under the benchmark so it's probably not deadly. If it were five orcs (2.5) and an ettin (CR 4), that might be deadly because the ettin's CR is higher than the single monster benchmark of 3 and the total CRs is now 6.5 – above the benchmark of 4. We can decide if we still want to run it or turn the ettin into an ogre, reducing the max CR to 2 and the total CRs to 4.5 – still potentially deadly but less so.

For another example, six 7th level heroes face an aboleth (CR 10) and its four chuul guards (CR 4 each). The lazy benchmark for six 7th level characters is 21 (6 characters x 7th level divided by two since they're above 4th level) and the single monster benchmark is 10 (1.5 x level 7). The aboleth is within the single-monster threshold but the total CRs is 26. That's higher than our threshold but our experience with these characters showed us that they have lots of ways to crowd control monsters and they're not likely to face all four chuuls at once so we stick with it.

Scaling for Powerful Parties

For powerful characters at 11th level and higher, the Lazy Encounter Benchmark might become less useful for accurately representing a deadly encounter. You can adjust the Lazy Encounter Benchmark to account for this extra power with the following optional guideline:

Above 10th level, an encounter might be deadly if the total of all the monsters' challenge ratings is greater than three quarters of the total of all the characters' levels, or if the total of monsters' challenge ratings is equal to the total of character levels if the characters are 17th level or higher.

This creates a much higher benchmark, but it might more accurately represent the capabilities of high-powered high-level characters.

At any level, you might find the benchmark isn't best representing deadly encounters for the characters in your group. Maybe they have really powerful magic items, powerful combinations of spells and abilities, or powerful tag-along NPCs. You can increase the benchmark's scale by adding a "virtual" character to the equation. If you have five powerful 8th level characters (resulting in a normal benchmark of 20) you can calculate the Lazy Encounter Benchmark as though they have six characters (creating a new benchmark of 24).

Adding non-existing characters is better than treating a group as though they're a higher level because the big bump at 5th level dramatically increases the threat. The same is true at 11th and 17th level if you're using the high-power benchmark. Adding non-existent characters to increase the deadly threshold keeps the benchmark smooth whatever level they are.

The Lazy Encounter Benchmark Table

For another way to look at it, the following table summarizes the Lazy Encounter Benchmark for three, four, five, or six 1st to 20th level characters. It includes the total monster CR benchmark and the maximum CR for any single creature in a battle. At 11th level and above, it includes the normal and high-power benchmarks described above.

Lazy Encounter Benchmark
Level	3 PCs	4 PCs	5 PCs	6 PCs	Max Single CR
1	1	1	1	2	0.5
2	2	2	3	3	2
3	2	3	4	5	3
4	3	4	5	6	4
5	8	10	13	15	8
6	9	12	15	18	9
7	11	14	18	21	11
8	12	16	20	24	12
9	14	18	23	27	14
10	15	20	25	30	15
11	17-25	22-33	28-41	33-50	17
12	18-27	24-36	30-45	36-54	18
13	20-29	26-39	33-49	39-59	20
14	21-32	28-42	35-53	42-63	21
15	23-34	30-45	38-56	45-68	23
16	24-36	32-48	40-60	48-72	24
17	26-51	34-68	43-85	51-102	26
18	27-54	36-72	45-90	54-108	27
19	29-57	38-76	48-95	57-114	29
20	30-60	40-80	50-100	60-120	30

Treat as a Loose Gauge

Many circumstances change how challenging an actual combat encounter might be. All of the following examples set up types of encounters that often play out more easily than the Lazy Encounter Benchmark might suggest:

The fight features significantly more characters than foes.
The characters' goals in an encounter can be achieved without eliminating all the foes from the fight.
The environment favors the characters.
The monsters come in waves instead of all at once.
Foes are distracted or in disadvantageous positions.
The monsters are all surprised, or all act after the characters in initiative.
The characters have spells or features well suited for taking out foes.
The players engage in excellent tactical behavior and synergistic strategies.
The characters are well rested and coming in fresh.
The characters have an arsenal of powerful magic items.
The characters have useful companions.

Likewise, monsters might be favored over the characters in the following types of encounters:

The monsters outnumber the characters.
The characters are surprised by the monsters.
Foes have advantageous position.
The terrain favors the foes.
The monsters fight with a strong tactical synergy.
The characters are coming in well worn by previous fights and have no chance to rest.

Consider the benchmark a loose gauge, not a hard rule. Comparing a combat encounter to the benchmark helps you get a feeling for its difficulty – it doesn't determine the outcome.

What About for D&D 2024?

The Lazy Encounter Benchmark has worked well for 5e since 2020 and similar encounter building guidelines are published in Tales of the Valiant, Flee Mortals, and Level Up Advanced 5E. With the release of D&D 2024, the benchmark still serves its purpose and requires no changes. After an analysis comparing it to the encounter building rules in the D&D 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, I determined that:

The Lazy Encounter Benchmark results in a more reasonable amount of low CR monsters than the 2024 DMG rules.
The Lazy Encounter Benchmark results in a greater number of high CR monsters – giving more headroom to protect boss monsters.
In battles with two characters per monster, the two encounter building systems line up almost perfectly.

In my analysis and experience, the Lazy Encounter Benchmark continues to work well for D&D 2024 and provide an easy way to loosely gauge encounters for all 5e systems.

A Powerful Lazy Tool for 5e

The Lazy Encounter Benchmark gives you an easy-to-calculate loose gauge to help you get a rough idea how dangerous a given combat encounter might be. If you memorize it, you need not look up any tables or charts to gauge any given combat encounter. During prep, you can calculate the benchmark and keep it handy when considering encounters. It works with any mixture of characters and any mixture of monsters.

Like the best Lazy GM tools, it gives you a tool to help you improvise and stays out of the way to let tales of high adventure unfold at the table.

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This work includes material taken from SlyFlourish.com by Michael E. Shea available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license.

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