With Monster Stat Printer for 5.5e (SRD 5.2.1) Monsters
About this Encounter Builder
Encounter Building Guidance
The Pitiful Encounter Builder by default is setup to help you build a balanced encounter that is keyed to the Difficultly level you choose. It allows you to set an encounter using Minions (low level - easy to kill opponents), Leaders (mid-range - harder to kill opponents) and Bosses (higher level - hard to kill opponents). You can choose to build an encounter with only minions or only leaders or only bosses, or you can build it with any combination of tiers.
Each tier will have a range of CRs at your disposal with the idea that you can choose 10 minions, 2 or 3 leaders and one Bosse without going over the target XP budget but you may have to select lower CRs than you anticipated.
This means that for lower level parties some monsters with high CRs will not be available because they would take the encounter to beyond 1.25 times the deadly encounter budget.
Turning off Tiers by selecting the checkbox will give you all the monsters available to you without limit. It is recommended to pay attention to the Threat Analyzer graph while doing this.
Encounter Information
Complete the following fields to begin.View Encounter Building Instructions
Select the Difficulty Target: In 5.5e there are three levels of difficulty: Low Challenge, Moderate Challenge, or Deadly Challenge. NOTE: It is recommended that for a “day” of adventuring you should budget your encounters to 1 to 5 low encounters or a combination of some lows and mediums – If you have a deadly challenge in mind then it may be best to limit the rest of the “day” to 1 low and 1 medium depending on how strong your players are.
Homebrew Activation: Decide if you want to add your own Homebrew Monster to the encounter. If so, select the “Enable Homebrew Monsters” checkbox.
Constraint Toggle: Decide if you want to turn off the tier system and difficulty target restraints entirely.
Configure the Adventuring Party: Input the number of players and their levels. If the party contains characters at various levels, use the “+ Add Group” button to add a separate row for each level of character.
Monitor the Metrics & Graph: Notice the “Threat Analyzer” graph and the calculation fields below it to track the threat assessment of your encounter based on the player levels and monsters selected. Pay close attention to the “Encounter Danger” flag status and the target icon on the graph. The further past deadly it goes, the more likely you will see character death and possibly experience a TPK (Total Party Kill).
Select Monsters: Choose your combatants from the autocomplete search fields dropdown menus. If you have tiers turned on, it may be best to choose a boss first (if this is a boss fight), then spend your remaining XP budget on minions and/or leaders.
Print & Output: When you have selected your monsters and feel good about the balance, click the Print / Save to PDF button. This opens a new tab in your browser containing complete encounter details along with clean, styled creature stat block reference cards for the official SRD monsters. It will not display details for your homebrew monsters because you only entered a name, CR and type in the dropdown. You will have to design your homebrew monsters outside this tool.
Campaign Name
Encounter Title
Map Key
Difficulty Target
Options
When this option is selected you can add your own homebrew monsters to the encounter.
When this option is selected the tier system designed to build balanced encounters is shut off.
Homebrew Monsters
To make your homebrew monster available for the encounter add the "Monster Name", "CR", and "Creature Type" below and then click "Add HB Monster". You can do this multiple times.
The Homebrew monster will be available in the monster dropdown(s) below. By default the encounte builder is setup in Tiers (Minions, Leaders, and Bosses) so the CR of the monster and the encounters target difficulty will determine which drop list it appears in. If the CR is too high for the party it will not appear in tiers setup. If you choose to turn tiers off then the HB monster(s) will be available in the monster drobdown list. Any monster you add will only be available while this tab is active.
NOTE: This option only adds the data needed to calculate the threat. It dose NOT let you create the homebrew monster with all its stats and features.
This work features content derived from the Systems Reference Document 5.2.1 (SRD 5.2.1) by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY-4.0). No endorsement by Wizards of the Coast LLC is implied or intended.