Challenge rating is the shorthand for "how hard is this monster?" that every other number depends on. The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, unlike its 2014 predecessor, ships no statistics-by-CR table for monster builders, so the community reverse-engineered one. This chapter gives you those benchmarks and how to use them.

What CR actually predicts

A monster's CR is a promise about two things: how hard the creature is to put down (hit points, AC, saving throws; the editor's Defense section) and how hard it hits back (attack bonus, save DC, damage per round; the Combat and Actions sections). The designers balance those against a party's expected capabilities, assuming a fight lasts about three rounds.

CR is not a promise about how the fight feels. That comes from role, terrain, and action economy. Two CR 5 creatures can play completely differently. But if your homebrew creature's numbers drift far from its CR's benchmarks in both offense and defense, players will definitely feel the mismatch.

The benchmark table

The table below gives baseline statistics for every challenge rating, adapted from the Lazy GM's 5e Monster Builder Resource Document by Teos Abadía, Scott Fitzgerald Gray, and Michael E. Shea (CC-BY 4.0). Paul Hughes's statistical analysis of the 2024 Monster Manual confirms that these baselines follow the revised books closely.

A few notes on reading it:

• AC/DC is one number doing two jobs: the creature's typical Armor Class, and the typical save DC of its features.
• Proficient bonus is the ability modifier and proficiency bonus already added together. Use it as the attack bonus and as the bonus for proficient saving throws and skills. Non-proficient abilities just get a modifier from −2 to +4 based on the creature's story.
• Damage per round is the creature's whole output for one round, split across its attacks. If an effect hits two or more characters at once, like a breath weapon or a burst, budget it at half this number.
• Equivalent level is roughly the level of a single character for whom one such monster is a hard fight, so the table can double as an NPC builder.

The quick formulas

When you'd rather compute than look up, the same sources boil the table down to a handful of formulas (Lazy GM's Resource Document, CC-BY 4.0):

• Armor Class = 12 + half the creature's CR
• Hit points = (15 × CR) + 15. Monsterbrew calculates hit points from Hit Dice: the creature's size sets the die and its Constitution adds to each one, so how many Hit Dice to give is up to you. Use this formula as the target to land near.
• Attack bonus / proficient checks = 4 + half the creature's CR
• Save DC = 12 + half the creature's CR
• Damage per round = (7 × CR) + 5
• Start with one attack, and add another at CR 2, 7, 11, and 15, splitting the damage budget across them.

Paul Hughes's regression over the full 2024 Monster Manual lands on nearly identical curves (HP ≈ 15 + 15 per CR and damage ≈ 7.5 per CR through CR 20) and finds that 2024 monsters deal roughly 50% more damage than their 2014 counterparts, with AC up about one point across the board. Above CR 20 both HP and damage accelerate sharply (roughly +50 HP and +12.5 damage per CR), which the table reflects.

When to deviate, and how to pay for it

These benchmarks are a baseline, deviating from them is how a creature can express its role. The trick is to trade and not stack:

• A glass-cannon artillery piece takes hit points from the bottom of its HP range and pushes damage above the line.
• A hulking defender does the opposite: HP at the top of the range, damage below the line.
• Accuracy and defense trades work too: −2 AC in exchange for grappling on every hit, +2 to hit in exchange for having only one attack.
• Resistances, flight, regeneration, and at-will invisibility are all defensive purchases. Pay for them with hit points or damage. A creature resistant to common damage types effectively has half again its listed HP.

What ruins a monster is deviating in the same direction everywhere: above-benchmark HP and AC and damage is just a monster of a higher CR wearing the wrong label. If you find yourself doing that, raise the CR instead. The table is right there.

A useful cross-check from Teos Abadía's process: estimate a defensive CR (which row does its effective HP and AC most resemble?) and an offensive CR (which row matches its attack bonus and damage output?), then average the two. If that average isn't the CR you wrote down, adjust the statblock or the label until they agree.

Set the result in the editor's Challenge Rating field. Monsterbrew derives proficiency bonus and XP from it automatically, and any {@hit} or {@dc} tokens keyed to abilities recompute as you tune the statblock.