It's not a fight until everyone is bloodied!

If you run D&D 5e, you might find that your boss monsters die easily. There's actually a simple reason for that!

The game was built around the assumption that characters would engage in about 20 rounds of combat between long rests.

We were probably off by a factor of 5.

Here's a final table. Any entries in red show where the 5.5 monsters are stronger than you expect. A 0 means they are spot on. A black number means they are too weak. The larger the number, they further they are off from the reality of the game:

Who wants more charts? Someone, I hope!

So here's another analysis I did. I took the target CR for levels 1 to 20 and broke it into a few categories. For a party of 4, the left table shows the by-the-book CR for a few scenarios.

During lunch, I wanted to figure out how many HP a boss monster needs in a 5.5 fight. I've added that to the table I shared earlier. It's the rightmost column.

It assumes that in a boss fight, the party unloads with their best, most powerful stuff.

OK, so let me breakdown the root problem of CR. It was terrible in 2014 and it remains terrible in 2025. It ignores how we actually play the game and is a millstone around the 5e system. It also explains why low level 5e works.

But why is that? Check the image below.

If you bring the decks, you can turn any family holiday gathering into commander night.

You’ve been kidnapped. The characters from the last tv show you watched are trying to rescue you. Who is coming to save you?

(Jokes on the internet. The only media I consume is the A-Team. It's an ironclad preparation against this scenario and the top reason I have yet to be kidnapped.)