D&D 5E Variable XP values for monsters CR 21+

[Quickleaf]

I haven't had much reason to look at the most powerful monsters in the MM until now when I'm adventure writing. I noticed the discrepancy between the XP values, and was wondering if anyone has any thoughts about how these are calculated? Maybe [MENTION=84774]surfarcher[/MENTION]?

To be clear, I'm asking from an "encounter design" standpoint, and am not actually concerned with the awarding of experience points.

All monsters in the game from CR 0 to CR 20 follow the table that is on the Monster Manual page 9. There is no variations form what you'd expect, so one CR 3 displacer beast has the same XP value as another CR 3 owlbear.

Above CR 20, however, this is no longer true.

For example, the expected XP value for CR 21 is 33,000.

The CR 21 monsters in the Monster Manual include:
Ancient Black Dragon (27,500 XP)
Ancient Copper Dragon (27,500 XP)
Lich, not in lair (33,000 XP)
Solar (33,000 XP)

So the two dragons are worth 83% of the expected XP value, but still have an XP value above that which is expected for CR 20.

Another example, the expected XP value for CR 23 is 50,000.

The CR 23 monsters in the Monster Manual include:
Ancient Blue Dragon (32,500 XP)
Ancient Silver Dragon (32,500 XP)
Empyrean (32,500 XP)
Kraken (50,000 XP)

The two dragons and empyrean are worth 65% of the expected CR value, and what's more their actual XP value is less than what you'd expect for a CR 21 monster!

Any thoughts on how to make sense of this?

 

[Zaran]

Maybe the books released last year are just high quality beta books and the errata'd version will be out next year.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Thanks for pointing this out. I'll adjust the XP values in my campaign to match the DMG specifications.

 

[Leatherhead]

Any thoughts on how to make sense of this?

They printed the MM before they fully hashed out the tables in the DMG.

 

[the Jester]

Huh. I hadn't noticed this. Very interesting.

I just tweeted Mearls about it:

@mikemearls Any insight into why monsters above CR 20 give variable xp? Ex: CR 21- Ancient Black/Copper Dragon 27,500 XP; lich 33,000.

Hopefully that's clear, and he answers. I'm very interested in whether or not this is intentional, now that this has been pointed out.

 

[Quickleaf]

Huh. I hadn't noticed this. Very interesting.

I just tweeted Mearls about it:

Hopefully that's clear, and he answers. I'm very interested in whether or not this is intentional, now that this has been pointed out.

Thanks mate, I am not a twitter-er, but I appreciate you sending it up the grapevine At first I thought I was misreading things, but the XP variation is pretty clearly intentional...I think.

 

[the Jester]

I just discovered that, for whatever reason, my tweet didn't post. I just reposted it. Hopefully we'll have an answer in a couple of days.

 

[surfarcher]

Sorry [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION] I haven't really looked into this deeply yet. TBH I have been on hiatus from analysis for a number of reasons, not the least being I thought noone was interested (with the DMg coming out and all).

I'm about to dive in again - hey it turns out folks still are interested! Maybe I can have a look at this along the way?

 

[Chocolategravy]

I think the last time this got pointed out it was mentioned to go with the DMG values.

The difficulties of the higher level creatures is a total mess however. For instance the Empyrean is a big bag of HP that only offers any sort of threat if you are really careful with how you use it's legendary actions, and even then it really should present no real challenge to a level 20 party despite being 3 CRs over. The Solar is quite a bit more deadly than it at CR 21, although being good, good always wins, so probably isn't supposed to be fought.