Encounter budget reference, levels 1–20
One page per party level. Each one gives the budget for parties of three, four, five and six across four difficulty bands, and lists the SRD 5.1 creatures that land in each budget as a lone threat, a pair, a group or a swarm.
The per-character budget and the crowd multiplier are Torchline's own heuristic, not the encounter-building rules from any published book. The XP values on the creatures are the SRD's.
Pick a party level
Level 1240 standard / party of 4
Level 2480 standard / party of 4
Level 3720 standard / party of 4
Level 41,000 standard / party of 4
Level 51,800 standard / party of 4
Level 62,200 standard / party of 4
Level 72,800 standard / party of 4
Level 83,400 standard / party of 4
Level 94,000 standard / party of 4
Level 104,800 standard / party of 4
Level 116,000 standard / party of 4
Level 127,200 standard / party of 4
Level 138,400 standard / party of 4
Level 1410,000 standard / party of 4
Level 1511,600 standard / party of 4
Level 1613,200 standard / party of 4
Level 1716,000 standard / party of 4
Level 1818,800 standard / party of 4
Level 1922,000 standard / party of 4
Level 2025,600 standard / party of 4
Standard budget at a glance Level Skirmish Standard Hard Brutal
Level 1 132 240 384 576 Level 2 264 480 768 1,152 Level 3 396 720 1,152 1,728 Level 4 550 1,000 1,600 2,400 Level 5 990 1,800 2,880 4,320 Level 6 1,210 2,200 3,520 5,280 Level 7 1,540 2,800 4,480 6,720 Level 8 1,870 3,400 5,440 8,160 Level 9 2,200 4,000 6,400 9,600 Level 10 2,640 4,800 7,680 11,520 Level 11 3,300 6,000 9,600 14,400 Level 12 3,960 7,200 11,520 17,280 Level 13 4,620 8,400 13,440 20,160 Level 14 5,500 10,000 16,000 24,000 Level 15 6,380 11,600 18,560 27,840 Level 16 7,260 13,200 21,120 31,680 Level 17 8,800 16,000 25,600 38,400 Level 18 10,340 18,800 30,080 45,120 Level 19 12,100 22,000 35,200 52,800 Level 20 14,080 25,600 40,960 61,440
Party of four. Multiply by your own party size on each level page.
How the budget works. The XP-per-creature values are the SRD's. The party budget and the crowd multiplier are Torchline's own heuristic — a starting point, not an official rule, and not the encounter-building maths from any published rulebook. Trust your table over any calculator, this one included.
Attribution. Monster data from the Open5e API, drawn only from the System Reference Document 5.1 by Wizards of the Coast LLC, licensed under CC BY 4.0 . 322 creatures indexed.
Not affiliated with Wizards of the Coast. Torchline is an independent tool and is not endorsed or sponsored by them.
Torchline · taskmaster@unlockedreality.net