Encounter Challenge Calc is a utility app that feels like a life-saver for Dungeon Masters. It takes the tedious math out of planning combat encounters for 5th Edition fantasy games. Instead of manually calculating XP thresholds and adjusting for party size, you can just plug in your levels and let the app do the heavy lifting.
The interface is straightforward and utilitarian. While it’s not 'pretty' in a traditional sense, it is extremely efficient. The 'Creature Count per CR' chart is especially helpful when you need to quickly scale an encounter up or down on the fly. It’s a solid, reliable tool that stays out of your way and lets you focus on the storytelling part of your game.
I’ve been DMing since THAC0 was a thing, so I appreciate a tool that helps me not accidentally kill my entire party. This app does what it says: you put in the numbers, it tells you if you're about to TPK your friends. But as a 'game' or even as a piece of software in 2026, it’s a fossil.
The interface is a sea of grey boxes and tiny text. It’s a calculator, nothing more. With tools like D&D Beyond existing, where the encounter math is integrated into the monster manual and character sheets, why would I manually type numbers into this? It’s useful if you’re playing purely pen-and-paper and have zero internet, but for everyone else, it’s a relic of a simpler time. It hasn't been updated to include any of the newer monster books or alternate encounter math from Xanathar's.
Performance: Instant calculations. Tiny footprint.
Buy if: You play D&D 5e offline and need a quick way to double-check encounter math without a laptop.
Skip if: You use D&D Beyond or any modern campaign management software.
Available on: iPhone, iPad, iPod
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Determining what constitutes an appropriate challenge for your party of heroes can be a real chore. This app handles all the math for you, including modifiers for creature count and number of characters, so you can spend more time planning your adventure.
First, describe the character levels that comprise your party. The app can handle any reasonable number of characters, at levels up to 20. You could, for example, specify that your party is made up of three level-4 characters, one level-5 character, and one level-6 character.
Once your party is defined, the app will tell you the XP thresholds appropriate for challenges of easy, medium, hard, and deadly difficulties. Those thresholds become the basis for a couple of other features: Creature Count per CR, and Custom Encounter Difficulty.
Creature Count per CR is essentially a quick-reference chart which shows you the maximum number of creatures of each Challenge Rating that you can throw at the party to generate encounters of various difficulty. For example, suppose you want the 5-member party described above to have a Hard encounter with some Challenge 2 creatures, such as ogres. The chart will tell you that you'll need to use 4 of those creatures.
Custom Encounter Difficulty is a calculator that allows you to define an encounter that consists of multiple, mixed CR creatures, and then tells you the difficulty of that encounter. To illustrate, consider again our 5-member example party. Using the Custom Encounter Difficulty calculator, you can create an encounter consisting of one CR1, two CR2, and one CR3 creatures, and it will tell you that this constitutes a hard encounter worth 3,600 XP.
Requires iOS 8.3 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.Determining what constitutes an appropriate challenge for your party of heroes can be a real chore. This app handles all the math for you, including modifiers for creature count and number of characters, so you can spend more time planning your adventure.
First, describe the character levels that comprise your party. The app can handle any reasonable number of characters, at levels up to 20. You could, for example, specify that your party is made up of three level-4 characters, one level-5 character, and one level-6 character.
Once your party is defined, the app will tell you the XP thresholds appropriate for challenges of easy, medium, hard, and deadly difficulties. Those thresholds become the basis for a couple of other features: Creature Count per CR, and Custom Encounter Difficulty.
Creature Count per CR is essentially a quick-reference chart which shows you the maximum number of creatures of each Challenge Rating that you can throw at the party to generate encounters of various difficulty. For example, suppose you want the 5-member party described above to have a Hard encounter with some Challenge 2 creatures, such as ogres. The chart will tell you that you'll need to use 4 of those creatures.
Custom Encounter Difficulty is a calculator that allows you to define an encounter that consists of multiple, mixed CR creatures, and then tells you the difficulty of that encounter. To illustrate, consider again our 5-member example party. Using the Custom Encounter Difficulty calculator, you can create an encounter consisting of one CR1, two CR2, and one CR3 creatures, and it will tell you that this constitutes a hard encounter worth 3,600 XP.








Encounter Challenge Calc is a tool designed for tabletop roleplaying game masters. It handles complex calculations for encounter difficulty, including modifiers for creature count and party size. Users define their party’s levels, and the app provides XP thresholds for different difficulty tiers. It also features a quick-reference chart for creature counts per Challenge Rating (CR) and a custom calculator for mixed-CR encounters.
XP threshold calculations
Creature Count per CR chart
Mixed CR encounter difficulty calculator
Supports party levels up to 20
Start by entering the number of characters and their respective levels. The app will immediately generate the XP budgets for Easy through Deadly encounters, which you can then use to pick monsters from your sourcebooks.
Context for the 5e rules this tool uses.
While not a game itself, the 'gameplay' of the app involves navigating through its calculation menus to balance combat. You can add mixed groups of monsters to see exactly how 'Deadly' a boss fight will be.
Yes, it is specifically designed based on the encounter building rules for 5E fantasy RPGs.