2 - Altering stat blocks is just one way, one option a Gm has to adjust an ecnounter to better suit the specifics of their campaign and their PCs. it is not required at all. Instead one might use more monsters or higher power monsters or more terrain factors etc etc etc. The key is *like almost if not every RPG made* 5e does not claim or try to provide any sort of guarantee about encounter threat that is not at its heart and sole GM chooses threats appropriate to his group.
I'm not sure we have as much disagreement here as it looks like you're seeing.
3 - So Ok you throw out a lot of other games and so you wont use them to support your claims? OK. personally, i find an awful lot of my experience from those other games helps and applies when running DnD and vice-versa.
I generally approve of getting actual specific examples, but in this case I just don't have them because D&D is designed differently than other games I have actual play experience in. I would love it if I had had an chance to actually play some of the other games I've owned or looked into that came with large bestiaries, but I haven't had that experience, so I can't provide comparisons from those sources. Since most D&D editions have more in common with each other than with other systems, and since the specific design flaw I'm talking about is in my experience more evident in 5e D&D than in other D&D editions, I would hope we could consider those comparisons sufficient.
4 - i played a lot of 1-2-3e and all i can say is that i do not see any major difference between their "middle zone" play than 5es. 1e provided no CR system as i recall and i do not think 2e did but its been too long. But regardless for all three of those the strength of the encounter and such still came down to what the Gm chose to throw at them, the circumstance and the particulars of the party and players - not anything "published" in their rules. If anything 1e with its rather quick surge from "up" to "dead" had a tendency to make sudden swings in a battle's progress more common. If you would care to show whatever evidence you have that 1e did better at encounter building and management of outcomes or whatever than 5e does - i am all ears - errr - eyes.
No experience I have is going to be objective, because I haven't (maybe someone else has) done any sort of scientific experiment. It probably wouldn't be terribly hard to devise one if someone wanted to, but it would also likely engender massive arguments about methodological problems and flaws, and so only be useful for those for whom whatever the results were tended to agree with their own experiences.
Just like anyone else, all I can say is, "I've played different editions. This thing is harder for me to do in 5e than in the other ones." I've been following the forums for the entire life cycle of 5e, and I've seen other people saying essentially the same thing. No, I can't provide a list of names, partly because I often don't even remember who made what post. If you want to start a list, you can start with my name. That, at least, is data that could be acquired, though I don't think it is necessary.
The "this thing" is getting encounters (and
especially encounters with a solitary monster) using the standard stat blocks that fit between extremes of costing few to no party resources and likely to kill a party member.
My initial statement was that solo's don't work (and I meant because of this problem, which is most evident with them). The line between "don't work" and "don't work as well" is arbitrary. In this case, it stands out enough to merit "don't work". I thing you might be correct that 1e also shared this problem with solos (and therefore didn't work), even if the dynamics were a bit different.
5-6-7-8 - Whether or not its a "monster problem" or a "class problem" is pretty much irrelevant. The perceived "problem" only "exists" when classes go up against monsters (aka adversaries) and exists during that conflict so the "solutions" can be found on either or both sides of that. I routinely change monster HPs as well as routinely throw "adjusted" encounters at my group and that seems to have "solved" or at least prevented (perhaps in the strawberry whistle elephant meaning of prevent) this "problem" of too narrow a field of encounters between the two extremes and lack of middle ground - without any class changes. So, you may assume there is no "solution" to be found in the adversary side of the conflict or that 5e cannot be fixed - but that does not match my experience.
That said - i have not tended to find solo enemies to be particularly interesting or as fun to play on either side in any edition of DnD or really most any game. perhaps thats why so many of them often have those adversaries described and often directly including a variety of minions.
I also think minions, lieutenants, terrain, etc, make more interesting fights, regardless of edition. I think it was easier to make a boring fight that lacked these elements fit into an intended challenge level in other editions.
So, again i ask, what RPGs "work" by your standards in that out of the box without changes the GM doesn't need to choose encounters with an eye to his party but the incidence of the extreme results doesn't happen?
I may not have been clear, but this is not a claim that I have been making. Of course you can't just pull an encounter out of the blue that says is such and such challenge and have that challenge be the same for all parties everywhere. You couldn't do that in any edition. To attempt to clarify, I'm referring to the need to adjust actual stat blocks to make encounters fit that middle challenge zone we have been discussing when up against a typical party. You can consider that to be a fighter, cleric, rogue, and wizard, or anything else that creates a similar effect. 5e offers encounter challenge guidelines. I'm claiming that using them doesn't generally work as well in my experience as using the ones in 3e, or even as just going by feel due to the complete lack of ones in prior editions. In 5e, even going by feel is difficult for me to make work.
Would you be interested (assuming it's a good investment of your time, which is an unwarranted assumption in our busy world) in sharing some encounters you have run, without modifying stat blocks (for these purposes, not even modifying hit points), that work really well for a standard dwarf fighter, human cleric, halfling rogue, and elf wizard, and whose danger and resource drain matches the predictions of the 5e CR system? Solos would be particularly useful, as would encounters at various tiers of play. I'm not asking this as a challenge. You seem to not be having the same problem, and if you could provide some good examples, that might help the rest of us figure out what we are doing wrong.
Edit to Clarify and to ask a question...
When i refer to adjusting HP for adversaries, i am actually referring to choosing the HP. I keep the range of Hp within the listed range of Hp shown on the stat block for the creature. I am referring to not using the average HP quick number, not just whole cloth changing it to some other range of stats.
Now to me, that is actually not adjusting the stat block, just using its acceptable range of options as presented, but i have tended to find some folks see it as "adjusting" so i use that term even tho there is not mandate to use the quickie average for either their HP or their damage.
I consider this within the realm of using the stat block normally. Published adventures sometimes give max hit points to one goblin out of several to represent their elite status, for instance. For me, it's important that this makes sense in the fiction, in that elite versions are going to be rarer than the ones straight out of the manual (which is true in published adventures).
