Lots of people lately have been complaining about the CR/XP budget system. The general sentiment seems to be that PCs are walking all over encounters that are supposed to be Hard or Deadly.
Personally, I am not fussed about this. CR can't account for player skill; a group of tactical masterminds is going to shred encounters that would TPK a group of newbies, and you can't expect the rulebook to tell you which kind of group you've got. What I'm more interested in is, even if CR is wrong, is it wrong consistently? In other words, does your group have the same amount of trouble with all Deadly encounters? Or do they stomp some and get slammed by others?
If the system produces consistent results, then it remains useful: Once you figure out that your group can handle a Deadly encounter with ease, works a bit to handle Deadly x2, and struggles with Deadly x3, you can plan accordingly. However, if two encounters that are ostensibly the same XP budget pose wildly different threats, that means the encounter difficulty system isn't really working at all.
What's your experience? Are encounter threat levels reasonably consistent (after allowing for things like use of daily resources)? Or are they unpredictable?
Personally, I am not fussed about this. CR can't account for player skill; a group of tactical masterminds is going to shred encounters that would TPK a group of newbies, and you can't expect the rulebook to tell you which kind of group you've got. What I'm more interested in is, even if CR is wrong, is it wrong consistently? In other words, does your group have the same amount of trouble with all Deadly encounters? Or do they stomp some and get slammed by others?
If the system produces consistent results, then it remains useful: Once you figure out that your group can handle a Deadly encounter with ease, works a bit to handle Deadly x2, and struggles with Deadly x3, you can plan accordingly. However, if two encounters that are ostensibly the same XP budget pose wildly different threats, that means the encounter difficulty system isn't really working at all.
What's your experience? Are encounter threat levels reasonably consistent (after allowing for things like use of daily resources)? Or are they unpredictable?