D&D (2024) Are you a DM struggling to build challenging but fair encounters

[Pedantic]

I really just want a system that can output roughly how messed up the party will be afterward, and dynamically adjusted for how roughed up the party is going in.

CR has consistently been too beholden to trying to gauge encounters/rest, and that's held it back. CR needs to be helpful to encounter design both for 1/day and 4/day fights.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Yeah I've got to go with none of the above. I don't have a balancing problem with the CR system, because I all but ignore it in the actual balancing (and at this point would ignore it even if it were more accurate somehow). I use CR for a snapshot of how challenging the creature is, and that's it.

When encounters don't work out the way I want it has to do with either poor planning on my part or underlying poor design in 5e monsters. CR is not a meaningful factor.

 

[Oofta]

Apparently most DMs struggle to build good encounters, or do they?

Apparently according to the very, very limited responses in the poll most do not.

I simply don't understand the issue. Find that your encounters aren't challenging? Use higher CR or more monsters, ask for advice on how to make combats more dynamic, read any number of innumerable blogs on the topic. Sometimes the PCs stomp on what I thought would be an hard encounter and sometimes a relatively easy encounter is tougher than I expected. I find CR more or less accurate and use it for my calculations, but the calculations are adjusted depending on the group.

Any calculations will always be a guess that may or may not target the difficulty level your group can handle. Adjusting as necessary has always been and always will be necessary unless there are fundamental (and IMHO detrimental) changes to the game.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Apparently according to the very, very limited responses in the poll most do not.

I simply don't understand the issue. Find that your encounters aren't challenging? Use higher CR or more monsters, ask for advice on how to make combats more dynamic, read any number of innumerable blogs on the topic.

I don't think the issue is "no one can fix it" (although I don't think any/every one can) I think it's "Out of the box it needs more refinement"

 

[Oofta]

I don't think the issue is "no one can fix it" (although I don't think any/every one can) I think it's "Out of the box it needs more refinement"

Whereas I think it's "there are far too many variables to have one size fits all". It can be improved of course and there should be more advice on adjusting encounters.

But there has never been a perfect system and never will be.