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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pming" data-source="post: 7302891" data-attributes="member: 45197">Hiya!Short answer: No.Longer answer: Still kinda no. I've said my 2 coppers on this many a time; the whole "CR" system makes too many assumptions to be useful in any thing other than the perfect situation it was designed to work in. If the party has a lot of "ranged damage potential", then those blind life clerics will be almost useless. If the party has virtually no range-type attacks, then it will be extremely hard. If they have certain magic items, or spells, or equipment, or abilities, or any number of other things...it will throw the 'balance' out of whack. If, however, there are four PCs, a Human, Dwarf, Elf and Halfling, and they are Cleric, Fighter, Wizard and Thief, and they have all built the characters with no options (so no feats, no MC, etc), and they have very little in the way of magic items...and they are all of the appropriate level to face the baddies...then it should be "fair to slightly difficult" fight.I'm guessing the party does NOT consist of that perfect blend.So that puts you back to square one; how tough is it going to be? The final answer is...who knows? You know your group. You know your players and their PC's, and their PC's capabilities. You should do some thought experiments by running the PC's through scenarios...if this encounter is important enough. What if the PC's loose initiative? What if they win? What if they gather info and know about the baddies before the baddies know about them? What if the PC's all try and "alpha strike"? What if they all play it safe for a round or two? What if they spread out to attack? What if they all concentrate on the clerics first? Or the Medusa first?Seriously, the CR system (since its inception, imho) has been all but useless to me. I know I never used it when I DM'ed Pathfinder way back when. I also know our "3.x DM" tried to use it all the time...and it made zero sense as far as predicting outcome. We'd walk over encounters that were three, four or five CR's above us...and we'd get our butts handed to us by encounters that were the same number but below us. It all depended on tactics, choice of spells, and dice rolls. (PS: that 3.x DM gave up using it after about six to eight months of play).Sorry if it's not what you wanted to hear...but this is my experience with the CR system. Maybe others have had more use, and hopefully they can give you more 'tips'. That said, I still believe it will come down to a vague "maybe they'll win...maybe they'll loose". My gut tells me that it will be slightly harder than expected, but only if the players decide to focus on the medusa for the first few rounds; if they start focus-fire on the clerics after the second round, I think it will be 'average'.^_^Paul L. Ming</blockquote>

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