CRs are fairly good.
Two main problems, however:
Problem one, mentioned by others - Gaze attacks, paralysis, etc. A little bad luck, and the entire party is wiped out. Or the only people in the party who can fix the problem are wiped out. Too be used with extreme care.
Problem Two: High strength monsters. Trolls. Giants. *shudder* Ettins. Ettins are suppose to be cr 5, if memory serves. This THING gets 4 attacks, dealing enough damage to outright kill a low hit point level 5 character in ONE attack. And if I'm reading the Ettin correctly, it always gets two attacks, even with a move action. Just nasty. And Trolls rending? A little luck - both claws hit - and it does Double damage. 24 + 4d6 damage! *cough*choke* Without a crit! With crits, the problem because much worse. A PC can *easily* lose 30-40 hit points in a round fighting these CR 4-7 monsters. And it said PC was a bit wounded, with say, 29 hit points left - ooops, they are DEAD. Not down, dead.
Critters with High strength are doubly dangerous - higher chance to hit, higher damage, and if they crit, real chance of PCs outright dying with minimal warning.
So, when choosing monsters and designing encounters for my games - I take great care with anything of high strength or immobilizing attacks. They simply don't have good CRs. It is too random. A failed save, and the 4 person party is a 3 person party. A second failure and ooops, now there is only 2. High str monsters just wreck havoc in hand to hand - well beyond what might be expected for '25%' of the party resources.
But, other than those two large warnings, I do like the CR system. It gives a nice quick and dirty way to measure danger level.
Two main problems, however:
Problem one, mentioned by others - Gaze attacks, paralysis, etc. A little bad luck, and the entire party is wiped out. Or the only people in the party who can fix the problem are wiped out. Too be used with extreme care.
Problem Two: High strength monsters. Trolls. Giants. *shudder* Ettins. Ettins are suppose to be cr 5, if memory serves. This THING gets 4 attacks, dealing enough damage to outright kill a low hit point level 5 character in ONE attack. And if I'm reading the Ettin correctly, it always gets two attacks, even with a move action. Just nasty. And Trolls rending? A little luck - both claws hit - and it does Double damage. 24 + 4d6 damage! *cough*choke* Without a crit! With crits, the problem because much worse. A PC can *easily* lose 30-40 hit points in a round fighting these CR 4-7 monsters. And it said PC was a bit wounded, with say, 29 hit points left - ooops, they are DEAD. Not down, dead.
Critters with High strength are doubly dangerous - higher chance to hit, higher damage, and if they crit, real chance of PCs outright dying with minimal warning.
So, when choosing monsters and designing encounters for my games - I take great care with anything of high strength or immobilizing attacks. They simply don't have good CRs. It is too random. A failed save, and the 4 person party is a 3 person party. A second failure and ooops, now there is only 2. High str monsters just wreck havoc in hand to hand - well beyond what might be expected for '25%' of the party resources.
But, other than those two large warnings, I do like the CR system. It gives a nice quick and dirty way to measure danger level.
