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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DanMcS" data-source="post: 1745526" data-attributes="member: 6530">Dragons are definitely set at a lower CR than their stats would otherwise indicate, to make the dragon an especially tough monster.I'm not sure about elementals, they seem tough but are generally melee brutes.Giant scorpions and giants in general are definitely melee brutes.  If you go into melee with them at levels appropriate to their CRs, you will get beat down.  Happened to our 11th level party against giant scorpions last session.On the other hand, a third level spell or two (fly) makes a giant scorpion encounter trivial; once you get 30' up, they can do nothing but die slowly or retreat as you pelt them with arrows.Similarly for giants.  These kinds of hulking smashing monsters are tough in stand-up melee, but by the levels you encounter them, you're supposed to be smart enough to avoid a stand-up melee with overpowering brutes.  Boulders tossed from giants are scary, but not nearly as bad as their melee attack routines.By mid-levels, every character should have useful missile weapons, mobility aids like potions or boots of flying or levitation, your wizard should be packing a blasting wand for emergencies.  These are the kind of expectations the D&D CR system is built around.  If you don't have these kinds of things then you'll find some encounters rather harder.Swarms are another monster type that seems hyperdesigned towards these assumptions.  If you don't have a wand for blasting or a tactical-nuke sorceror, you basically have to retreat from them, because 2.5 of your average (fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard) four-member party are completely useless against them.  I count the cleric as half because they often have some damaging spells.  Swarms should have DR 15/- or so, not just be immune to melee weapons- a giant's club that might smash several dozen of the component creatures still counts as having done nothing to the group.</blockquote>

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