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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kreynolds" data-source="post: 909159" data-attributes="member: 2829">It's perfectly reasonable, and there's nothing wrong with that, but there are five elemental energy types, and the chances of choosing the right energy type against an unknown opponent (the winterwight) are 1 in 5. So, there's a 1 in 5 chance that a chunk of the winterwight's CR will be negated. No big deal in and of itself, except that in a discussion about CR systems, I don't think the example put forth is a good one. The chances of choosing the right energy type against a known opponent (the winterwight) are 5 in 5. So, there's a 5 in 5 chance that a chunk of the winterwight's CR will be negated, thereby guaranteeing, before combat even begins, that the EL will be signfiicantly lowered. In the case of the known opponent, some of the randomness of the encounter level difficulty inherent in the system has been entirely removed. There was no "chance" involved.I'm not saying that the player's preparations were wrong and I wouldn't give out less XP because of it, unless they already knew what they would be facing. I'm merely saying that, as a party, it was well equipped to handle the baddy. In other words, it was an above average encounter, so I think it's a bad example to use when attempting to point out flaws in a CR system when the very example had a reduced EL to begin with.Does that help?</blockquote>