Do you find the CR/EL system useful when writing adventures?

[Hussar]

I've found it to be one of the most useful things when I create adventures. Even if I just want to make a random encounter table for a patch of wilderness, being able to look at a particular CR range of creatures and jotting them down makes that a breeze.

I have found it to be fairly robust with some errors. It's a tool. Not a particularly fine tuned tool, but a useful one at that.

 

[full_moon_draw]

Yes, I mostly use the CR/EL system - it provides a good "finger in the wind" to the relative danger of an encounter.

HOWEVER, the lack of an accurate CR calculation system in the game (both for PC & Monster) is one of the most frustrating elements of adventure design in modern D&D! To have one of the core metrics of the game based (largely) on guesss work (and or an unpublished mechanic) is really rather lacking in foresight!!!!

Regards - FMD

 

[Kanegrundar]

For the most part I find it very useful. However, there are several creatures that aren't anywhere close to their CR in power that it makes it tough at time to adequately assess the threat level to the party.

 

[Henrix]

It's a good system, very useful. Not perfect, as many have pointed out, but I think that we would have to much more limited in PC choices for it to work perfectly.

In particular I find it useful when I want to use monsters I've little or no experience with.


And, Fullmoon, an accurate CR calculator would be almost impossible to construct, there are far too many variables (not to mention new abilities) for that to be plausible.

 

[Henry]

I find it useful as a baseline; after a few encounters, as I get the feel for the particular party, I begin to see whether to aim higher or lower on the power scale for what I throw at them. The CR and EL system is kinda like tracer bullets.

 

[Gundark]

I voted mostly useful. I think that CRs area great tool and is something I hope continues in 4th ed. That said there are times when I've looked at a CR and went what??? Either the encounter was way too tough (overgod from 2nd adventure in AoW) or way too weak. Most of the time it's pretty close to being on the mark tho.

 

[The_Gneech]

It's pretty useful within a range to evaluate single encounters ... e.g., if you have a 4th level party, then you know CR 2-6 battles will probably not be out of line, CR 1 will be a cakewalk, and CR 7+ will be tough. You can also figure that if the CRs skew high in the range, the characters will probably be taking a beating, whereas if they skew low, the characters will be rolling over the opposition.

Which is pretty much all it's intended to do, really.

It's not something that you can use to make exact predictions; a low-CR encounter where the dice turn evil or the players turn goofy, can still result in a TPK ... and a high-CR encounter where the dice are smiling and the players are brilliant, will still be over quickly and probably anti-climactic. That's just the breaks of the game!

So yeah, it's a useful tool for broad judgements. Just don't expect it to be a precision instrument.

-The Gneech

 

[BryonD]

HOWEVER, the lack of an accurate CR calculation system in the game (both for PC & Monster) is one of the most frustrating elements of adventure design in modern D&D! To have one of the core metrics of the game based (largely) on guesss work (and or an unpublished mechanic) is really rather lacking in foresight!!!!

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[Dragonbait]

At lower levels it works for me, but whenever I allow PCs to "buy" magic items on the market, use Action Points, and/or build stats of 30-32pts, it throws everything off. Of course, that's my fault as the GM. I am not kind to the CR system, and too kind to my players. I need to put the fear of the gawds in them again. Time for a GM smack down..

edit: Oh yeah, voted mostly useful.

 

[Gold Roger]

It's as usefull as it can be in such a variable system as D&D. It can't replace good DM judgement, but it compliments it perfectly.