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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cheiromancer" data-source="post: 3064927" data-attributes="member: 141">Short-answer: about 50% more effective than a pretzels and beer character thrown together out of the PHB.Long answer: Upper_Krust based his design on the principle 1 level = +1 CR.  But right off the bat PCs got a bonus for having good ability scores (IIRC a 32 point-buy is +1 CR).  WotC challenge ratings are usually too low; they are based on the idea that a small increase in CR (+2) should double the challenge difficulty.  Which doesn't really work.  But the attempt to make it work "squashes" CRs together.  To convert from UK's system you multiply by 2/3; this makes a similar degree of squashing take place.Strictly speaking you should squash the PC's numbers as well, but practically that doesn't seem to be necessary.  Whether it is a lenient DM, min-maxed PCs, or what, PCs are fighting a bit above their weight.  I suspect that a standard encounter (25% of resources) is really a bit heavier; maybe up to 50%, though this might be expressed mostly in their best spells or whatever.  If the PCs want to rest after one encounter, then it could be that they are being pushed a little.  If you don't let them rest and they get TPKed in the second encounter, then they definitely are being pushed. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I never really studied the issue systematically when I was DMing.  And certainly not at high levels- my games were mostly in the 6-8 level spread.  I bet that a KR 39 encounter should not be one KR 39 monster, though.  A spread of monsters, arriving in waves, with terrain a factor, etc..  One monster often means that it comes down to who wins initiative.I suppose that I shouldn't regard player death at these levels as being a sign that things have gone badly wrong.  Ignore Material Components can make the cost of a true resurrection irrelevant, and wishes can undo unfortunate turns of events.  And this is just what henchmen and cohorts can do!  But yeah, insofar as a Challenge Rating system can work at all, this one seems to be based on a certain amount of min-maxing.  If this isn't going on, you should multiply the PC levels by 2/3 to compute their KR.  That will probably be too low, but sometimes it is better safe than sorry.[edit]Sounds good.  What do you want to tackle next?  I still feel the need for benchmarks- especially for unmitigated spells.  I think figuring out mitigating factors will be easier if we have an idea about the USP of various benchmark spells.</blockquote>

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