Have you grown dependent on Challenge Ratings?

[BryonD]

I use CR a lot. It never uses me.

 

[Psion]

I use CR a lot. It never uses me.

Hurray, mantra!

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I tend to eyeball my adventure designs, and then check the CRs just to see if things look off-base.

 

[Grymar]

I pay attention to it, but it doesn't work very well. I run an Eberron game which tends to be one, maybe two, fights a day. I have to increase the CR of the creatures by 2-3 easily to make it a good fight, sometimes more.

 

[Gundark]

I actually find it hard to design for other games that don't use it....I'm so ashamed.

 

[S'mon]

If you look at the Level 10 monsters, you are looking at things like liches, demon princes, arch-devils huge ancient dragons etc. In my games no 10th level party could handle one of those - they're meant to represent the top-level single-monster challenges. My feeling is that a 10th level party that takes one of those critters out is having an easy ride.

Hm, originally in 1e 10th level was pretty much top of the scale; Queen of the Demonweb Pits where you take on & beat Lolth on her home plane is for 10th-14th level PCs. IMC some of the weaker Level X critters were fightable by 10th level PCs; Demogorgon or Asmodeus probably more like 15th or so.

 

[S'mon]

I never had real trouble challenging characters in 1e or 2e (or 3e, for that matter).

Me neither - actually 3e gave me the opposite challenge, how to avoid killing PCs. Eventually I settled on Fate Points to keep them alive. Must be going soft.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Wow; your 15th-level PCs were probably a lot different from mine.

BryonD's mantra works for me. Fishbone also makes an excellent point: Namely, that individual CRs can be way off, especially when you take into account the specific capabilities of a given adventuring party.

I do use CRs quite regularly, as it allows me... well, to do what CRs are meant to allow, namely pacing encounters in a reasonably predictable manner.

 

[Mark Hope]

Hm, originally in 1e 10th level was pretty much top of the scale; Queen of the Demonweb Pits where you take on & beat Lolth on her home plane is for 10th-14th level PCs. IMC some of the weaker Level X critters were fightable by 10th level PCs; Demogorgon or Asmodeus probably more like 15th or so.

This is one of the most interesting aspects of this subject, actually - the fact that different 1e campaigns could have widely divergent levels of power and ability at the same character level (indeed, in my own games, 10th level characters in one campaign weren't at the same level of power as 10th level characters in another campaign). For all that it was intended to standardise AD&D games across the board, 1e (and 2e as well, to a degree) still allowed for a considerable amount of variance. 3e has done a much better job of standardising characters from one game to another (well, assuming that you use the wealth by level guidelines and the CR system, that is - which are not to everyone's liking either). Vive la difference, I guess...

 

[S'mon]

Wow; your 15th-level PCs were probably a lot different from mine.

Maybe - I ran a very tough campaign and PCs died fast or got strong; see Upper Krust's reminiscence at http://www.immortalshandbook.com/shrine.htm
Actually I remember one time Graz'zt having to run away from a couple of mid-level PCs; I think I was using some critical hit rule from Dragon that put him in severe danger!