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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Schmoe" data-source="post: 3565556" data-attributes="member: 913">Quite simply, given the potential variations in party make-up, it is impossible to have a completely accurate system for measuring opponent difficulty that works regardless of who the PCs are.  There will always be some DM discretion involved based on his knowledge of not only the PCs, but also of his players.  That is why the CR system is both a guideline and an approximation.  To those with lots of experience eyeballing an encounter, it may not be very helpful.  To those with very little experience balancing encounters, it at least gets them in the right ballpark.Even though I have quite a few years of DM experience, I still use CR to quickly eliminate potential adversaries.  Once I've narrowed down the pool of contenders, I start to take a closer look at balancing the encounter.  This is especially helpful because I'm not intimately familiar with 100% of all the creatures out there.  Sure, I know not to throw a Hill Giant at my 2nd level party, but what about a Dark Weaver?  The CR allows me to approximate the expected outcome without reading the stat block in detail, which saves me time.</blockquote>