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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 3566002" data-attributes="member: 18280">If that is the case, why would the CR/EL change when the party is not so composed?  I would say, it doesn't.  The monster's toughness hasn't changed.I think that 3.X is fundamentally more similar to earlier editions than most people realize.  As a simple example, the new "Attack Roll + Modifiers = AC Hit" is essentially THAC0 with the math reversed.Monster Level doesn't have the overt granularity CR does for determining monster toughness (every monster was, essentially, ranked from 1 to 10).  However, 1e had a far greater granularity of XP rewards, and if you understood how those XPs were generated (and you should, because you were told how they were generated), the effective granularity was greater than that of CR.CR is more intuitive, like "Attack Roll + Modifiers = AC Hit" is more intuitive than THAC0.  That can be a big bonus, especially if you are only using the creatures already created for the system.  A breakdown of how CR is ballparked, though, would be a real boon for DMs who are not satisfied with using only what is presented. Not at all.But, let us be reminded that "None of the above factors should necessarily be taken into account when assigning or modifying Challenge Ratings, but you should keep them in mind when designing encounters."You said nothing of the kind directly, no.  But altering CR/EL as you suggest is effectively saying the same thing.  If the monster is in a cave where it has cover, and the PCs charge into the cave, the EL goes up because of the cover.  If they instead lure it out, there is no cover, and the EL stays the same.  If the party is optimized, the EL stays the same, but if the party has made poor choices for survival, the EL goes up.Please tell me how that differs from "the EL of an encounter goes up just because the players do something stupid", because, frankly, I can't see it.RC</blockquote>

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