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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 3836005" data-attributes="member: 18280">No....Pointing out that the sources of some problems are not so obvious.  When a problem occurs (whether in game or out), you can point at the first thing that you see and declare it the cause of the problem, or you can seek to understand how interrelated systems give rise to a problem.  I prefer the latter, and I believe that examining the latter is more likely to result in a positive change.  I also tend to think that many of the problems in 3.X were caused by pointing at the first thing and declaring it the cause of the problem.  From what I've read about 4e, I think that this tendency is continuing.Actually, IMHO, the Monster Level system from the 1e DMG works much better than the CR system, and is much better thought out.The Monster Level system works like this:(1)  Determine the qualities that the creature has. (2)  Give an XP value on the basis of base HD and special and exceptional abilities.  The additional XP based off of special and exceptional abilities scales with base HD. (3)  From the resultant XP value, the Monster Level is determines. (4)  Individual DMs must examine monsters to determine if there is any particular quality that makes a monster more dangerous/easier for their particular group.The CR System, conversely, works like this:(1)  Guess how powerful a monster is in comparison to 4 characters of the basic classes. (2)  Give XP accordingly, cross-indexed by the level of the character(s) involved in an encounter. (3)  Individual DMs must examine monsters to determine if there is any particular quality that makes a monster more dangerous/easier for their particular group.Monster Level has an advantage in two respects:(1)  There is more granularity.  Although there are only 10 monster levels, the XP range in any given ML tells you how tough monsters are in comparison to each other. (2)  It is easy to determine why a monster belongs to a given Monster Level.  Many, many examples are given in the DMG.CR has an advantage in one respect:(1)  CR is directly related to character level, whereas Monster Level is not.However, the fact that CR is related to character level only if one assumes a party of four characters using four specific classes, this is less valuable than it might appear.  And since there is no set system by which CRs are determined, how well it relates to those levels is questionable.  For example, look at the monsters whose CR changed between 3.0 and 3.5.As a result, IMHO, XP is a much better guage than CR.Apparently the good folks at WotC agree, because 4e uses an XP-based system.  Of course, this might be just pointing at the first thing as the cause of the problem.  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" />  One never knows.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />RC</blockquote>

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