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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Geron Raveneye" data-source="post: 2967105" data-attributes="member: 2268">The question is, at least from my point of view, if the CR only reflects the monster in a direct combat confrontation, or if the CR reflects the monster when it makes the most out of its given abilities. The follow-up question is simply if a result of the monster using its abilities is a challenge only if it uses those abilities against the characters facing it, or if they factor into the challenge also when the abilities are not directly aimed against the characters.And why should a CR 8 creature be an equal combat challenge if the entry points out that the creature in question prefers to avoid direct physical combat? Should we lower the CR because the monster will rarely be bested in direct combat, or is the CR correct because it is harder to overcome the creature in the first place (and by overcome, I don't mean "slaughter" in that context).As far as I see it, the CR is more than a simple "combat efficiency index". It's a measure of how hard a creature is to overcome, true, but not in the context of direct combat only. Overcoming a monster can, as is mentioned in the DMG, be accomplished in a lot of different ways, depending on the situation and the ingenuity of the players. Should I award "full-CR" XP only when the PCs face every monster in direct combat? Then we'd be back to the "slaughter for experience" mentality that was actually attempted to overcome in the core rules back when 3E came out.And by the way....how about it? If an Ogre Mage gets to charm the group barbarian, and manages to make him oppose his own group, is that a separate challenge to overcome the barbarian, and will it grant separate XP to the group, or is that part of the challenge the Ogre Mage poses from the start? <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=":)" /></blockquote>

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