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Message: <blockquote data-quote="churd" data-source="post: 2608871" data-attributes="member: 30595">With regard to the CR system in general, I think Blue has stated the issue well.    However, I think that there is a seperate issue in that the rule of CR = level is unbalanced.  While a few inaccurate monster CRs will likley cancel each other out  (some too high, some too low) over the course of a campaign, the PC class level imbalance is more problematic.  This is because a) in some campaigns (e.g. urban or high level) many, if not most of the foes have class levels and b) a small change in CR can create a big change in XP.To see that the level CRs are unbalanced, compare a fighter (the most straightforward class) of a given level with "brute" monsters of the same CR.  At first level a fighter compares well with CR 1 monsters such as the grimlock or gnoll.  However by 7th level it is clear that the fighter is significantly inferior to a CR 7 hill giant or earth elemental.  Our hill giant is probablly most comparable to a 10th level fighter (for the earth elemental it is probablly 12th level or higher).  While a difference of 3 in the CR does not seem like much, the result is that a 7th level party is getting THREE TIMES as much XP for a 10th level fighter as for the statistically equivalent hill giant.  So characters in campaigns where the primary foes have class levels are advancing two to three times faster than they "should."So what is the solution?  Airwalkrr proposes using class levels as the baseline and adjusting monster CR.  This has a good deal of appeal, since I agree that the classes are as close to balanced as is possible.  Whatever a monster's abilities it could be roughly compared to a given class at a given level.  It would also be possible to build a monster using a class as a base and adding or eliminating abilities.   The problem with this solution is that it would require redefining what "Challenge Rating"  is. If class levels were the baseline, most monster CRs would go up and a 5th level party would no longer get an "appropriate" challenge from a CR/ EL 5 encounter.  Because leveling is based off of 14 encounters at an appropriate EL, the xp chart would need to be changed or  characters would gain levels much faster.My solution would be to just reduce the CR for class levels by 1 for every 3 or 4 levels. CR = level is a convenient rule, and it seems to have been adoped for simplicity rather than accuracy.  By reducing CR for class levels it would bring these foes more in line with the "true" CR, based on how CR is defined.</blockquote>

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