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<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6299525" data-attributes="member: 6696971">I wasn't using &quot;challenge rating&quot;.&nbsp; However, if you want to use CR, I'm using it in terms of its metagame functionality within the process of &quot;encounter building&quot;; its value as a singular combatant (a unit) toward the effort of creating a predictable (for the GM), interesting and tactically engaging combat.&nbsp; Not its relevance/place in the world.&nbsp; That is left for the GM to frame and for play to sort out.I think you may also be using &quot;encounter guidelines&quot; different than I am.&nbsp; I'm using the term to describe all the various layers of advice given to GMs in their effort to create interesting, tactically compelling, genre archetypal conflict for their players to resolve.&nbsp; Guidelines speak to what sort of combatants and terrain to use to generate a dynamically mobile, swashbuckling encounter.&nbsp; Guidelines speak to what sort of effects/lackeys/terrain features cohere well with, and force multiply, the arsenal of a BBEG red dragon.&nbsp; Guidelines speak to potential system components that may be brought to bear to nonviolently or asymmetrically resolve a conflict that appears inevitably headed for violence.&nbsp; Guidelines provide battle templates and breakdowns of their usage (commander and troops all having a &quot;Bane's Legions&quot; theme and the terrain that they would use best to their - mechanical - advantage...use Swarms and break out a number of bloodied standards and minions of equal budget to the Swarm at the bloodied condition).&nbsp; They provide GMing techniques for how to mechanically bring to life bog-standard genre tropes (combat on 2, high speed runaway rail cars).&nbsp; Guidelines tell you what happens if you use various level monsters vs the PCs and what are the upper and lower bounds of the math of cannon fodder contests versus BBEG contests.&nbsp; Encounter guidelines run down the Operant Conditioning effects of using too many traps, or too many of the same traps in the same types of situations, or pixel bitching with traps, or using the kinds of punitive traps that take someone out of the resolution of the conflict by their mere existence.I don't need the DMG to frame either the overall fiction or the micro-conflicts for me.&nbsp; I will do that myself.&nbsp; In terms of guidelines, I'm describing robust and transparent system information such that my assimilation of it will allow me to consistently compose interesting and dynamic conflicts that my players can engage and resolve without me anxiously fretting over the fact that I'm expected to hold the whole thing together with a heaping helping of tea leaf intuition, paper clips, bubble gum and GM Force hammer time.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 6299525, member: 6696971"] I wasn't using "challenge rating". However, if you want to use CR, I'm using it in terms of its metagame functionality within the process of "encounter building"; its value as a singular combatant (a unit) toward the effort of creating a predictable (for the GM), interesting and tactically engaging combat. Not its relevance/place in the world. That is left for the GM to frame and for play to sort out. I think you may also be using "encounter guidelines" different than I am. I'm using the term to describe all the various layers of advice given to GMs in their effort to create interesting, tactically compelling, genre archetypal conflict for their players to resolve. Guidelines speak to what sort of combatants and terrain to use to generate a dynamically mobile, swashbuckling encounter. Guidelines speak to what sort of effects/lackeys/terrain features cohere well with, and force multiply, the arsenal of a BBEG red dragon. Guidelines speak to potential system components that may be brought to bear to nonviolently or asymmetrically resolve a conflict that appears inevitably headed for violence. Guidelines provide battle templates and breakdowns of their usage (commander and troops all having a "Bane's Legions" theme and the terrain that they would use best to their - mechanical - advantage...use Swarms and break out a number of bloodied standards and minions of equal budget to the Swarm at the bloodied condition). They provide GMing techniques for how to mechanically bring to life bog-standard genre tropes (combat on 2, high speed runaway rail cars). Guidelines tell you what happens if you use various level monsters vs the PCs and what are the upper and lower bounds of the math of cannon fodder contests versus BBEG contests. Encounter guidelines run down the Operant Conditioning effects of using too many traps, or too many of the same traps in the same types of situations, or pixel bitching with traps, or using the kinds of punitive traps that take someone out of the resolution of the conflict by their mere existence. I don't need the DMG to frame either the overall fiction or the micro-conflicts for me. I will do that myself. In terms of guidelines, I'm describing robust and transparent system information such that my assimilation of it will allow me to consistently compose interesting and dynamic conflicts that my players can engage and resolve without me anxiously fretting over the fact that I'm expected to hold the whole thing together with a heaping helping of tea leaf intuition, paper clips, bubble gum and GM Force hammer time. [/QUOTE]

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