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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Katerek" data-source="post: 334498" data-attributes="member: 5193">WOWI just finished ready all the posts for this thread!  Good stuff.I agree with several separate points stated previously that the CR system breaks down at higher levels, and I also have noted that it is in some way related to the fact that it was based on sub-optimally designed iconic characters, this is a good thing.I run a game for around 8 folks, who apparently have nothing to do but game.  Their characters are far from sub-optimal.  Between the nine of us we have everything published practically for d20, much of it in spades.  I know that well over half of the players have character progression spreadsheets that chart the upcoming levels, usually about twenty levels in advance.All this said, the CR system hasn't given me any major problems, but of course I have had to tweak it.  I am a math dork so I took a numerical approach.I will not bore you with the why, I will just tell you the what.For my party of eight players, their AVERAGE PARTY LEVEL is around 17.When designing encounters, I use the CR charts as if they were a 19th level party. (add 2)Then I double the amount of creatures required, UNLESS this would be more than 3 creatures per party member.I have been doing this since they were about 15th level, and it has worked really well.Whenever I want and extremely challenging encounter, I take half of the Average Party Level, add that back (17 + 8 in this instance) and then design an encounter that is challenging for that CR using Multiple Creatures.Of course, the players in my game have super streamline characters and we munchkin like madmen, so this may not work for everyone.BTW Seans point was a valid one, sometimes though it IS fun to throw a creature at the party that renders some of their 'pie' useless.  The one thing I have seen is that oftentimes, the fighters are the least effective in combat.  So I will deliberately jack up SR and other resistances just so that everyone at the table gets a chance to shine.The other thing I do, which has been rewarding, is to throw the occasional cake walk encounter at the party.  When they were all around 12th level or so, I had sixteen or seventeen standard Gnolls try to road-jack the party.  Of course the party mopped up, but it was nice for them, because they were able to see that just because they had leveled, the rest of the world hadn't leveled along with them.  It is a way to make those higher levels seem more special, especially if the next session or so you take ou tthe party thief with a simple disintigration field. <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" /></blockquote>

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