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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6645842" data-attributes="member: 996">That's as true as it is to estimate the ability of the characters (and players' skill) vs the threat of the challenge (and your own 'skill' as a Killer DM).  Some games make that harder than others.  In classic D&D it was an art, you developed the talent for it or you didn't.  As a result, there were a lot of 'Killer' and 'Monty Haul' DMs out there, some of them unintentional.When D&D introduced actual encounter guidelines, they weren't too dependable or easy to use.  CR was iffy, a monster might be much deadlier than it's CR suggested, or a party might be able to handle much more challenging encounters than their level suggested, due to party composition, or simple strategies like the 5MWD - nor was it simple, an encounter of multiple monsters was a matter of 'breaking up' higher CR values into multiple lower ones.  4e did a lot better, with simpler guidelines, tighter math and less severe balance fluctuation on both sides of the equation, and added guidelines for non-combat 'skill' challenges, as well.  5e, as the flip side of making combat faster/'simpler'/TotM and accuracy 'bounded,' needed more complicated encounter guidelines - and, at this point, they also don't work really well (might get better as they tune their 'monster math').</blockquote>