The CR system

[Azar]

The CR system, is one that assumed you have on average, a 4 man party, of that level

Example: a monster with CR 5 thus needs a party of four level five adventurers to slay it with reasonable losses.

But, does this account for class choices? Sure, a party of 4 Wizards might kill a good spectrum of creatures, but there would be some challenges beyond them.

Likewise, a Fighter, Monk, Barbarian and Bard will have difficulties against monsters with beefy DRs, but sucky SRs, etc.

Does it anywhere say it accounts for this?

 

[MonsterMash]

I think the CR system is effectively based on a party of the four iconics:
Wizard
Cleric
Fighter
Rogue

Any significant change in party composition can make CR very approximate, as per your example. Its one of those situations where experience and reading ahead for a DM really help as if I was using a published adventure and realised that a party would encounter something they literally could not handle then I might look to subsitute something with a similar CR but that they had a chance to beat (unless the players are smart enough to know run away is an important option).

 

[shilsen]

As MonsterMash said, CR does not account for parties which are overly weak or strong in one or more of the basic areas. Also, CR is based on the wealth guidelines from the DMG and PCs with 25 point buy. PCs with very divergent levels of equipment, very high/low stats, lots of non-core features (feats, PrCs, spells, etc.) will make the given CR much less relevant.

 

[Whisper72]

CR is also fairly irrelevant in my book, as it largely depends on too many factors. Besides those mentioned above, there is also the factor of how 'smart' the DM plays the critters, all manner of environmental considerations etc.

The CR's for individual monsters are useful as a sort of guideline, i.e. setting a CR 5 monster in front of a 1st level party is pretty sure to result in a TPK, but other then that, the system has so many 'ifs' and 'buts' that it cannot be used as anything more then a very rough guideline when creating adventures.

 

[IronWolf]

Certainly agreed, the CR system is a rough guideline at best. Once you start changing point buy, going with more non-core materials and playing with parties of six instead of four it really just gives me a place to start working from.

I think over time a DM just gets used to learning how he plays the critters and how his party handles themselves in combat. After a few sessions hopefully the DM gets some feel for what an appropriately challenged encounter is.

 

[Thanee]

The CR system, while not perfectly accurate, is a quite good estimate. Even if an individual EL will turn out to be 2 points lower or higher in relation to the party, that's still fairly within a reasonable limit. There are only few occasions, where the number will be totally off.

Bye
Thanee