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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AaronOfBarbaria" data-source="post: 6722982" data-attributes="member: 6701872">I don't see how there is a difference between "should be able to defeat a monster that has a challenge rating equal to its level without suffering any deaths," and "a party of at least a level equal to the challenge rating should be able to defeat it without suffering any deaths."CR works fine when used as intended, and the reasons you list here for why it supposedly doesn't are just the reasons why challenge can't do what some people expect of it (tell them exactly how challenging a monster will be for their group of characters and their specific DM, playstyle, and so forth) - not reasons why it doesn't work as the benchmark for level at which the party shouldn't find the monster to be able to present a significant lethal risk even if they are well prepared.I don't agree that CR doesn't work as intended at higher levels, though I will admit that CR above 20 don't really fit the system as described because character levels stop at 20, but it is a serviceable shorthand for degrees of a little extra power on top of what a level 20 party shouldn't face any casualties while defeating.CR isn't a crutch, and it doesn't stop working when used as intended - and since teaching a DM how to "be good" isn't actually a thing where you can just tell someone how to do it, they have to be given a general idea how to do it (which CR actually helps provide) and then be left to find their style and what works for their group (which CR stays conveniently out of the way of).To communicate the starting point of finding one's own style and becoming a competent DM without the use of a simple benchmark guideline like CR would require the DMG be not packed full of interesting rules options and variants as well as world-building help and the like, but just a guide dedicated entirely to trying to explain how to read a monster and use that information in a way that is relevant to your group - but the author doesn't know your group specifically, and thus needs to try and cover every possible sort of gamer and will fail to do so because they haven't necessarily encountered every possible sort of gamer, and don't have the page count necessary to actually meaningfully cover the ones they have.But the same goal can be reached with just a few pages of CR explanation and encounter building guidelines that are intentionally on the easy end of the spectrum (I'm serious: only Deadly encounters are actually intended to give the party a chance to lose high enough to actual mention - all the other difficulties are defined by how many resources are spent on the basically assured victory of the party), so that is the obvious choice to make.Nostalgia? That's a strange claim. If the game were going for the "nostalgia" approach, it would likely include next to zero guidance on the topic of encounter building beyond the general idea that the deeper into a dungeon you go the tougher or more numerous the monsters should be like the old AD&D wide enough to be useless definition of monster level by XP value.As for the DMG section on building monsters, I have found it to be extremely helpful as a guide to build or tweak a monster and know well enough what level of characters it should be used against to fit as a particular sort of threat, and through the testing of use determine more solidly what it's CR should be - which coincidentally happens to be exactly what those guidelines say they are meant to do.These numbers you speak of and knowing how to run a game well are not even close to being mutually exclusive.</blockquote>

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