Challenge Ratings Are Fake
"Challenge Rating" is a number designed to represent how difficult an encounter with a creature or group of creatures would be for a group of adventurers of a given level. When designing encounters, a GM is now supposed to take into account the Challenge Rating of the creatures they include, and "balance" the encounter appropriately. This is a huge shift in Dungeons and Dragons - and one that I think is troubling. In older editions of the game, it was assumed that the GM would take into account the relative strengths of the creatures in an encounter and the relative strengths of the party and design encounters appropriately. There was no need for a mechanical system to "balance" encounters, because it was assumed that the GM would do so. This is not to say that encounters in older editions of Dungeons and Dragons were necessarily "balanced" - often they were not, and this was seen as a good thing. It was assumed that the GM would take into accou...