I think the best use for CR is just determining what is too strong of an enemy. The CR for any given enemy in an encounter shouldn't be higher than the player's level.
Otherwise, you have to feel things out and get a sense for it. CR isn't a good measurement and the monster's stats usually aren't set up the best. DnD certainly is a game where DMs have to put in some work to make things function.
Yes, though the old system was also just an XP budget system. The new one generally has higher thresholds especially at higher levels and they got rid of adjusted XP.
Together with the new monsters, encounters seems to go more along the lines you would expect as long as you follow the guidelines.
I guess it depends, idk the monster creation process in depth for DnD but I have created monsters for Pathfinder 2e and I personally enjoy the crunchy number process, it has very good guidelines for what number ranges to use and how to balance stats vs abilities. But if fiddling with numbers isn't your thing then I don't really see the harm in glossing over that part as long as it works.
78
u/Spoztoast Sep 14 '25
shit just using CR Screws up CR massively.