Quote from: Phillip;864410Whatever that means -- which is worth knowing, even if only to know that it's something very vague -- if you're tossing dice, then the point of tossing dice is to get different results each time. The most it can reliably mean is something averaged over many samples, not a prediction of what will happen in a single sample.

A wolf is indeed CR 1/4. 4 wolves vs 4 level 1 characters rates as a deadly encounter. IE: There is a high chance more than one PC will go down. Possibly all.

Quote from: Omega;864597A wolf is indeed CR 1/4. 4 wolves vs 4 level 1 characters rates as a deadly encounter. IE: There is a high chance more than one PC will go down. Possibly all.

As I said, that's worth knowing. If someone thought it meant a negligible chance that any PC would be felled, he might mistake the utility of the CR.

I make no bones about not really enjoying CR as a concept for "lovingly tailoring encounters" to the party. But it was an alternate method to quickly classify lethality for when populating tables. I didn't find it all that useful because I still had to check for special attacks and defenses anyway.

As for answering the topic's question, 5e CR is even more of a guesstimate than previous iterations. And with Hit Dice paradigm changing that too is not as helpful a measure as before. AC also doesn't help because bounded accuracy is accompanied by easy early game +mods to attack rolls (in point buy less that +5 to attack is uncommon).

I agree with estar that looking holistically is your better bet. Keeping an eye to HP helps, but bloat only goes so far in 5e IME. I suggest checking Resistances & Immunities, especially stuff that ties those generous ranged magic cantrips down.

For creating monsters, be generous on these defenses. The game is designed on less whiffing, more hitting, on average. Thus anything that reduces a type of attack by 50-100% is far better than what looks to be generous HP. And though there's a sprinkling of physical damage types, there's a plethora of magic damage type keywords to defend against. Three physical damage types vs. ten magical damage types; unless you sprinkle magical resistance and immunity liberally you can almost never go wrong as a player with magic attacks for long range attrition victories.

Number of attacks is critical. Damage output is also useful, but less so on average. More important than damage output, and equal if not more valuable than number of attacks, is special attack effects and Abilities. Things like Pack Tactics, Undead Fortitude, "bite - save or knock prone," or "pinch - target's grappled, save later to end," loom large over the battlefield.

Anything else?

Yes, was going to point out that 5es CR is very situational.

4 wolves that get the drop on the level 1 group is probably going to get brutal.
4 wolves coming in at range on that same level 1 group with bows and ranged cantrips will probably be a massacre of the wolves depending on how far out they were.

This goes the other way too. An easy encounter with some kobolds can turn into a total wipeout if the PCs are at range and have to close in while the kobolds pepper them with sling stones.

Quote from: estar;864230I had a similar experience with my players and a zombie fight. The damn things wouldn't stay down.

do tell