Is Challenge Rating REALLY That Bad? (No)

GenCon is 16 days away, and I'm counting them down with a daily "hot take" on something RPG-related. Today's Hot Take: The Challenge Rating system in 5th Edition D&D is not as bad as people make it out to be. Is it perfect? No.
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[@swordsnstones]

For our game challenge ratings are how the turns move along quickly.
We have TDC or task difficulty challenge and CDC or combat difficulty challenge. Even with that, simple tasks are usually not even a die roll.
Cheers
Keep em rollin

[@CopperDragonGames]

Thanks for sharing! I'd love to pick your brain sometime about that system. Is TDC from FATE? I haven't played that system, but it reminds me of a conversation I had about it. I also skip checks for mundane tasks. That's a great tip!

[@Dezarc]

i find that CR isn't highlighted or explained by 5e in the original core material very well, and that D&D is ultimately a resource management game and you should be looking at a whole adventuring day over single encounters to gauge balance - if you have and use all of your available resources on every encounter, then the assumption of the book that you'll be worn thin by multiple of them per day goes out the window and the recommended easy or medium encounters tend to be somewhat pointless if they don't have a specific gimmick
keeping that in mind, in my experience the xp budgets and assigned CRs are generally fine

[@williamroop451]

CR doesn't take account of Action Economy... a 3rd level 4 character party with 2 summons is a 6 action team... Add in reactions and it is closer to an 8 action team. Take that 8 actions, multiply it by their level and (without AOE attacks and spells) this is close to a 24 divided by 4 or CR6 party. ONE CR6 monster cannot HOPE to challenge this group because it would at BEST be able to affect 2 party members.
The problem isn't with Challenge Rating, it's with action economy. Building an encounter with this group would mean the enemy would need to hit/affect 6 targets a turn. Giving them some form of area effect would increase their ability to hang. Giving them some "cannon fodder" would let them hang. Allowing them to prepare the encounter space would let them hang. Just letting the party roll up while they are making the bed or eating supper is a recipe for an easy wipe.
A basilisk with a rust monster (CR 1/2) sidekick would be decent, since one would hinder the party's attacks while the other would be a threat to equipment.
A Hill Giant with a pair of dire wolves (CR 1) guard dog would be a decent challenge. At least until the druid summons 4 wolves or panthers.
The DG and PH just don't give enough good examples of how to CREATIVELY design an encounter around the party. That is left up to the DM... which is fine if they are experienced, but new DM's need guidance (and not the spell).

[@krim7]

Nothing will hit the same as 4E's CR system. So perfect.

[@CopperDragonGames]

The 4E system was really well balanced, and I've really missed minions. So happy for MCDM's minion rules!

[@matheuscavalero9252]

people create the most game breaking build you've ever seen and proceed to complain about the game not being challenging 💀💀