I think that the deeper concern throughout D&D's balance is that for the most part CR isn't a good estimate for the power level of a monster. Before being able to tackle encounters as a whole, I think that we need a better basis for what CR means, and how deadly a given monster of that CR is.
The waters are further muddied by the designers themselves having said that the monster manual was made keeping in mind that the PCs have no magic items, which... usually isn't the case in many games I've played with. All of these together make any sort of encounter balancing nigh impossible if we want to grab monsters from the monster manual and run a given encounter.
I think that the deeper concern throughout D&D's balance is that for the most part CR isn't a good estimate for the power level of a monster. Before being able to tackle encounters as a whole, I think that we need a better basis for what CR means, and how deadly a given monster of that CR is.
The waters are further muddied by the designers themselves having said that the monster manual was made keeping in mind that the PCs have no magic items, which... usually isn't the case in many games I've played with. All of these together make any sort of encounter balancing nigh impossible if we want to grab monsters from the monster manual and run a given encounter.