A 30th-level Party needs 50th-level Monsters...

[Upper_Krust]

Hello again!

Which brings up a question about some of those beings that conceivably fit that classification: are they being presented as avatars of the beings in question who represent fundamental aspects of reality, or are they being presented as big monsters?

Well we can use stats for the latter, so hopefully its the latter.

Are we going to get Orcus as the ruler of an infinite layer of the Abyss,

Or the same size area that makes sense and is used in all the maps (a few thousand square miles).

older than most worlds, older than most gods,

I was waiting for an...'older than time itself', but it never materialised.

Wasn't he born a mortal? I mean how old exactly is he?

with a half dozen slain divinities to his credit,

But does he still have the Infinity Gauntlet Last Word?

for whom a splinter of his essence could pose a challenge to the most powerful mortals?

You mean most powerful non-epic mortals...right...?

Or are we getting Orcus as the boss-monster at the end of H4?

H4 all the way! Anything else is just a waffling cop-out that is tangibly meaningless.

 

[Cheiromancer]

In the 3.x epic games I've run and played in, we've adopted a "sum of the squares" method of calculating an appropriate EL (after my initial arm twisting from Cheiromancer) and it's worked admirably.

Cheiromancer...that upstart - I taught him everything he knows about challenge rating.

(Waits for Cheiromancer to storm in and get all 'ecumenical on my @ss'.)

I'm hoping something similar might underly the math in 4E, and I suspect that the default method of calculating CR will be based on a difficult (50/50 survival) encounter rather than one which assumes a 20% use of resources.

Thats certainly how it appears from the information gleaned so far.

All they need to do now is nail the dynamic between using differing numbers of opponents and "Robert's your mother's brother!"...as they say in Guy Ritchie movies.

I liked your teachings about Challenge rating much more when they were predicated on a quadratic power curve instead of a cubic power curve. And, as I posted in the Quadratic Speculation thread, I hope that will be the way that 4E does it.

It would be nice if the numbers are based on very difficult (50/50 survival) method. That way you won't have a discrepancy between monster level and PC level.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hi Cheiromancer mate!

I liked your teachings about Challenge rating much more when they were predicated on a quadratic power curve instead of a cubic power curve.

When new evidence comes to light you have to change your theory to address it.

And, as I posted in the Quadratic Speculation thread, I hope that will be the way that 4E does it.

Does the relationship between x and y levels really matter that much? I think knowing that relationship, is more important than the relationship itself.

It would be nice if the numbers are based on very difficult (50/50 survival) method. That way you won't have a discrepancy between monster level and PC level.

I think they will, with the caveat that "Heroes" are slighly better stacked at the front end just to give them the 'edge'.

eg. A 1st-level PC may be akin to a 4th-level monster, while a 21st-level PC would be akin to a 24th-level monster. So it won't be a true 50/50 (because otherwise your PCs will be killed as often as not) but still a very strong challenge.

 

[IceFractal]

The way they've mentioned determining challenge by the XP total could imply that there are no "monster levels" at all - just monster XP totals.

So instead of a 30th level monster, you have a 500,000 XP monster. The book would just say something like "500,000 xp worth of monsters is a good challenge for 30th level characters", and that 500,000 xp can come from one dragon, or a dozen mooks.

 

[Cheiromancer]

When new evidence comes to light you have to change your theory to address it.

But when you are the creator of high level material, you can create material that fits a quadratic progression if you felt like it. You felt free to "correct" the challenge ratings of various WotC monsters - you were also defining feats and class abilities for epic characters. Don't tell me you couldn't build an epic system that merges seamlessly with the standard 20th level characters but which has a quadratic power curve!

Problem is that WotC's theory of how the power curve should function had it as an exponential. mmadsen will tell us more, after his investigations, about what WotC material has to be admitted to allow such a curve to exist. It wouldn't surprise me if putting a party on an exponential curve required later supplements and is weighted toward spellcasters.

Does the relationship between x and y levels really matter that much? I think knowing that relationship, is more important than the relationship itself.

I don't know what you mean. How can you extrapolate if you don't know the basic properties of the relationship?

 

[Upper_Krust]

Howdy IceFractal!

The way they've mentioned determining challenge by the XP total could imply that there are no "monster levels" at all - just monster XP totals.

So instead of a 30th level monster, you have a 500,000 XP monster. The book would just say something like "500,000 xp worth of monsters is a good challenge for 30th level characters", and that 500,000 xp can come from one dragon, or a dozen mooks.

So indirectly then, XP would become the new CR.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hiya mate!

But when you are the creator of high level material, you can create material that fits a quadratic progression if you felt like it. You felt free to "correct" the challenge ratings of various WotC monsters - you were also defining feats and class abilities for epic characters. Don't tell me you couldn't build an epic system that merges seamlessly with the standard 20th level characters but which has a quadratic power curve!

Even if I could, that would open up a can of worms in itself, because I would basically have to change what one level meant. Which means that no d20 source would actually parallel anything I wrote. The backbone of my system rests on the law that 1 ECL = 1 Level. The only way to retain the quadratic system for 3.5 would be to rewrite what exactly one level is - can you imagine the confusion. No thanks.

You'd basically be rewriting the d20 game to fit this quadratic system which is like moving the mountain to Mohammed.

Problem is that WotC's theory of how the power curve should function had it as an exponential. mmadsen will tell us more, after his investigations, about what WotC material has to be admitted to allow such a curve to exist. It wouldn't surprise me if putting a party on an exponential curve required later supplements and is weighted toward spellcasters.

I don't know what you mean. How can you extrapolate if you don't know the basic properties of the relationship?

I'm not talking about me, I am talking about WotC.

With 3rd Edition (and Epic Material in particular) they didn't fully understand the relationship between ECL and CR.

Hopefully with 4th Edition they will have a better grip on things from the get go.

 

[BartD]

Just say no to polynomials!

Somehow, a quadratic or cubed progression doesn't seem very appealing compared to an exponential one. Polynomial progressions will seem to slow down as P(n+1)/P decreases while the relative power-gain will be constant for an exponential progression.

I think it's fine, simple and *neat* if characters and monsters are set up such that "power doubles every N levels". If N is small, encounters will have to be fine tuned while a large N will be more forgiving but also give slower progression. So N should not be too small or large.

In 3.5, I think it would be better if N was larger than 2 since it would allow the use of higher CRs without causing TPKs. But considering that 4e will have standard opponents/encounters (which I assume/believe will be defined as something like "CR = party level") of equal numbers and hence must have characters which are stronger than opponents*, it will probably be easier to use opponents with CRs above level+2 simply by reducing the number of opponents. This will allow more exciting boss-opponents! And I would really like it if the party was usually (depending on tactics and rolls) able to defeat interesting opponents using only per-encounter abilities and then save the big guns (per-day abilities) for the boss kill. At least I'd really prefer something like that compared to more or less having to rest *during* a mission/strike/assault, which just feels wrong.

* If it is true that "having cast all his daily spells, a wizard still functions at 80%" and other classes probably being less dependent on per-day abilities, characters do not have to be much stronger than standard opponents to be able to defeat quite a few in a row.

 

[Cheiromancer]

However, there isn't a startling increase in overall power level from a 20th-level 3rd Edition character to a 20th-level 4th Edition character.

I'm wondering about how they are calculating power levels. Maybe the recuperation of resources is much faster, so that a 20th level character can only handle combats of half the power current 20th level characters can handle, but can do it 3 times a day. Or something like that. The "per encounter" abilities could help that a lot, especially if they include healing. In other words, I'm echoing the previous poster:

If it is true that "having cast all his daily spells, a wizard still functions at 80%" and other classes probably being less dependent on per-day abilities, characters do not have to be much stronger than standard opponents to be able to defeat quite a few in a row.