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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5097781" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>The fundamental problem with this concept is that you now have to make the "high level" monsters nasty in some way or other. That means giving them loads more hit points, which they already have, admittedly, but it also really means they need to do more damage. In essence the whole damage/hitpoints equality needs to be rebalanced too.</p><p></p><p>The end result is old D&D essentially. There was no scaling of monsters defenses particularly in pre-3.x D&D. There was a much more modest scaling of PC to-hit of +9 for a fighter over his career (to 18th level). Characters would get magic items that might give another +9 roughly but monster defenses mostly only increased from averaging say AC6 at level 1 to maybe -2 at level 18 with some very specific "epic" monsters that would go down into the -7 range or so. In any case it was a much flatter system.</p><p></p><p>The thing is you had to have a much steeper PC hit point increase curve to go with it. Everyone gets hit a lot more at high level. Magic weapons and defenses are also embedded into that system to a much greater degree than in 4e. A 2e fighter at level 18 with AC2 would die a horrible death in 5 seconds flat. Yet ONLY magic can boost his AC (or saves for that matter).</p><p></p><p>Its an OK system but with 4e style combat it will get sloggy slow at high levels. It worked OK for older editions because they simply assumed you'd have characters getting slagged left and right in 2 rounds flat, which 4e really tries to avoid.</p><p></p><p>I think its POSSIBLE to do this, but you will have to basically rewrite every feat, power, class feature, monster, etc to get it balanced the way you want it. Might as well write an RPG. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 5097781, member: 82106"] The fundamental problem with this concept is that you now have to make the "high level" monsters nasty in some way or other. That means giving them loads more hit points, which they already have, admittedly, but it also really means they need to do more damage. In essence the whole damage/hitpoints equality needs to be rebalanced too. The end result is old D&D essentially. There was no scaling of monsters defenses particularly in pre-3.x D&D. There was a much more modest scaling of PC to-hit of +9 for a fighter over his career (to 18th level). Characters would get magic items that might give another +9 roughly but monster defenses mostly only increased from averaging say AC6 at level 1 to maybe -2 at level 18 with some very specific "epic" monsters that would go down into the -7 range or so. In any case it was a much flatter system. The thing is you had to have a much steeper PC hit point increase curve to go with it. Everyone gets hit a lot more at high level. Magic weapons and defenses are also embedded into that system to a much greater degree than in 4e. A 2e fighter at level 18 with AC2 would die a horrible death in 5 seconds flat. Yet ONLY magic can boost his AC (or saves for that matter). Its an OK system but with 4e style combat it will get sloggy slow at high levels. It worked OK for older editions because they simply assumed you'd have characters getting slagged left and right in 2 rounds flat, which 4e really tries to avoid. I think its POSSIBLE to do this, but you will have to basically rewrite every feat, power, class feature, monster, etc to get it balanced the way you want it. Might as well write an RPG. ;) [/QUOTE]
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