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What is the essence of 4E?
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7452278" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>There really isn't power creep in 4e per-se. In fact the stuff released in PHB1 is often the strongest stuff in the game. Option creep OTOH always does happen. 4e started with a pretty broad swath of options, and tended to add new areas at a bit lower power level than the initial 'core' stuff (IE summoning is a weaker option than other wizard build options, though druids then get a slightly tweaked version that is pretty solid for them). </p><p></p><p>I don't know where you get this idea that "2/3 of the monsters don't work". There are some specific monsters which don't work in situations where they are commonly employed by GMs. There are a very few that I would call 'broken' in some fashion in MM1, the Dracolich, the Wraith, the Needlefang Drake, the Halfling Slinger, and the Purple Worm all come to mind. In all but the last case the monster is actually TOO GOOD at what it does. Epic monsters make up maybe 1/8th of all MM1 monsters. Most of them work fine, you could even argue they ALL work fine if the GM is willing to create the right situation to make them a real threat. </p><p></p><p>I do think that MM3 monsters work out better, both because they tend to have higher basic damage output, but also because they have a refined design technique and WotC invented additional types of features to give them where it made sense. So MM3 Epic solos, STILL won't stand alone in a vacuum against an Epic party, but you don't have to engineer encounters using them quite as much. I'd note that 3e and 5e have similar 'issues', you won't simply drop an 'epic' monster from those games onto a really strong party and expect it to go well. Maybe in 3e the monster could luck out and win on round 1, but that's not a design strength of 3e...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7452278, member: 82106"] There really isn't power creep in 4e per-se. In fact the stuff released in PHB1 is often the strongest stuff in the game. Option creep OTOH always does happen. 4e started with a pretty broad swath of options, and tended to add new areas at a bit lower power level than the initial 'core' stuff (IE summoning is a weaker option than other wizard build options, though druids then get a slightly tweaked version that is pretty solid for them). I don't know where you get this idea that "2/3 of the monsters don't work". There are some specific monsters which don't work in situations where they are commonly employed by GMs. There are a very few that I would call 'broken' in some fashion in MM1, the Dracolich, the Wraith, the Needlefang Drake, the Halfling Slinger, and the Purple Worm all come to mind. In all but the last case the monster is actually TOO GOOD at what it does. Epic monsters make up maybe 1/8th of all MM1 monsters. Most of them work fine, you could even argue they ALL work fine if the GM is willing to create the right situation to make them a real threat. I do think that MM3 monsters work out better, both because they tend to have higher basic damage output, but also because they have a refined design technique and WotC invented additional types of features to give them where it made sense. So MM3 Epic solos, STILL won't stand alone in a vacuum against an Epic party, but you don't have to engineer encounters using them quite as much. I'd note that 3e and 5e have similar 'issues', you won't simply drop an 'epic' monster from those games onto a really strong party and expect it to go well. Maybe in 3e the monster could luck out and win on round 1, but that's not a design strength of 3e... [/QUOTE]
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