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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 4436826" data-attributes="member: 5143">I'd like to think I am comfortable with 3e rules, but fudging monster stats on the fly was not something I was comfortable with.  I like following rules precisely and I like to keep the game fair.  If I make a monster with the exact rules in the book, it's as fair as the game was designed for.  If the encounter is unfair or unbalanced, then it is a problem with the rules.On the other hand, if I increase a creature by 5 CRs on the fly by adding levels of something or just trying to increase the hitdice then I'm sure to miss something.  I might not add any feats because I figure its no big deal.  I might not choose new spells out of time constraints or choose really bad ones.  Then I have an either overpowered or underpowered encounter.Plus, my players can spot fudging a mile away and I've been yelled at for it the couple of times I've tried it.  Once I came up with an AC on the fly for an NPC I fudged and when one of the players couldn't hit it with a high number he kept wondering very loudly about how the NPC could have an AC that high.  The rest of the players agreed.  Until, in order to make them get back to the game, I decided to recite out the math I had worked out in my head.  Turns out I was 1 or 2 points too high.  Not a HUGE deal, but it would have caused 2 attacks that missed to hit instead.  But they insisted on rolling damage and adding it to the NPC immediately since I was cheating.I believe once I didn't have time to make up an NPC at all so I just decided that he was a level 12 fighter and that between strength bumps, BAB, magic weapon, feats, magic stat enhancers he'd have +18 to hit.  There were members of the party with ACs of 36.  They were doing all the blocking to prevent enemies from getting close to everyone else.  The NPC might as well not have been in the battle as he didn't hit all combat.  If I had spent time and a lot of effort, I'm sure I could have used PrC, feats from outside of the PHB, templates, different races, calculating bonuses in more detail(I'm sure if I had remembered Weapon Focus and figured out his actual cash then I could have put better items on him and gotten his bonus up to +23), and so on to actually make a challenging opponent.But that's exactly the point.  At high levels the numbers break down.  The attack bonus of the enemies is WAY too small to hit the PCs sometimes and WAY too high to miss other times.  A player who knows how to min-max effectively has a 36 AC at level 12.  One who doesn't has an AC of 24.  One monster has +15 to hit at CR 12.  One has +30.That's what I found as the number one issue affecting high level.  The second being that nearly every round one of the bonuses would need to be recalculated or would be forgotten by someone:"Did you include Heroes Feast?  What about the Greater Magic Weapon I put on you?  Haste?  Prayer?  Righteous Wrath of the Faithful?  Keep in mind the Bard Song.  Wait...Bard Song and Heroes Feast are both Morale Bonuses?  I've been adding too much to hit all combat!  What's that?  Prayer and Righteous Wrath are both Luck Bonuses?  Well, I wouldn't have cast Prayer if I knew that.  Let me go back to my last turn and cast something else.  You are including the minuses to your attack for firing into melee, right?  Keep in mind, the Righteous Wrath ran out last round, but the Prayer didn't.  Oh, crap, I forgot it ran out.  I wouldn't have hit last round.  Remove that damage.  And I forgot I still got the Prayer so I would have hit!"</blockquote>

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