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<blockquote data-quote="JDillard" data-source="post: 4369538" data-attributes="member: 67649">And it's great reasoning.&nbsp; However, it's also after-the-fact reasoning added on.&nbsp; &nbsp;The &quot;real&quot; reason, as far as there is a real reason, is simply a game construction.&nbsp; The numbers they've worked out for monsters and pc's are very specific.&nbsp; The expected range is tiny.&nbsp; &nbsp;Forget about threshold for a moment.&nbsp; You take a demon who's entry lists a normal sword and then put a +5 one (perhaps an appropriate piece of treasure for the PC's he's fighting) in his hands and that screws up the math.&nbsp; Suddenly he's hitting far more often then he should and doing far more damage then he should.&nbsp;Conversely, put a +5 sword in the hands of a level 23 fighter and he's doing exactly what he should... hitting just as often and doing just as much damage as the math expects him to.&nbsp; &nbsp;There's room for a little swingy... but not so much.&nbsp; Threshold makes that happen.&nbsp; It makes it so that you can allow the monsters to use the weapons that the PC's are earning, without making the monsters so much more powerful that it messes up their fairly well-designed challenge system.&nbsp; Without it you can either say: &quot;monsters can't use treasure, otherwise they unbalance the challenge math and screw up everything&quot; or allow something fairly obvious and expected (why wouldn't the goblin leader use that flaming sword +2 in his pile of loot?) to mess up your numbers and make assigning challenge difficulties all that much harder.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="JDillard, post: 4369538, member: 67649"] And it's great reasoning. However, it's also after-the-fact reasoning added on. The "real" reason, as far as there is a real reason, is simply a game construction. The numbers they've worked out for monsters and pc's are very specific. The expected range is tiny. Forget about threshold for a moment. You take a demon who's entry lists a normal sword and then put a +5 one (perhaps an appropriate piece of treasure for the PC's he's fighting) in his hands and that screws up the math. Suddenly he's hitting far more often then he should and doing far more damage then he should. Conversely, put a +5 sword in the hands of a level 23 fighter and he's doing exactly what he should... hitting just as often and doing just as much damage as the math expects him to. There's room for a little swingy... but not so much. Threshold makes that happen. It makes it so that you can allow the monsters to use the weapons that the PC's are earning, without making the monsters so much more powerful that it messes up their fairly well-designed challenge system. Without it you can either say: "monsters can't use treasure, otherwise they unbalance the challenge math and screw up everything" or allow something fairly obvious and expected (why wouldn't the goblin leader use that flaming sword +2 in his pile of loot?) to mess up your numbers and make assigning challenge difficulties all that much harder. [/QUOTE]

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