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<blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 9385647" data-attributes="member: 6677017">Jumping in just to say that the thing that never makes sense for me with this kind of setup, is not how to determine the power of an average PC, but how to define what a &quot;challenge&quot; is for such a PC. Let Mr clarify exactly what I mean.&quot;Level 5 Monster = Level 5 PC&quot; is never what is meant. Because what that means is that such a monster is of equal power, which means there is a 50/50 chance that PC would win or lose vs a fight against that monster, and those are not the odds such games are designed around.What is meant appears to be more along the lines of &quot;Intended Standard Challenge of Monster Level 5 is designed for a PC of Level 5&quot;.But that frustrates me on more than one level.First, while there may be a note of what the math us somewhere in the book, like saying such a battle should involve the PC winning but using half their resources, such a point is usually under-emphasized, and there is an assumption that people just &quot;get&quot; what &quot;Level 5 Monster is appropriate match for Level 5 PC&quot; is supposed to mean, and I don't. Next, and related, is that in order for that to make sense there needs to be some sort of &quot;standard challenge&quot;, which comes with a massive playstyle assumption. It assumes whatever this particular math is aiming for is something most people want most of their encounters to provide. And that isn't at all like my playstyle. 2014 5e used much more useful metrics for me (even if the math to get there doesn't work for my groups!) because it says what they mean by a &quot;Easy&quot;, &quot;Medium&quot;, etc encounters. Assuming a &quot;standard&quot; that is typically defined as being &quot;standard&quot; or &quot; average&quot; feels like a foreign language to me, because it's prescribing a playstyle I'm just supposed to understand. The same issue us there when defining a &quot;standard&quot; difficulty for a task (and often worse, because usually the definitions make no sense--how is a task the average person suited for it is supposed to succeed at about 50-60% supposed to be &quot;Average difficulty?&quot;)I do not know how much of my frustration is autism related and how much of it is such design skewing super-hard towards the Gamism element of G/N/S theory just not meshing well for me. Certainly not explicitly and clearly saying, &quot;Hey guys this design is intended to be hard-core Gamist, so we sort of assume you know what a 'standard challenge' is meant to feel like&quot; is a big part of the problem. By now RPGs should be more accessible by telling you exactly what they mean and not assuming you just know.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Sword of Spirit, post: 9385647, member: 6677017"] Jumping in just to say that the thing that never makes sense for me with this kind of setup, is not how to determine the power of an average PC, but how to define what a "challenge" is for such a PC. Let Mr clarify exactly what I mean. "Level 5 Monster = Level 5 PC" is never what is meant. Because what that means is that such a monster is of equal power, which means there is a 50/50 chance that PC would win or lose vs a fight against that monster, and those are not the odds such games are designed around. What is meant appears to be more along the lines of "Intended Standard Challenge of Monster Level 5 is designed for a PC of Level 5". But that frustrates me on more than one level. First, while there may be a note of what the math us somewhere in the book, like saying such a battle should involve the PC winning but using half their resources, such a point is usually under-emphasized, and there is an assumption that people just "get" what "Level 5 Monster is appropriate match for Level 5 PC" is supposed to mean, and I don't. Next, and related, is that in order for that to make sense there needs to be some sort of "standard challenge", which comes with a massive playstyle assumption. It assumes whatever this particular math is aiming for is something most people want most of their encounters to provide. And that isn't at all like my playstyle. 2014 5e used much more useful metrics for me (even if the math to get there doesn't work for my groups!) because it says what they mean by a "Easy", "Medium", etc encounters. Assuming a "standard" that is typically defined as being "standard" or " average" feels like a foreign language to me, because it's prescribing a playstyle I'm just supposed to understand. The same issue us there when defining a "standard" difficulty for a task (and often worse, because usually the definitions make no sense--how is a task the average person suited for it is supposed to succeed at about 50-60% supposed to be "Average difficulty?") I do not know how much of my frustration is autism related and how much of it is such design skewing super-hard towards the Gamism element of G/N/S theory just not meshing well for me. Certainly not explicitly and clearly saying, "Hey guys this design is intended to be hard-core Gamist, so we sort of assume you know what a 'standard challenge' is meant to feel like" is a big part of the problem. By now RPGs should be more accessible by telling you exactly what they mean and not assuming you just know. [/QUOTE]

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