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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8435660" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Well...I mean, 4e had no problem with balance or playtesting. Fights could be lengthy to resolve (though definitely no moreso than 3e), but they weren't super weird about that.Part of the reason 4e worked as well as it did is that characters did not have two sources of bonus HP. That is, you added your Con score at first level, not your mod at every level. This means that max-level 3e (and 5e) characters actually tend to have higher HP than even max-level equivalent characters in 4e, because a 4e character only ever gains 29*(class's flat HP). E.g. a level 20 Fighter in 5e, with 20 Con, has 15 (level 1 HP) + 19*(6+5) = 224 HP, while a level 30 Fighter with theoretical maximum Con (starting 20, investing +8 from levelling up, and getting another +2 from Epic Destiny) has 15 (base HP) + 30 (Con score) + 29*6 (static HP per level) = 219. And, again, this is spread out over 30 levels, not 20, and considering the most extreme comparable case in the game.Also, 4e's equivalent of CR--the XP Budget--was actually highly effective, very rarely having issues.  The vast majority of the time that it did have issues was when you took extremely high-level monsters and scaled them down to extremely low levels, such as a down-scaled dracolich (a common discussion example at the time). The only exception I can think of that was generally understood to be out of line was the Needlefang Drake Swarm, and that's really only because they had unusually high damage on top of being a Swarm. (4e Swarm creatures are resistant to melee and ranged attacks, but vulnerable to close and area attacks.)</blockquote>

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