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At 1st level, how powerful would you say PCs are in any edition of D&D?
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<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5490761" data-attributes="member: 54877"><p>I voted "extraordinary" across all editions, but I think there is a difference in editions in the distribution. This difference heavily skews perceptions of the power level. 4E has far less variance in likely results, than any other edition. </p><p> </p><p>I once played a one-shot 1st ed. (w/ Unearthed Arcana added), where our seven 1st level characters, in the midst of a fairly tough fight, were ambushed by an umber hulk, in an environment where we were at a disadvantage. We not only won, we didn't lose a single character, though almost everyone was hovering around 1 or 2 hit points. The DM did not fudge at all--all rolls were on the table. We could have replayed that same encounter 20 times, and not even gotten close to that outcome again. Doing it 20 times would have been 10+ TPKs, at least.</p><p> </p><p>The game has changed so much since then that I'm not sure what the exact equivalent would be in a 4E encounter. But I do know that if you got something in the ballpark, the results would be more evenly distributed. If the average was, "win, barely," then most of the results would be that, and most of the rest would be "lost, barely, or ran to avoid same" or "win, a little easier than barely."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5490761, member: 54877"] I voted "extraordinary" across all editions, but I think there is a difference in editions in the distribution. This difference heavily skews perceptions of the power level. 4E has far less variance in likely results, than any other edition. I once played a one-shot 1st ed. (w/ Unearthed Arcana added), where our seven 1st level characters, in the midst of a fairly tough fight, were ambushed by an umber hulk, in an environment where we were at a disadvantage. We not only won, we didn't lose a single character, though almost everyone was hovering around 1 or 2 hit points. The DM did not fudge at all--all rolls were on the table. We could have replayed that same encounter 20 times, and not even gotten close to that outcome again. Doing it 20 times would have been 10+ TPKs, at least. The game has changed so much since then that I'm not sure what the exact equivalent would be in a 4E encounter. But I do know that if you got something in the ballpark, the results would be more evenly distributed. If the average was, "win, barely," then most of the results would be that, and most of the rest would be "lost, barely, or ran to avoid same" or "win, a little easier than barely." [/QUOTE]
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At 1st level, how powerful would you say PCs are in any edition of D&D?
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