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<blockquote data-quote="Badwe" data-source="post: 5065256" data-attributes="member: 61762">sorry for thread necromancy, but after Penny Arcade's Gabe posted about his 4e sandbox style adventure I've felt greater interest in the subject and wanted to weigh in.&nbsp; Hopefully reviving a thread is better than retreading what's already been noted.Somebody else correctly guessed that multiples of a die will generate a larger percentage of numbers closer to the middle of the range than farther.&nbsp; If that middle number happens to be an encounter of the PC's level, there you have it.Let's get concrete: assume an encounter of level 0 or a negative level is simply a level 1 encounter.&nbsp; We'll roll 2d4, which ranges between 2 and 8, most common value being 5. this means on a roll of 5, we should have an encounter of party level, let's call it N. it follows then that for a party of level N, roll 2d4-5+N, so 2d4-4, 2d4-3, 2d4-2, etc.&nbsp; Your table should look something like this:Result&nbsp; &nbsp; --&nbsp; &nbsp; EL&nbsp; &nbsp; lvl1 odds&nbsp; &nbsp; lvl2 odds1 or less&nbsp; &nbsp; 1&nbsp; &nbsp; 11/16&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 7/162&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 1&nbsp; &nbsp; 3/16&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 4/163&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 1&nbsp; &nbsp; 2/16&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 3/164&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 1&nbsp; &nbsp; 1/16&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 2/165&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 1&nbsp; &nbsp; 0&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 1/16&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 6&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 2&nbsp; &nbsp; 0&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 07&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 3&nbsp; &nbsp; etc.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; etc.8&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 49&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 510&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 6etc.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; etc.you could also come up with a more elaborate and bell-ish curve by increasing the number of dice rolled, for example 3d4 has a 3/8 chance of producing either a 7 or an 8 (and 3/16 of any one).So there you go, and obviously if you want to do specific things like create ELs by region rather than player level, just replace the player level with the region's level in your calculation.There was also mention of wanting to be able to randomly select monsters and that being somewhat difficult to do because of the criteria of 4e.&nbsp; I would argue that it wasn't much easier in 3e and that 1d4 trolls or 2d12 kobolds was likely to be a bad deal regardless of who was involved, but that's neither here nor there.&nbsp; I'll need to get back to this with a second post, but I have something in mind, although again it's very mathy.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Badwe, post: 5065256, member: 61762"] sorry for thread necromancy, but after Penny Arcade's Gabe posted about his 4e sandbox style adventure I've felt greater interest in the subject and wanted to weigh in. Hopefully reviving a thread is better than retreading what's already been noted. Somebody else correctly guessed that multiples of a die will generate a larger percentage of numbers closer to the middle of the range than farther. If that middle number happens to be an encounter of the PC's level, there you have it. Let's get concrete: assume an encounter of level 0 or a negative level is simply a level 1 encounter. We'll roll 2d4, which ranges between 2 and 8, most common value being 5. this means on a roll of 5, we should have an encounter of party level, let's call it N. it follows then that for a party of level N, roll 2d4-5+N, so 2d4-4, 2d4-3, 2d4-2, etc. Your table should look something like this: Result -- EL lvl1 odds lvl2 odds 1 or less 1 11/16 7/16 2 1 3/16 4/16 3 1 2/16 3/16 4 1 1/16 2/16 5 1 0 1/16 6 2 0 0 7 3 etc. etc. 8 4 9 5 10 6 etc. etc. you could also come up with a more elaborate and bell-ish curve by increasing the number of dice rolled, for example 3d4 has a 3/8 chance of producing either a 7 or an 8 (and 3/16 of any one). So there you go, and obviously if you want to do specific things like create ELs by region rather than player level, just replace the player level with the region's level in your calculation. There was also mention of wanting to be able to randomly select monsters and that being somewhat difficult to do because of the criteria of 4e. I would argue that it wasn't much easier in 3e and that 1d4 trolls or 2d12 kobolds was likely to be a bad deal regardless of who was involved, but that's neither here nor there. I'll need to get back to this with a second post, but I have something in mind, although again it's very mathy. [/QUOTE]

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