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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silveras" data-source="post: 1603463" data-attributes="member: 6271">Heh... trivia note: Bugbears used to be tougher than Ogres, in 1st/2nd. They were 8HD creatures, ranked up with Trolls in power. Back in my 1st/2nd Edition (now 3rd) homebrew game world, one thing I did was to realize that I did not have to use every monster everywhere. I made some monsters region-specific. In my world, Gnolls come from the jungles of the Southern continent; you don't see them in my European region, unless they are brought in as mercenaries/bodyguards. Likewise, the Goblins and Orcs of my "European" region are not found together, but occupy separate areas. Before the idea of giving class levels to monsters appeared, I started adding "Superior" and "Elite" Goblins to beef up their challenge as the PCs improved. I quickly adopted the idea of using PC classes for the leaders, once I saw it (in a Dungeon magazine adventure, as I recall). Well, the rank-and-file Gnolls can stay with their 2 racial HD. A few "Hunters" (with some Ranger levels) as elites would do well; the occasional Adept or Druid is good, too. The "Organization" line in the MM gives some benchmark numbers for how many "elites" to add to the masses (something that was also present in 1st/2nd Edition). Those benchmarks represent the "generic" encountered monsters; part of the fun of being DM is taking that and tweaking it to suit your vision. For me, creating a believable world involved reining in the magic, and deciding that 15th level was about where NPCs stopped advancing. By keeping magic rare-but-powerful, I know why it doesn't change the face of society. I also scour the books for other tools. In Unearthed Arcana, for example, I latched onto the Craft Points material. Not only does it help my PCs make things "on the road", but the requirements to take the Craft Masterwork XXX feats helps to make PC craftsmen less able than NPC professionals, unless they invest the time to learn the feats.  I play in some PBeM and chat-based games. The key is to make good notes about the passage of time. Players who cannot meet regularly tend to forget whether the previous encounter was still "today" for their character, if it was two weeks ago in real life. You may also want to look at the Recharge Magic variant in Unearthed Arcana. Instead of having X slots for spells per day, it takes a character some number of rounds to be able to cast another spell of that level. It is a little cumbersome, because you would have to decide where all 3rd party spells fit, but it could relieve some of that concern. Some groups don't bother tracking XP at all; the DM simply says "You gained a level" at some point. As long as the players are happy, whatever works is good.  Sometimes it takes a while to get that comfortable. I think we all go through a period where we feel the rulebook was written by people wiser than we are. Here's a sercret: We all make mistakes. Some rule changes just don't work out like we expected them to. Once you feel comfortable taking that risk, and accepting that the thing to do is to try to fix it when it happens, you are ready to start tweaking.  I can't speak about Eberron... it does not interest me, and I have not looked. I doubt it will stray far from the a-world-is-a-place-to-find-dungeons, though. The desire for plausible numbers is more suited to simulation games (like Sid Meier's Civilization III mmmm) than to core D&D. That is not to say you can't do it; just that it doesn't fit the design approach WotC has taken so far. Fields of Blood is Ok, but it is lacking in some ways compared to Birthright. Particularly, it lacks non-landed power bases (i.e., religious, economic, and magical organizations wielding political power without also owning land). For reference, in <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=71964" target="_blank">this thread</a>, I compared Fields of Blood and other similar products. For my own use, I made 5th/6th level the end of apprenticeship in most classes. It is the point where spellcasters get 3rd level spells. As a visible effect of their growing power, it serves as a good "graduation" achievement. A Paladin's gaining spellcasting and a warhorse, a Ranger's spellcasting or improved combat mastery, and any character taking the Leadership feat and gaining a Cohort are also good benchmark effects.</blockquote>

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