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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3281228" data-attributes="member: 4937">Wulf.&nbsp; I believe you just answered your own question.The difference between 1-on-1 and 4-on-1 might accurately be described as four actions per turn rather than one per turn.If you still can't see why that's fundamentally the same, let me put it this way.&nbsp; If instead of playing D&amp;D we played a game system in which a character's defence didn't depend on a fixed passive number (AC) but instead depended largely on spending a 'defence action' each turn to counter the attack against them with resisted die role, then 4 vs. 1 would be a yawning chasm compared to 1 on 1 because the outnumbered character would run out of 'defence actions' and be 'overwhelmed', unable to offer a defence against any of the latter attacks in a round (it would be like having zero AC against every attacker after the first).&nbsp; In such a system, weak attackers would get a very large effective bonus for teaming up on a single foe.&nbsp; In this case, we might well argue that how well a monster did fighting a character 1 on 1 had no real relation to how well it would do against four attackers at once.&nbsp; But in D&amp;D's case, we can argue that there is a clear relation between how well a character will do against a single attacker and how well it would do against multiple attackers because that's the nature of the D&amp;D game system.&nbsp; D&amp;D used a fixed passive defence and tracks a characters remaining life not through wounds or disabling effects, but through an attrition system (hit points) which is very binary in its effects.&nbsp; Effectively, either you are fully able&nbsp; or else you are dying.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 3281228, member: 4937"] Wulf. I believe you just answered your own question. The difference between 1-on-1 and 4-on-1 might accurately be described as four actions per turn rather than one per turn. If you still can't see why that's fundamentally the same, let me put it this way. If instead of playing D&D we played a game system in which a character's defence didn't depend on a fixed passive number (AC) but instead depended largely on spending a 'defence action' each turn to counter the attack against them with resisted die role, then 4 vs. 1 would be a yawning chasm compared to 1 on 1 because the outnumbered character would run out of 'defence actions' and be 'overwhelmed', unable to offer a defence against any of the latter attacks in a round (it would be like having zero AC against every attacker after the first). In such a system, weak attackers would get a very large effective bonus for teaming up on a single foe. In this case, we might well argue that how well a monster did fighting a character 1 on 1 had no real relation to how well it would do against four attackers at once. But in D&D's case, we can argue that there is a clear relation between how well a character will do against a single attacker and how well it would do against multiple attackers because that's the nature of the D&D game system. D&D used a fixed passive defence and tracks a characters remaining life not through wounds or disabling effects, but through an attrition system (hit points) which is very binary in its effects. Effectively, either you are fully able or else you are dying. [/QUOTE]

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