Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jolly Giant" data-source="post: 1547432" data-attributes="member: 5278">Hi, Faerl'Elghinn.I don't mean to be rude, but a lot of the grievances you have about the EL system are just plain wrong. How can it not be exactly twice as difficult to face twice as many monsters? Like you said, it is roughly twice as hard to face two monsters. That doesn't mean the EL should be twice as high though! (One CR20 monster can wipe out an army of CR10 monsters...) One CR(X) monster is EL(X), and 2 CR(X) monsters is EL(X+2), right? Now, here's the point where the system actually complies 100% with what you want it do: A level (x+2) encounter is worth twice the XP of a level X encounter! Indicating that the good folks at WotC also thinks that two monsters are twice as tough as one monster...regardless of the number of members in a party, the party's average party level remains the sameYes, the average party level is the same. If you have two level 7 characters in the party, their average level is 7. If you have a million level 7 characters in the party, their average level is still 7!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> To figure out what the proper EL for any given party is, the DMG says you should add the total number of levels, and divide the sum by 4, just like you said. (It also says that with very small or very big parties, finding the right EL is more a question of DM judgement than math.)Experience is supposed to be awarded for each opponent individually, not based on the EL I'm sorry, but I believe you're wrong...  :\ Now, as for the main gist of your post, about DMs that let's the party face challenges that are two tough for them; this is more a question of personal taste than anything else. I think I speak on behalf of everyone in my D&D group when I say that the risk of dying is part of what makes the game exciting. Personally, I've never played in a campaign where I knew the party could beat up everyone or everything we met, no matter where we went. Nor would I want to, and nor have I ever DM'ed such a campaign.In my campaigns, the players know that there are people and monsters in the world that are more powerful than them. Even the paladin with INT 7 knows that if he automatically attacks every evil being he encounters, he won't live to smite another day!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> On the other hand, the PCs also know that an awful lot of people are a lot less powerful than them, of course. What they don't know, is how powerful the next person/monster they encounter is gonna be; could be push-over, could be an epic blackguard red great wyrm. This keeps them on their toes and keeps the game exciting for them.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /></blockquote>

Verification