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<blockquote data-quote="WotC_Dave" data-source="post: 4094618" data-attributes="member: 54178">XP budget is certainly how I'm doing adventure design right now. It's not completely rigorous, because an individual monster indeed gets &quot;so easy that it ain't worth it&quot; and &quot;so hard that it ain't worth it.&quot; That window of &quot;levels you can use this individual monster as a part of your encounter&quot; is certainly wider than it is in 3rd edition, though. I'll go about 5 levels down from the average party level and 5 or 6 levels up without worrying about it too much. As for how much wiggle room...hmm. It's a fuzzy line, of course--you can't say that &quot;an extra 30% is OK but an extra 35% is lethal.&quot; I'd say you can add or subtract 50% or so without worrying about the, um, narrative implications. Eventually, it'll feel &quot;easy&quot; or &quot;hard,&quot; of course, but you want to evoke that feel. And differences of 10%, plus or minus, are likely to be unnoticed by anyone sitting at your table.I learned Thursday night that &quot;more than double the XP budget&quot; is beyond the limit, though.Not really. They were still dealing with the bone naga's &quot;dance of death&quot; when the githyanki appeared, and then they did the D&amp;D equivalent of a Napoleonic &quot;refuse the flank&quot; move to deal with them.--Dave.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="WotC_Dave, post: 4094618, member: 54178"] XP budget is certainly how I'm doing adventure design right now. It's not completely rigorous, because an individual monster indeed gets "so easy that it ain't worth it" and "so hard that it ain't worth it." That window of "levels you can use this individual monster as a part of your encounter" is certainly wider than it is in 3rd edition, though. I'll go about 5 levels down from the average party level and 5 or 6 levels up without worrying about it too much. As for how much wiggle room...hmm. It's a fuzzy line, of course--you can't say that "an extra 30% is OK but an extra 35% is lethal." I'd say you can add or subtract 50% or so without worrying about the, um, narrative implications. Eventually, it'll feel "easy" or "hard," of course, but you want to evoke that feel. And differences of 10%, plus or minus, are likely to be unnoticed by anyone sitting at your table. I learned Thursday night that "more than double the XP budget" is beyond the limit, though. Not really. They were still dealing with the bone naga's "dance of death" when the githyanki appeared, and then they did the D&D equivalent of a Napoleonic "refuse the flank" move to deal with them. --Dave. [/QUOTE]

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