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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5860127" data-attributes="member: 2067">Well, how does a DM (especially a new one) learn to do that? What guidance (aside from general advice) should the game give? Or do you think general advice should be enough for anyone?A &quot;balanced party&quot; is already a pretty big assumption. Shouldn't my players all be able to play rogues if they want to without making my job as DM significantly harder? We can approach this by making broadly capable characters, but that cuts into D&amp;D's class system (part of which is being not-as-capable in certain circumstances). Magic items affecting level isn't a bad solution, but an item that deals, say, extra radiant damage, might be worth different amounts in campaigns that are about fighting undead than in campaigns that are about fighting angels. So you need to assume a &quot;balanced world,&quot; too. Which puts some limits on what a DM can easily change. I'm fully on board with this idea. <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&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Though it does rule out using a 4e-style &quot;XP Budget&quot; to design anything. There's a lot of people who really like the elegance of that system, and with good reason. Though that seems largely about the first issue, not about the second. Hmm...it's not a bad idea. Sort of like how old adventures had a &quot;level range,&quot; we can now give monsters/encounters a level range. It helps get rid of the assumption that monster level is a precise judgement, since it's not a precise figure. There's still a slight issue with character powers, but it's mitigated -- even if the ranger with his favored enemy is about 2 levels more effective than usual, you just sprinkle a few threats in that are about EL+2, and call it a day.Especially if combined with KidSnide's idea of XP as a simple reward system (rather than as a difficulty system), this ensures that you don't get extra rewards from fighting bigger things, necessarily. Interesting ideas! Keep 'em coming!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 5860127, member: 2067"] Well, how does a DM (especially a new one) learn to do that? What guidance (aside from general advice) should the game give? Or do you think general advice should be enough for anyone? A "balanced party" is already a pretty big assumption. Shouldn't my players all be able to play rogues if they want to without making my job as DM significantly harder? We can approach this by making broadly capable characters, but that cuts into D&D's class system (part of which is being not-as-capable in certain circumstances). Magic items affecting level isn't a bad solution, but an item that deals, say, extra radiant damage, might be worth different amounts in campaigns that are about fighting undead than in campaigns that are about fighting angels. So you need to assume a "balanced world," too. Which puts some limits on what a DM can easily change. I'm fully on board with this idea. ;) Though it does rule out using a 4e-style "XP Budget" to design anything. There's a lot of people who really like the elegance of that system, and with good reason. Though that seems largely about the first issue, not about the second. Hmm...it's not a bad idea. Sort of like how old adventures had a "level range," we can now give monsters/encounters a level range. It helps get rid of the assumption that monster level is a precise judgement, since it's not a precise figure. There's still a slight issue with character powers, but it's mitigated -- even if the ranger with his favored enemy is about 2 levels more effective than usual, you just sprinkle a few threats in that are about EL+2, and call it a day. Especially if combined with KidSnide's idea of XP as a simple reward system (rather than as a difficulty system), this ensures that you don't get extra rewards from fighting bigger things, necessarily. Interesting ideas! Keep 'em coming! [/QUOTE]

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