Distribution of Monsters

[WyzardWhately]

In 4E, you gain a level 29 times from 1st to 30th. It is assumed that there will be 10 fights per level. That comes up to 290 fights, assuming the social and skill challenges are maybe balanced out by the occasional lesser fight. More or less. The monster manual is, I think, 288 pages, with how many monsters?

Divide that number of fights by how many monsters there are. Accounting for repeats and multiples (A whole bunch of orcs at once, frex), what does this look like over the course of the game? If we made a bar chart of all levels of the game, with each monster counting at the most appropriate level to encounter it at, do you think it'd be likely to have any odd mountains or valleys?

Also, what do PCs do at thirtieth level? If the game stops there, do they continue to fight on without XP, simply gaining more treasure and legendary status? Or is there a more defined end-point? If they don't gain XP, how much benefit is there to giving an XP award for 30th level monsters? Are there monsters *above* thirtieth level, for a really good fight, or is that niche adequately covered by elite and boss style monsters of the thirtieth level?

Again, I find only more questions.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Also, what do PCs do at thirtieth level? If the game stops there, do they continue to fight on without XP, simply gaining more treasure and legendary status? Or is there a more defined end-point?

What do you do in 3E if you reach 20th level and you don't want to acknowledge the Epic Level Handbook's existence?

 

[Anthtriel]

What do you do in 3E if you reach 20th level and you don't want to acknowledge the Epic Level Handbook's existence?

Retire.

Well, either that, or a last series of quests that really changes the gameworld and ends up killing up all (or most of) the PCs who then either attain godhod or become legends.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

What do you do in 3E if you reach 20th level and you don't want to acknowledge the Epic Level Handbook's existence?

Your party decides to return fire to the gods... i.e. going to the higher planes with a large barrel of explosives

(cookie to those who get the reference)

 

[KoshPWNZYou]

In 4E, you gain a level 29 times from 1st to 30th. It is assumed that there will be 10 fights per level. That comes up to 290 fights, assuming the social and skill challenges are maybe balanced out by the occasional lesser fight. More or less. The monster manual is, I think, 288 pages, with how many monsters?

A good DM could squeeze 10 character levels out of a war against those Orcs, the party fighting nothing but standard, classed, & templated Orcs with a couple of beasts, the shaman's undead minions, and maybe a summoned demon at the higher levels, and still keep things interesting. Maybe 5 or 6 MM entries used all told.

Heck, one could squeeze the whole 30 out of that. But he'd have to be -really- good to prevent the party from getting bored with Orcs.

 

[FireLance]

Looking at the XP tables for Star Wars Saga Edition, it will take five equal-CR encounters to go up a level.

 

[shilsen]

Your party decides to return fire to the gods... i.e. going to the higher planes with a large barrel of explosives

(cookie to those who get the reference)

Long live the Silver Horde!

 

[Hussar]

Looking at the XP tables for Star Wars Saga Edition, it will take five equal-CR encounters to go up a level.

Whoa. That's rocketing up levels.

But, then again, we've already been told that CR is going away in 4e. DM's will simply peg an encounter to X xp value, so, number of encounters/level isn't quite a standard metric anymore.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the voodoo math of 3e's CR and xp tables are not going to give a good example here.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Your party decides to return fire to the gods... i.e. going to the higher planes with a large barrel of explosives

(cookie to those who get the reference)

The Last Hero, one of my favorite Pratchett novels.

That would make a really kickass adventure.

 

[howandwhy99]

In 4E, you gain a level 29 times from 1st to 30th. It is assumed that there will be 10 fights per level. That comes up to 290 fights, assuming the social and skill challenges are maybe balanced out by the occasional lesser fight. More or less. The monster manual is, I think, 288 pages, with how many monsters?

More than 288 maybe? I'm guessing at least 10 per CR. 1-30 that's 300 monsters.