Rolling a high number is not a challenge.
Does Expertise "Feat Tax" even matter?
- Thread starter catsclaw227
- Start date
I would also add to my above comment, that when they were talking about balance, I am not sure they ever talked about players being balanced with monsters, or ever meant to imply that.
If they wanted perfect balance, they would not be playing by different rules and the monster rules would be more hardcoded than they are.
Yes, it is. The challenge is to use tactics and teamwork to work around or lower that high number.
You don't see the value in that?
Part of 4E was to make combats interesting, not just pawns, sitting in the same square rolling dice.
Rolling a low number is not challenging, or knowing that you hit everything on a 11.
When I roll a 15 and don't hit, I don't say (while playing the game) that isn't right, the math is off I should be bale to hit that. I say, wow, this guy is tough, I need to think of something to give me an advantage.
keterys
First Post
Umm, actually there is. Remember, the PC is a demigod or immortal warrior or whatever too. So the relative level difference still applies. Ie, your 30th levels 'I am about to ascend when I complete this fight' fighter / dreadnought / demigod fighting against Orcus is actually similar to the 'My farm was just attacked and my girlfriend carried off by the dragon and I'm going to kill it or die trying' 1st level 'about to get laid' fighter.
Amusingly, in previous editions of the game the _reverse_ actually happened where it became easier and easier to hit things and easier and easier to not be 'hit' (make your save, whatever). And back then, I bet that disparity was considered a feature, too, like the reverse is now.
All the more reason why it should be more challenging than normal, IMO. It means more.
I found it is harder to have a challenging encounter in previous editions. This edition lets me have challenging encounters, and easier encounters, IMO, easier than previous ones.
keterys
First Post
Hmm, maybe I missed on my explanation. It's all relative. In both cases, the fighter is doing the most important thing in the world.
I suspect we can agree to disagree on the actual excitement or challenge related to the minor variance of hit-chances. I would find it perfectly valid for things to be harder to hit at epic, but I also think it's far more important for the actual things that are happening to be more epic. Terrain destroying, huge movements, death and rebirth. More (stronger) status effects, invisibility, teleportation, zones. I'm on board. The d20 math changing or mandating that a party must have a particular leader type or take certain math powers (many of which are lower level, like Lead the Attack, Frigid Darkness, etc). Meh. Not really seeing the added excitement.
I see the value in that just fine (though the value is minimal given that you are probably always attempting to improve your chances of hitting, even against low defense foes, and in any case since this is an across the board issue you can't even use common tactics like targeting lower defenses because they're all equally boosted as monster level advances), but...
I just think this is silly. Because we're not talking about a one off fight with a high AC opponent who causes you to vary your tactics. We're talking about everything you encounter, forever, past a certain level as your attack bonus decays relative to your opponent's defenses.
Oh, and if you really believe that the intention was to make higher level fights more difficult across the board than lower level fights, congratulations! You've defended the monster defense progression by arguing that the challenge rating system is broken. And that expertise is broken.
Can you give me an example of a monster that all their defenses are out of a reasonable range?
This argument will always go on forever, because both sides are the exact opposite. One half sees a game about rolling dice, adding modifiers, and working with a team to get higher numbers, and says "Oh hey, math." The other side sees a game about rolling dice, adding modifiers, and working with a team to get higher numbers, and says "Auuuuugh, not math! Quick, ignore its existence as much as possible!"
All monsters, by a slow progression from 0 points out of range to 3 points out of range, based on level. I thought we covered that.
The problem with picking just one monster as some sort of exemplar is that high defense monsters are an ok thing. Its like if I said that the prices at my local grocery store were too high compared to other stores, and you demanded to know which single product, exactly, was unreasonably expensive.
