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<blockquote data-quote="Emerikol" data-source="post: 9501080" data-attributes="member: 6698278">I think ad hoc just means no underlying system which is the definition of exceptions based design.&nbsp; You create an element and you figure out if it is workable by play testing.&nbsp; Many things throughout the life of D&amp;D were just arbitrary decisions.&nbsp; Is fly better or equal to fireball?&nbsp; Well it depends.&nbsp; The only version of D&amp;D that tried to be at all systematic was 3e and the burden of monster design nearly drove the WOTC staff to despair.&nbsp; In the end, I doubt any system can really do a great job because every group is different.&nbsp; I had two groups playing at the same time years ago and I could not treat them exactly the same.&nbsp; I had to make encounter difficulty different.&nbsp; One group was highly skilled in terms of player ability and one was not.&nbsp; There are just too many factors to consider.&nbsp; So a rough estimate is good enough for me.&nbsp; I will have to tweak it a lot anyway.&nbsp; In 4e, I was regularly running vastly harder encounters than the rules suggested.&nbsp; And I still honestly struggled to challenge my group.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Emerikol, post: 9501080, member: 6698278"] I think ad hoc just means no underlying system which is the definition of exceptions based design. You create an element and you figure out if it is workable by play testing. Many things throughout the life of D&D were just arbitrary decisions. Is fly better or equal to fireball? Well it depends. The only version of D&D that tried to be at all systematic was 3e and the burden of monster design nearly drove the WOTC staff to despair. In the end, I doubt any system can really do a great job because every group is different. I had two groups playing at the same time years ago and I could not treat them exactly the same. I had to make encounter difficulty different. One group was highly skilled in terms of player ability and one was not. There are just too many factors to consider. So a rough estimate is good enough for me. I will have to tweak it a lot anyway. In 4e, I was regularly running vastly harder encounters than the rules suggested. And I still honestly struggled to challenge my group. [/QUOTE]

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