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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mostlyjoe" data-source="post: 5817875" data-attributes="member: 56540">D&D has always suffered from a weird issue that is a byproduct of level scaling. We'll call it "Bigger Fish" as reference from the Darth & Droids Summon Bigger Fish joke, which is a great illustration of the problem. The issue in a nutshell is: Foes don't scale with level, and neither do allies. The expections are that as the players level up they interact with stronger NPCs and foes. The Drow Scouts give way to Generals and Generals to Gods. Etc.  4E attempted to address this buy having the sliding scale of success on skill rolls and saves function based off of tiers, but the NPCs and monsters were all built with hard coded level expectations into them. 3.X's fix was character levels and or monster racial levels which added to complexity and didnt' always answer the problem of PC's over diversity of skill at higher level. Basically we wound up with demigods and dragons being the only viable foes because the level 1 Orc they ran acorss years ago will never ever reasonably challenge them again. One of the pieces that Monte/Mearls and Co brought up from the press conference that he flatter math of 5E will keep NPCs and Monsters more viable over levels and this is GREAT!~but... But if the math was completely flat you could do the inverse. Have higher level foes be won over by the PCs even at the lowest of levels. Sure the odds of it happening are astronomical, but the hope still remains. I'm not saying that some foes should be 'boss' level challenges, or far too complex to be taken out with a wild swing or spell casting. But it would be nice if the Drow General was as mortal as his Scout minions, just not as easy to get access too. This could avoid the leveled NPCs from adventures seeming too weak or powerful based on their described role. The catch is just how 'flat' does the math need to be to pull this off? How to you handle the force multiplier effect of PC skills and abilties? How do we avoid the 'Solo' monster templete and instead make that solo critter unique enough to pull on players? A lot of stuff I'm still trying to figure out in a game with levels. FantasyCrafts take was interesting but problematic, mostly from mechanic bloat issues.</blockquote>

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