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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JiffyPopTart" data-source="post: 6416417" data-attributes="member: 4881">I guess our GMing styles are very different then.  I usually aim my encounters using monsters with a CR a point or two higher or lower than the party level.  I use creatures with a CR even lower than this range to provide some organicness, but I don't expect them to affect the combat significantly.  Kobolds running around the ancient red dragons feet are the combat equivalent of flavor text.If I had a party of 8th level characters I wouldn't be designing encounters based on CR0-4 creatures.  Once in a great while I would as a swarm, say a raiding party of goblins, but even in those situations the sheer numbers of attackers and the likelihood the 1st level guy is going to get overloaded is too great a possibility if I play the monsters according to how I feel they would truly act.So if everyone in your group wants to play that way *I* certainly am not telling you not to.  It works for your group and everyone will have a great time.  I can only speak for myself and my group and say that if everyone were 8th level and someone died permanently they would create a new character at a similar level (my rule has usually been lowest XP amount in party -5%) to everyone else. It makes that player feel more useful in combat.  It makes my job as a GM struggling with encounter balance easier.SEPARATE BUT RELATED THOUGHT:  If hirelings that tracked XP were following the PCs around but "guarded the horses" during combats and were never in actual danger I wouldn't give them XP for an encounter they took no part in.  If a 1st level PC hid outside the danger zone while the rest of the party fought an encampment of ogres he wouldn't get XP.  Only by engaging in the combat in some way (other than hiding) does he/she get a share, and that would make them a target of the encounter as legitimate as any other target.</blockquote>

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