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<blockquote data-quote="Varianor Abroad" data-source="post: 4700778" data-attributes="member: 12425"><p>This is called book creep, and it's not the fault of the original designers of 3E. It happens to every company and every game. Yes, those who designed the Complete series and others could have paid more attention to "balance", but nowhere did anyone have a complete guide to the math that underpinned it. (Though all three of the original designers, Cook, Tweet and Williams talked a about it on many occasions.) You could get a snippet here or there, like when I learned that the wizard spell table is mathematically consistent if you know that they added a slot for 1st level spells one step "ahead". This is so that a 1st level wizard has a 1st level spell. </p><p></p><p>4E has much more explicit math. Particularly with respect to monster design. I like that part in many respects. Instead of having to page through book after book to build the monster to what you want, it's got set values for everything based upon whether its a mook or an elite. That said, it makes the math immediately apparent to any player that has read the guidelines and you know exactly what you're gunning for on to-hits, etc. However, I've not been sure if there are any core principles underlying it, as it appears that instead of setting principles, the designers assigned values for every step.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Varianor Abroad, post: 4700778, member: 12425"] This is called book creep, and it's not the fault of the original designers of 3E. It happens to every company and every game. Yes, those who designed the Complete series and others could have paid more attention to "balance", but nowhere did anyone have a complete guide to the math that underpinned it. (Though all three of the original designers, Cook, Tweet and Williams talked a about it on many occasions.) You could get a snippet here or there, like when I learned that the wizard spell table is mathematically consistent if you know that they added a slot for 1st level spells one step "ahead". This is so that a 1st level wizard has a 1st level spell. 4E has much more explicit math. Particularly with respect to monster design. I like that part in many respects. Instead of having to page through book after book to build the monster to what you want, it's got set values for everything based upon whether its a mook or an elite. That said, it makes the math immediately apparent to any player that has read the guidelines and you know exactly what you're gunning for on to-hits, etc. However, I've not been sure if there are any core principles underlying it, as it appears that instead of setting principles, the designers assigned values for every step. [/QUOTE]
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