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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9285722" data-attributes="member: 42582">I dunno, it seems fairly clear. Someone set it out upthread: it's about confining target numbers, and bonuses, within a certain range across the whole 20 levels of play. Which has the result that the demands on the GM are reduced: they can pull any element (monster, trap, suggested DC) out of the books of such things (DMG, MM, modules, etc) and the game will, in mathematical terms, keep chugging along.There are potential failure points that can result from this approach:&nbsp; pooling a group of goblins to stack up as many hp to wade through as (say) a dragon brings on its own also adds to the GM-side action economy (because each goblin gets its own action), which runs the risk of overwhelming the PCs. It follows, therefore, that combat encounter difficulty requires having regard to the number of opponents as well as their hp total.I think framing it in terms of &quot;treadmill&quot;/ &quot;sense of progression&quot; is a bit obscurantist. In 4e, the chance an Epic tier PC has to hit Orcus is roughly the same as the chance a Heroic tier PC has to hit a Minotaur. That's progress, not treadmill. A Heroic tier PC will not normally find themselves trying to defeat a horde of Minotaurs in combat; but an Epic tier PC might (with the horde statted as a swarm). Again, that's progress. (An upper paragon tier PC who meets a single Minotaur is likely to be dealing with a minion, whom they will defeat more easily than was the case when they, at Heroic tier, confronted a standard opponent.)The 4e approach is more demanding on the GM, in the sense that it requires them to make sense of - and possibly to write up - different stat blocks for the same creature, reflecting its relationship to the PCs at various levels/tiers. The absence of this from 5e is part of what makes it a simpler game. But again, this is not about progress.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9285722, member: 42582"] I dunno, it seems fairly clear. Someone set it out upthread: it's about confining target numbers, and bonuses, within a certain range across the whole 20 levels of play. Which has the result that the demands on the GM are reduced: they can pull any element (monster, trap, suggested DC) out of the books of such things (DMG, MM, modules, etc) and the game will, in mathematical terms, keep chugging along. There are potential failure points that can result from this approach: pooling a group of goblins to stack up as many hp to wade through as (say) a dragon brings on its own also adds to the GM-side action economy (because each goblin gets its own action), which runs the risk of overwhelming the PCs. It follows, therefore, that combat encounter difficulty requires having regard to the number of opponents as well as their hp total. I think framing it in terms of "treadmill"/ "sense of progression" is a bit obscurantist. In 4e, the chance an Epic tier PC has to hit Orcus is roughly the same as the chance a Heroic tier PC has to hit a Minotaur. That's progress, not treadmill. A Heroic tier PC will not normally find themselves trying to defeat a horde of Minotaurs in combat; but an Epic tier PC might (with the horde statted as a swarm). Again, that's progress. (An upper paragon tier PC who meets a single Minotaur is likely to be dealing with a minion, whom they will defeat more easily than was the case when they, at Heroic tier, confronted a standard opponent.) The 4e approach is more [I]demanding[/I] on the GM, in the sense that it requires them to make sense of - and possibly to write up - different stat blocks for the same creature, reflecting its relationship to the PCs at various levels/tiers. The absence of this from 5e is part of what makes it a simpler game. But again, this is not about progress. [/QUOTE]

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