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<blockquote data-quote="Bagpuss" data-source="post: 9286484" data-attributes="member: 3987">Not sure that's the main reason, it is more so by gaming the bonuses you get you don't make things impossible.For example in 3rd Ed you could by combining various bonuses to AC for example (High Armour AC, natural armor bonus, Deflection bonus, dodge bonus, sacred bonus, moral bonus, dexterity bonus, shield bonus, enchantment bonus, etc) design characters that were virtually impossible for some monsters to hit, particular if you had say a group of lower CR monsters. Sure all those modifiers make the math look like you are adding a load of stuff, but most of them would be permanent bonuses so you only needed to calculate it once the maths wasn't hard. What was hard was the system mastery needed to build an optimised character, and balancing the encounter if some characters are optimised and others aren't.So you had limited encounter design options, you had to put in a High CR monster to hit that one character, but then action economy would screw that one large monster over, or the un-optimized characters would get flattened by it, because their AC was 10 or more points lower. Basically encounter designs often became boring, because the maths forced them to be that way.With flatter progression and less ways to boost the base values, lower level monsters remain a threat for characters for longer so you can build more interesting encounters. It also means players don't have to know how best to exploit the system to get every bonus possible in order to still be effective, because the optimal character will only be a few of points different at most, rather than a 10 or more points swing.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Bagpuss, post: 9286484, member: 3987"] Not sure that's the main reason, it is more so by gaming the bonuses you get you don't make things impossible. For example in 3rd Ed you could by combining various bonuses to AC for example (High Armour AC, natural armor bonus, Deflection bonus, dodge bonus, sacred bonus, moral bonus, dexterity bonus, shield bonus, enchantment bonus, etc) design characters that were virtually impossible for some monsters to hit, particular if you had say a group of lower CR monsters. Sure all those modifiers make the math look like you are adding a load of stuff, but most of them would be permanent bonuses so you only needed to calculate it once the maths wasn't hard. What was hard was the system mastery needed to build an optimised character, and balancing the encounter if some characters are optimised and others aren't. So you had limited encounter design options, you had to put in a High CR monster to hit that one character, but then action economy would screw that one large monster over, or the un-optimized characters would get flattened by it, because their AC was 10 or more points lower. Basically encounter designs often became boring, because the maths forced them to be that way. With flatter progression and less ways to boost the base values, lower level monsters remain a threat for characters for longer so you can build more interesting encounters. It also means players don't have to know how best to exploit the system to get every bonus possible in order to still be effective, because the optimal character will only be a few of points different at most, rather than a 10 or more points swing. [/QUOTE]

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