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<blockquote data-quote="Mister Doug" data-source="post: 4294237" data-attributes="member: 66623">I would argue that PCs were always superhuman compared to average characters, back to AD&amp;D 1e with it &quot;zero-level&quot; commoners.&nbsp; I would also argue that the geometry issue is one of one abstraction being better than another. Does 3.5e present a world that has space warping every other step when you move diagonally? Of course not. Nor has either edition actually postulated a world composed of 5-foot squares, nor one where a stride for anyone is automatically 5 feet regardless of the person's height.And I would argue that balancing PCs and NPCs using th same mechanics ignores differences in resource mechanics. A broad array of abilities is good for a PC who is able to mix and match abilities over a work day. A PC needs only abilities for an encounter, and manages his resources (hit points, attack powers, etc.) in order to deal with different types of threats. This was acknowledged in every edition of D&amp;D to some extent, though less so in 3.x, which presented a semblance of equivalence between monsters and characters, but this equivalence was often poorly balanced due to the issues I mentioned or involved irrelevant data. This could lead to the conclusion that the well-intended plan for balance wasn't so good in practice.But the need for balance really depends on the game. In FATE 2.0, I would build opponents based only on traits most of the time. In T&amp;T, it's easier to use most monsters with just a MR 90% of the time, and in RQ, the fact that opponents have all the same traits as PCs makes running a big combat too daunting and difficult to track -- not that PCs will often survive against a large number of opponents. Only in fairly simple systems does using the same set of stats tend to work easily and smoothly from the DM side of things IME. Of course, 20 years ago when I quit playing D&amp;D, the lack of united monster and pc mechanics was one of the problems I would have listed, and one thing I thought was great about D&amp;D 3.0. I have changed my mind, but understand the reasons why people are bothered by this.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mister Doug, post: 4294237, member: 66623"] I would argue that PCs were always superhuman compared to average characters, back to AD&D 1e with it "zero-level" commoners. I would also argue that the geometry issue is one of one abstraction being better than another. Does 3.5e present a world that has space warping every other step when you move diagonally? Of course not. Nor has either edition actually postulated a world composed of 5-foot squares, nor one where a stride for anyone is automatically 5 feet regardless of the person's height. And I would argue that balancing PCs and NPCs using th same mechanics ignores differences in resource mechanics. A broad array of abilities is good for a PC who is able to mix and match abilities over a work day. A PC needs only abilities for an encounter, and manages his resources (hit points, attack powers, etc.) in order to deal with different types of threats. This was acknowledged in every edition of D&D to some extent, though less so in 3.x, which presented a semblance of equivalence between monsters and characters, but this equivalence was often poorly balanced due to the issues I mentioned or involved irrelevant data. This could lead to the conclusion that the well-intended plan for balance wasn't so good in practice. But the need for balance really depends on the game. In FATE 2.0, I would build opponents based only on traits most of the time. In T&T, it's easier to use most monsters with just a MR 90% of the time, and in RQ, the fact that opponents have all the same traits as PCs makes running a big combat too daunting and difficult to track -- not that PCs will often survive against a large number of opponents. Only in fairly simple systems does using the same set of stats tend to work easily and smoothly from the DM side of things IME. Of course, 20 years ago when I quit playing D&D, the lack of united monster and pc mechanics was one of the problems I would have listed, and one thing I thought was great about D&D 3.0. I have changed my mind, but understand the reasons why people are bothered by this. [/QUOTE]

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