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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8716152" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Unequivocally. 4e was better-balanced than 5e for essentially its entire run. The worst points of 4e's balance, such as the initial Stealth rules or some of the early math behind Skill Challenges, were comparable to the typical level of balance in 5e.The vast majority of updates to 4e, again with noteworthy exceptions like the above, were to fix small issues, usually involving individual powers or features that were over- or under-performing to an unacceptable degree. For example, there was a Ranger power that allowed for a potentially infinite cascade of extra attacks as originally written; it was given errata so it could not do that anymore. (I fear I don't know the name of the power but I can go looking later.) Or small tweaks to monsters that likewise weren't quite working as intended. Since there were a lot of feats, powers, and creatures published for 4e, there were many such small tweaks. Many groups would never notice the vast, vast majority of these changes because they wouldn't have more than 6 classes at the table anyway, inherently making the majority of the changes irrelevant to that table, and DMs rarely use exclusively premade monsters as it is regardless of edition.Even the difference between MM1 and MM3/MV is much, much more minor than most people think. That is, the monsters from MM1/2 we're designed to be too "safe"; the designers had wanted combats to be a little bit longer so there could be more total moments of tension, more opportunities for sudden turnarounds or surprises that have to be managed. That ended up not being what most players wanted. Instead, players wanted somewhat shorter (say, ~4 rounds instead of ~6) combats with fewer but more intense moments of tension. So they adjusted the monster math slightly: reduced HP, slightly reduced defenses, increased damage output. Both the early and late monster design could be simply summarized, but because the MM3 math was much more popular, only that one got the famous "business card" treatment:<img src="http://blogofholding.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/mm3businessfront.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />If you follow the formulae on this card, you will produce a solid, effective monster for whatever level you have chosen that monster to be. These formulae will work quite consistently across essentially the entire spectrum of 4e play, from 1st to 30th.The one risk is, if you use 4e math to make a low-level version of a high-level creature, you can create situations where the conditions inflicted by that creature or the special characteristics of that creature gain outsized importance. This is what happened to anyone who tried to down-scale creatures like the dracolich or needlefang drake swarm. The former has tons of nasty conditions which a very low-level party may not be able to handle. The latter, being a swarm, has several defensive benefits that make it very strong, and despite being level 2 by nature, it has powerful and synergistic abilities that make it rather dangerous. More or less, conditions are only lightly considered by the monster design rules, so one should take care about their use with very low-level creatures where characters are somewhat more fragile and have far fewer tools for responding to a monster's mechanics.Otherwise? 4e is an extremely well-balanced game which can genuinely field monsters anywhere from level-7 (anything more than that would probably be boring...but the occasional cathartic curbstomp is nice) to level+5 or so (anything higher is unlikely to be fun in a vacuum)...and that's without doing anything to play with the conditions to make things more interesting. Just using prewritten creatures in relatively basic non-flat terrain (since there should rarely be totally flat, featureless, empty planes in 4e combats, as that will usually be not very interesting.)Some examples of ways to spice up combats and potentially make a "weak" combat challenging (the first four being examples that actually occurred in games I played in):<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Persistent effect across the battlefield which forces players to make a save or else act as though they are "marked" by all of their allies. This means, unless you include at least one ally in your attacks, you take a -2 penalty to attack, and eat some damage if you successfully hit one of the opponents.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Minion creatures which pop up (in this case, they were lorewise mechanical turrets popping out of the floor, but mechanically the DM told is afterward that they were some kind of spore creature IIRC), perform an attack...and then switch to a new location at the end of their turns.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Solo creature which physically changes state (e.g. gets enraged) when Bloodied...and then instead of dying at 0 HP, it immediately transforms into a whole different creature with full HP, creating a back-to-back encounter (so no encounter power refresh.) And, of course, more effects when this second form is bloodied. I still to this day fondly remember fighting GREGOR the duplicitous guide.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A fight inside a gigantic biomechanical kaiju's gullet, with slick "floors" pushing you toward areas of corrosive acid, forcing you to spend a move or minor action to stay in place to avoid the acid, and creating opportunities for forced movement.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Storming a tower on a cliff side, where the creatures in the tower can respond to your efforts. Having to conserve resources and exploit cover while the enemy rains down fire on you from a well-defended position can make even very weak enemies much more dangerous. (Plus, who doesn't love proving that Stormtroopers really suck at shooting?)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Tucker's kobolds! Straight-up. Using traps, terrain, preparation, and area denial, even a platoon of kobold minions can prove a major challenge to a party, despite each individual kobold literally going down in a single hit.</li> </ul>Point being, the encounter math gives you a solid starting point, from which you can creatively embellish with confidence (but not certainty!) because the system is so balanced and transparent. You know the expected difficulty without other factors, and you don't need to be a comprehensive master of every single game rule to see more or less what the effects of the above tweaks will be. Dice and unwise player choices may still force a retreat--I have seen it happen more than once while playing 4e--but you as DM can have a solid idea of how much stuff you're throwing at your players.</blockquote>

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