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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9193314" data-attributes="member: 42582">I used 33rd level Orcus in an encounter with 29th level PCs. And at the other end of the game, I used a 4th level Goblin underboss against 2nd level PCs. I think generally going more than 2 or 3 levels below the PCs makes for fairly easy opponents, and going more than 3 or 4 levels above is pointless - you're better of rebuilding the standard as an elite or the elite as a solo.In terms of overall encounter difficulty, at Heroic I found that 4 levels over the PCs makes for a pretty challenging and involved encounter. By epic tier that is more like 8 levels over: paragon and epic tier PCs give their players a tremendous depth of resources to draw on.Well, a RPG has basically two components - its fiction and its mechanics. Higher level PCs in 4e grow in respect of both components. Their mechanics become increasingly complex - the depth of resources that I referred to - and that allows players to pull of more interesting mechanical performances.If the table follows the advice found in the PHB and DMG under &quot;tiers of play&quot;, the fiction also becomes more complex and involved: both the local/tactical fiction (eg as PCs get higher level they can fly, turn invisible, walk through walls, teleport great distances, return from the dead, etc) and also the more global and strategic fiction (eg the places the PCs travel, their allies and enemies, the stakes of their conflicts, etc).In this respect, I do think that higher level 4e characters are more amazing.I do think this is an area where 4e modules did not deliver on the promise of the 4e rulebooks. Here's an old post I made about that:</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9193314, member: 42582"] I used 33rd level Orcus in an encounter with 29th level PCs. And at the other end of the game, I used a 4th level Goblin underboss against 2nd level PCs. I think generally going more than 2 or 3 levels below the PCs makes for fairly easy opponents, and going more than 3 or 4 levels above is pointless - you're better of rebuilding the standard as an elite or the elite as a solo. In terms of overall encounter difficulty, at Heroic I found that 4 levels over the PCs makes for a pretty challenging and involved encounter. By epic tier that is more like 8 levels over: paragon and epic tier PCs give their players a tremendous depth of resources to draw on. Well, a RPG has basically two components - its fiction and its mechanics. Higher level PCs in 4e grow in respect of both components. Their mechanics become increasingly complex - the depth of resources that I referred to - and that allows players to pull of more interesting mechanical performances. If the table follows the advice found in the PHB and DMG under "tiers of play", the fiction also becomes more complex and involved: both the local/tactical fiction (eg as PCs get higher level they can fly, turn invisible, walk through walls, teleport great distances, return from the dead, etc) and also the more global and strategic fiction (eg the places the PCs travel, their allies and enemies, the stakes of their conflicts, etc). In this respect, I do think that higher level 4e characters are more amazing. I do think this is an area where 4e modules did not deliver on the promise of the 4e rulebooks. Here's an old post I made about that: [/QUOTE]

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