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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 9231271" data-attributes="member: 907">I don't think the expectations of 3e were so much obfuscated as unplanned and emergent. For example, the Big Six turned out to mainly be items that (a) let you keep up with (and to be honest, get ahead of) the game math, and given the page count dedicated in the DMG to encounter and adventure day balance and how the intent is that each fight saps 20-25% of the party's resources (mainly hp and spells) there's no way the wand of cure light wounds was intentional. Many of the problems of 3e come from a two-step process:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Systematizing something.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">That system creating unexpected effects.</li> </ol>For example:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Any spell of up to 4th level can be put into a wand, and that wand will have a market price of spell level x caster level x 750 gp (assuming no expensive/XP components), and a creation cost of half that.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Wait, that means you can make wands of cure light wounds for 375 gp (or buy them for 750 gp), and that upsets the balance by quite a bit.<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">It also means that a wand of a 2nd level spell costs 6 times as much as one of a 1st level spell, making that gap pretty damn big. And that in turn means that a wand of a combat spell that's strong enough to be useful (say, one level lower than your max) will generally have too high a cost to be worth it (e.g. a wand of fireball (caster level 5) costing 11,250 gp, which is more than the expected wealth of a 5th level PC (9,000 gp) and more than half that of a 7th level PC (19,000 gp).</li> </ol></li> </ol>Another example:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Monsters should be built using similar rules as PCs, with creature type HD taking the place of class levels, and with ability scores modifying stats in just the same way as they do for PCs.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Wait, this 10 HD monster has way too few hp to make for a good challenge. How do I get more hp... right, I'll increase its Constitution score. Only, now its physical special abilities also have a really high DC and its Fortitude save is like 10 points higher than its Will save...</li> </ol>4e instead focused on what the goal was, and designed things toward that goal. You want a 5th level skirmisher? Well, then it should have about AC 19, attack +10 vs AC, and 48+Con hp. You don't need to worry about how it gets AC 19, that's just the AC it has. You can go with some justification if you want to, but that's the AC it has.</blockquote>

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