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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 4068538" data-attributes="member: 3146">That's designer marketing BS. Since the first 3e games, 3e combats quite regularly had more than one monster. (The first two Living Greyhawk modules for 3rd edition--Dragonscales at Morningtide and River of Blood both featured multi-opponent battles ranging from three to seven opponents per party memmber; late 3.5 modules like Red Hand of Doom also typically pit multiple monsters against the PCs). Conversely, in the 4e previews, they have anounced solo and elite monsters where the PCs are designed to outnumber the monsters. So, 3rd edition never really was only single monster encounters (module design doesn't even appear to have been biased towards single monster encounters). Neither is 4th edition exclusively multi-monster set piece battles.The only real difference that I can tell from the previews is that 4th edition is trying to make it easier to design multiple opponent encounters by giving monsters handy labels like skirmisher, lurker, etc that tell DMs how they are supposed to use the monsters and by changing the way that CR/monster level works so that the math is easiest at one creature per PC. Whether or not that will actually work out any simpler than CR when you want one elite boss monster (1/2 PCs), a couple challenging monsters, a group of mooks, and a weak monster who makes the other monsters all work better is an open question.And, long term, whether the designers will be any better at assigning monster levels than they have proven to be at assigning CR is also yet to be seen. (My guess is that they won't be).</blockquote>

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