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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 5119715" data-attributes="member: 5143">It is against the 4e concept, but that's because the 4e concept is based in math.The formula that considers difficulty between the PCs and monsters has a couple of facets:1. Total HP of PCs2. HPs of individual PCs3. Defenses of PCs4. Attack bonuses of PCs5. Which defenses the PCs target6. Damage dealt by PCs7. Effects dealt by PCs8. Total HPs of enemies in an encounter9. Individual HPs of enemies10. Enemies attack bonuses11. Enemies defenses12. Damage dealt by monsters13. Effects dealt by monstersWhen PCs go up levels, 1-7 increases.  This means that both the chance to hit and the amount of damage dealt on the hit increase.  Also, the chance that the PCs will BE hit goes down and the amount of hits they can take before they lose goes up.Assuming the 4e baseline of both sides having a 50% chance to hit, this means that after 8 levels, PCs will have gained +6 to hit, +6 to damage, +6 to all defenses, and 40 hp(these are acquired through a combination of feats, gaining new powers that do more damage, increase of stats, and the +1 per 2 levels to most things).This means that PCs now have an 80% chance to hit with their abilities while the monsters have a 20% chance to hit with theirs.  Also, the average PC goes from 8 damage a round to 14 damage a round.  Essentially this means that a 5 person party does 56 damage per round on average.  The enemies still do an average of 8 damage each, so due to their low attack bonuses they do 8 damage total to the PCs each round on average.The average 1st level monster has 24 hitpoints.  The average 1st level PC has 24 as well.  So a group of 5 level 1 monsters has 120 hitpoints total.  So does a group of 1st level PCs.  A group of 9th level PCs has 320 hps.Given the numbers above, it means that a 9th level party against a group of 1st level monsters will take 14 damage total before defeating the enemies with a nearly 0 percent chance of being defeated themselves or even having one of their group be in danger.  The party can also face nearly 23 of these encounters in a day without even using a single heal.But now, you are saying "Level 9 is a little high to still be fighting 1st level monsters, I was thinking more like level 5."  Fair Enough.  Let's half all those bonuses.  To make a long story short: 7.5 encounters before they need to use a single heal.  With healing surges this generally means at least 15 or 20 encounters before the PCs have to rest and no one encounter does enough damage to lower a single PCs to 0 hitpoints, even if all the enemies gang up on one PC.In other words, the math says that a group of level 5 PCs cannot possibly lose to a group of level 1 enemies assuming the odds hold out.  And that's without any magic items at all.So that's why you scale monsters as the PCs scale, to at least keep some possibility of losing.  Generally you keep monsters within +/- 3 levels to keep the chances of winning about the same.  Since 4e already has a bunch of things stacked in the PCs favor(action points, teamwork, more choice in abilities, etc), I generally give that a +1 level bump so -2 level to +4 levels from the PCs is where the math holds out.  Beyond that, the scaling causes either an instant win or an instant loss for the party.And if you use monsters from the group but don't give magic items to the PCs then the scale slides down about 1 every 4 levels.  This means that by level 20, PCs with no magic items can only have a worthwhile fight against level 13 to level 19 enemies.  By 30 the group can only fight level 21 to level 27 enemies.</blockquote>

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