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<blockquote data-quote="Tequila Sunrise" data-source="post: 4974026" data-attributes="member: 40398">Look at this from a game design PoV: D&amp;D is a level based game. Different things of the same level are supposed to have a certain degree of equivalence.&nbsp; To write a level-based game where that degree of equivalence changes from level to level is fundamentally misleading: The whole point of a level-based system is to be able to glance at two stat blocks and instantly know how equivalent they are in power; not to glance at two stat blocks and then have to think 'well, they're both the same level, so the monster is actually meant for higher level PCs...' if WotC had intended higher level PCs to fight lower level monsters, they would have mentioned it somewhere. Or, more likely, they would have simply made higher level monsters less powerful. (By lowering monster attacks and defenses by 1 per sub-tier, for example.)Now look at this from an in-game PoV: levels don't exist because they're a rules-construct. No, there aren't as many epic challenges in-game as there are heroic challenges, but when has this kind of logistical information ever been relevant to D&amp;D adventurers? Do epic adventurers grind through endless hordes of mundane kobolds before fighting Tiamat? Do heroic adventurers have to avoid 1,000 odd encounters with ancient dragons and hordes of kobolds before finding that one encounter with just a few kobolds that they can handle? No, of course not! The DM tailors encounters to the PCs using metagame information: monsters of X level are good challenges for PCs of X level. if you understand this, why would you think that in-game information (less epic monsters) would hedge out metagame information (level X = level X) at higher levels?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tequila Sunrise, post: 4974026, member: 40398"] Look at this from a game design PoV: D&D is a level based game. Different things of the same level are supposed to have a certain degree of equivalence. To write a level-based game where that degree of equivalence changes from level to level is fundamentally misleading: The whole point of a level-based system is to be able to glance at two stat blocks and instantly know how equivalent they are in power; not to glance at two stat blocks and then have to think 'well, they're both the same level, so the monster is actually meant for higher level PCs...' if WotC had intended higher level PCs to fight lower level monsters, they would have mentioned it [i]somewhere[/i]. Or, more likely, they would have simply made higher level monsters less powerful. (By lowering monster attacks and defenses by 1 per sub-tier, for example.) Now look at this from an in-game PoV: levels don't exist because they're a rules-construct. No, there aren't as many epic challenges in-game as there are heroic challenges, but when has this kind of logistical information ever been relevant to D&D adventurers? Do epic adventurers grind through endless hordes of mundane kobolds before fighting Tiamat? Do heroic adventurers have to avoid 1,000 odd encounters with ancient dragons and hordes of kobolds before finding that one encounter with just a few kobolds that they can handle? No, of course not! The DM tailors encounters to the PCs using metagame information: monsters of X level are good challenges for PCs of X level. if you understand this, why would you think that in-game information (less epic monsters) would hedge out metagame information (level X = level X) at higher levels? [/QUOTE]

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