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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6768756" data-attributes="member: 37579">I just finished up a Pathfinder game. Skull & Shackles, the pirate campaign. Near the end there were a lot of fights with mooks. These were meant to be small little threats that added up to be a real challenge. But the way the "math" of the system's CR mechanic worked, they had to be 3-4 levels behind the players. Which meant their AC and to hit numbers dropped substantially. They couldn't hit 75% of the time - especially the tank - but because they were still level 9, they had lots and lots of hitpoints. So they stuck around the battlefield doing nothing for a long time. In contrast, the big bad was +4 levels about the party to survive longer. So they couldn't hit 75% of the time, and he could only really miss on a 2 or 3. In 4e the fight would have been different. The mooks would have been minions. Which means one hitpoint but they're this strange gamist concept of a level 12-14 pirate that can only take a single hit. They're the elite crew of the pirate king and have great defenses, but somehow less life than a level 1 kobold. And they still really only work at that one level band. If adapting to 5e, that fight (and whole campaign) could have been much easier. I wouldn't have needed to put the party against classed monsters just because the desired monster was a couple levels too low. The mooks could be CR 5 creatures and still have a chance to hit. The boss could be much higher level but the PCs would still have hit a non-annoying amount of times. Prior to the example S&S campaign referenced above, my group did another AP where the mook math was less obvious and there were far more at-level monsters at play. Because they were always fighting creatures at their level, they bonuses didn't really matter because the bonuses they got and the bonuses the enemies got advanced at the same rate. This was really evident in 4e, with it's tighter math. All the progression was really a Red Queen's Race. You effectively got a +1 to everything every level, between proficiency, stat bumps, magic gear, and the expected Expertise feat. Which was exactly the same rate of progression as the monsters, who got their level as a bonus. So, really, you never got better at hitting. You could strip away all the bonuses to attack and defenses and keep the same static numbers at level 1 and the game would functionally play the same. Which, really, is what they did with 5e....5e is about your characters being able to do cooler things, take more hits, and deal more damage without the numbers going up for no reason than the numbers going up. There's a few ways to emphasis growing power in the characters. First, have them fight a really badass monster. That makes you feel cool. Then, have the NPCs of the world react to the deed. Make the players feel like big goddamn heroes, no matter what the character sheet says. It's also possible to take a monster that hurt the PCs and almost wiped them at first or second level and throw 3 or 4 of them at the PCs now. (Depending on level.)</blockquote>

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