Please someone tell me I missed something

[mearls]

The real question is how do you make sure one Level 4 monster is the same as another ... and I don't know how they do that.

The answer is that we don't assume that all level 4 monsters are equal. That's where roles come in.

For instance, a level 1 party might not have much trouble against a pair of level 4 artillery monsters, if those monsters don't have any buddies around to protect them. The party runs forward, corners the monsters, and beats them down.

On the other hand, a level 1 party that fights a level 4 brute and a pair of level 2 artillery monsters might find that the artillery guys proved more troublesome. Sure, the brute was dealing more damage, but it took the fighter so long to beat him down that the artillery guys ventilated the group with volley after volley.

The roles are an admission that not all monsters are created equal, while providing a classification scheme that shows DMs *how* they are unequal.

 

[Psion]

No, really. Some of us have never played Second Edition or whatever, so could you clue us in to this phantom debate you two are having?

Well, the assertion that seems to being made here is that 1e/2e creature XPs were a meaningful tool to balance encounters. They really never were even intended for that. All it was really intended for was to give a gross qualitative assessment of how tough the creature was and try to reward you on it on the assumption that a tougher encounter would give you more experience.

There was even a Dragon article that tried to guesstimate what an appropriate encounter was, but it never assumed that add up xp and look for a certain total was going to be good enough.

 

[Herobizkit]

2nd ed.: 400 xp for an Ogre (with 4+1 HD). 420 xp for an Elf (1 HD).