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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ivan Cannon" data-source="post: 6550458" data-attributes="member: 6791686">Thanks for the comment. Yeah I agree - it all comes down to personal preference - both the DMs and players.I remember 1st Ed AD&D was like that. Your Party Level was irrelevant and you just rolled up what ever Random Wilderness Monster. There's good and bad points about that. I do remember reading somewhere though from one of the early designers of D&D that the reason for that it was a left over from OD&D days where travelling over land was supposed to be very hard and dangerous but you weren't expected to be out doing that until you were a much higher level as the intent was for you to be manly underground in dungeons. As each edition of D&D has come that philosophy and game intent has gone out the window so outdoor wilderness travel is something integral to the game from the first level to the highest level of the characters's life. The reason I decided to make the tables this way, and I did consider both ways, was in the end I decided that a Wandering Monster Table that doesn't take Party Level into account seems to be a bit more chaotic. When your playing a specific adventure and they have included Wandering Monsters - they have selected ones suitable to the Level of the adventure both for fairness and to keep the encounters exciting. As such, I went with the idea to avoid making travelling from adventure to adventure more dangerous than the actual adventures themselves, but at the same time having travel be a challenge that must be planned for. The issue is both high level characters running into trivial creatures for an encounter - it's just a waste of time for the players and DM - and low level characters being wiped out against an enemy that the players KNOW they have no chance - that's depressing for the players. I didn't want to have a TPK just from a Wandering Monster. Having said that, I also wanted some Wandering Monster encounters to be hard, some easy and some just right. There is a wide enough range in the types and numbers of Monsters appearing that I hope I have achieved that. Some of the encounters that the party may face from these tables will be VERY hard and some will be on the EASY side. But they should all be doable and exciting enough.Of course, for DMs that prefer the more traditional way of doing it, pick a random column for Average Party Level - you can then in theory get ANY encounter for the party.</blockquote>

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