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<blockquote data-quote="kenada" data-source="post: 8150005" data-attributes="member: 70468">You make a good point. I think those items need to be there because they’re kind of iconic — people who have played D&amp;D expect +1 longswords to exist however boring they might be — but they affect the math, and that has implications for the system.I’ve said it before, but I really wish Paizo had included a knob in the encounter building guidelines. My group isn’t good at tactics, so I switched the benchmark for moderate encounters from party level to party level − 1. That seems intuitively okay, but we’ll see how it goes in practice at our one-naughty word this weekend. Anyway, that should also go for items. If you don’t want to hand out certain items (for whatever reason) like striking runes, then you should be able to shift your expectations and continue to benefit from the tight math.Has anyone done the math comparing a party with striking runes to one without? They’re obviously good, but how good? If we can measure that, then we can devise rules of thumb for adjusting the guidelines when one wants not to use those items. You can just say, “a moderate encounter for a 6th level party with no striking runes is actually two level 5 creatures,” and the math still just works. Proficiency Without Level adjusts the math, so I don’t think this is impossible.Another alternative is the overall XP values remain the same, but you scale the creature selection math. Having level-specific versions of that seems like it would be more cluttered and less modular (because you would need versions for both core and PWL games).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="kenada, post: 8150005, member: 70468"] You make a good point. I think those items need to be there because they’re kind of iconic — people who have played D&D expect [I]+1 longswords[/I] to exist however boring they might be — but they affect the math, and that has implications for the system. I’ve said it before, but I really wish Paizo had included a knob in the encounter building guidelines. My group isn’t good at tactics, so I switched the benchmark for moderate encounters from party level to party level − 1. That seems intuitively okay, but we’ll see how it goes in practice at our one-naughty word this weekend. Anyway, that should also go for items. If you don’t want to hand out certain items (for whatever reason) like [I]striking runes[/I], then you should be able to shift your expectations and continue to benefit from the tight math. Has anyone done the math comparing a party with [I]striking runes[/I] to one without? They’re obviously good, but [I]how good[/I]? If we can measure that, then we can devise rules of thumb for adjusting the guidelines when one wants not to use those items. You can just say, “a moderate encounter for a 6th level party with no [I]striking runes[/I] is actually two level 5 creatures,” and the math still just works. Proficiency Without Level adjusts the math, so I don’t think this is [I]impossible[/I]. Another alternative is the overall XP values remain the same, but you scale the creature selection math. Having level-specific versions of that seems like it would be more cluttered and less modular (because you would need versions for both core and PWL games). [/QUOTE]

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