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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5919132" data-attributes="member: 42582">But if every PC in the group is like this fighter, then the only upshot will be that - in order to keep the game interesting - the GM will build higher level challenges. That's what I do in my 4e game! (And we're at mid-Paragon without Expertise feats.)Much more important, in my view, than worrying too much about what's the baseline and what's a bonus, is to make it mechanically viable for PCs with differing levels of ability at a given activity to meaningfully participate in the same encounter involving that ability. If encounters can't tolerate significant variation among PC abilities, then once one PC gets a magic sword all the other PCs will need one too, or else the play of the game will break down. And you don't make this issue go away simply by stipulating that the magic sword is a special bonus, or is an expected part of advancement.A game like Rolemaster uses the "rocket-tag" strategy for making participation by PCs with signficantly different abilities viable - because even a PC with a high attack bonus can low roll on a crit, and even a PC with a low defence bonus can survive a luckily low crit roll and then retaliate with a luckily high crit roll. And there are other features as well, such as wounding rules which mean that even those with good abilities can easily find themselves debuffed down to lower levels.Which mean that it is completely viable, in a mid-level RM game, to have a wizard with a +20 body development bonus (meaning that a single sword hit will knock him/her unconscious) adventuring alongside a fighter with a +100 body development bonus (meaning that the fighter will only rarely be knocked unconscious by bruising or blood loss, but rather - if s/he drops - will do so because of a single serious wound). And to have a character with a +80 attack bonus adventure alongside another character with a +100 attack bonus. The second character will be noticeably better in combat, but the first character will still make a meaningful contribution, and presumably will make other contributions in other parts of the game (doing whatever it is that s/he is able to do in virtue of having spent fewer build resources on a high attack bonus).As far as combat is concerned, AD&D is more like RM than is 3E or 4e, in part because NPC and monster ACs are generally lower across the board, and in part because damage output does not grow so significantly with level. But AD&D still has big THACO and hit point disparities.</blockquote>

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