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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ericlboyd" data-source="post: 3103180" data-attributes="member: 7000">In many ways, it's a function of the monster selection in the Monster Manual. (This is a point I made a while back in a thread that shall not be named. This is the condensed version.)Dungeon is always pressed for space. A big chunk of space is taken up by stat blocks. The only way to avoid stat blocks is to use monsters straight out of the Monster Manual, without modification. Any significant modifications require printing a full stat block. These are the "rules" set by Paizo, which I think make a lot of sense in that they keep the adventures accessible to everyone.Therefore, a successful Dungeon adventure author who would like to design an adventure has to think about how many stat blocks he or she will include vs. how many 'default Monster Manual' monsters he or she will include. The more 'default Monster Manual' monsters included, the more room for the adventure and the less word count spent on stat blocks.Therefore, assuming Dungeon's successful authors know this (implicitly or explicity), a fair amount of Dungeon design is driven by what's available in the Monster Manual. (The Paizo staff certainly knows this and designs the APs accordingly.)If you do an analysis of the monsters in the Monster Manual for each CR (which is a fair approximation of appropriate threats for each EL) sorted by type, you end up with the following inescapable conclusion: the Monster Manual largely supports battles against dragons (20%) and extraplanar creatures (22%) in Dungeon's high level slot. Therefore, most high level adventures printed in dungeon are likely to be "against the fiends" or "slay the dragon" type of adventures. If you look at Shackled City, Age of Worms, or Savage Tide, they reflect this distribution.The only way to fix this problem would be to add a new Monster Manual to the core that focused on non-extraplanar high level threats. IMO, such an additional core book might end up looking a lot like the MM4, with its focus on high level NPC drow, yuan-ti, orcs, ogres, etc.I've attached the spreadsheet I did a while back which lays out the evidence.--Eric</blockquote>

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