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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 4187898" data-attributes="member: 5143">Yeah, and because of the way that ELs were calculated.  If you were going by the book(especially writing published adventures like I was) then creating an encounter with 4 enemies all the same CR meant that in order to build a APL(average party level)+2 encounter(a somewhat difficult encounter), you needed to use monsters with a CR equal to the APL-2.So, if you have a 10th level party of 5 people then 4 CR 8 monsters were supposed to be decently hard.  Unfortunately, there is a diminishing return on monsters in 3rd Ed.  A CR 12 monster might, for instance, have an AC of 25 and +20 to hit.  A CR 8 monster might have an AC of 18 and +12 to hit.  7 points of AC and +8 to hit makes a HUGE difference in terms of how difficult an encounter is.  Especially when the PCs have an AC around 29 which lets the 4 monsters hit only on a 17+ while the one creature hits on a 9+.So, because of this, 4 CR 8 monsters are a LOT easier(in most cases) than 1 CR 12 monster.  Therefore, any DM who wanted to seriously challenge his players tended to use only one monster per encounter.Whereas, in 4e, 5 level 12 monsters is a level 12 encounter.  Plus, even if you replace one of the 5 monsters with 4 minions, their AC and bonus to hit doesn't go down.</blockquote>