Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9572319" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Very importantly: This is actually covered in the 4e DMG!People love to trot out the claim that, because 4e has a clear and spelled-out power curve (rather than a mystical voodoo power curve hidden behind intentional designer obfuscation...which really isn't that hard to figure out regardless!), it expects that absolutely 100% of combats are always perfectly level-locked to the party's level. If you hit level 5, then all the level 4 goblins you would have faced will somehow spontaneously grow to level 5.THE BOOKS DO NOT SAY THIS! THEY SAY EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE!The books make clear that a generally satisfying adventure experience will, usually, include mostly combats that are at or close to the party's level. E.g. most combats will be (very roughly) within a Level+/-2 range. That's a pretty reasonable statement--just as it would be pretty boring to always fight level 2 goblins no matter what level your character was, and both boring and frustrating to always face off against level 15+ threats regardless of your character level. There will be a general, loose trend favoring fights within that very rough five-level range.BUT!There must also be some fights to spice things up--in both directions. Sometimes, it's a great idea to throw a fight that is above the PCs' weight--perhaps even up to level+8 in 4e, which is very roughly about the same as throwing a fight designed for characters six levels higher in 5e. Such a fight can be really really scary, and remind the players that they aren't gods among men (at least, not yet!) Likewise, bringing back monsters you fielded seven levels ago that were kinda scary then (say, level+3) but are pushovers now (e.g. level-4) is a great way to show the players how they've grown. They can see that they're shrugging off blows that used to be dire, that they're skewering opponents who used to be tough.Likewise, it is good to have high-level characters occasionally adventure through low-level areas, so they can see how their skills are now more than a match for challenges that used to make them sweat. The 4e books are quite explicit that this is part of how you make an exciting and memorable campaign. They are, further, very specific in saying that if absolutely everything is always "perfectly balanced" (by which they mean, keeping in perfect lockstep with the party's level), then things will get boring.The books could not be more clear that this is a BAD thing to do, and that the correct and good thing to do is to make sure you include variety and allow space for surprise and variation within your campaign.Something 5e is struggling with right now--as noted in another active thread--is that progression can be hard to feel when the numbers (except HP/damage) remain nearly static for long stretches of time. If going at the loosely recommended pace of about 4 sessions per character level on average, that means it takes three months to see your proficiency bonus increase by a mere 1. With magic items also being so heavily agitated against (even though I know the magic item haters are a minority!), some characters may go six months or more with hardly any change at all. That can be a real problem.I fully understand and appreciate that concerns about numbers getting too big matter. They do. I do not dismiss them. But they aren't the only concern, and as with far too many things 5e, it threw the baby out with the bathwater in many ways. Those ways often bore out with great subtlety, such that it's taken time and reflection for people to notice. But it definitely seems to me that they are noticing.</blockquote>

Verification