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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SweeneyTodd" data-source="post: 4258513" data-attributes="member: 9391">There's not much point in picking at the individual issues when you can just boil it down to a design theme:It's a game. There are game-y mechanics. I think that's pretty cool and I'm looking forward to trying them out, but it's worth saying that, generally, that's why some of this stuff is the way it is.Level 26 minions don't exist in a vacuum -- everything is relative to the PCs, because, well, the game is about the PCs. If you were to encounter a Lich Vestige when you're level 15-18, hey, maybe he should have the same abilities but full HP. That's because the DM's role when creating and balancing encounters is to come up with a mix of monsters with different roles that is plausible within the game world. The examples in the MM are all about small units that you can believe would work together, while also being mechanically unified. (So the fact that there are some minion grunts up front guarding the ranged attackers has a mechanical and an in-game reason for being that way.) The mechanical relevance of an "encounter" is actually pretty handy, I think, for helping the DM come up with the in-fiction relevance of the encounter -- a physically weak necromancer surrounds himself with cannon fodder zombies for safety, for instance. So when you look at a lvl 26 minion in a vacuum, there's no mechanical justification to ever do that, so if you want it to make sense in-fiction you might as well change it up (as the DMG/MM suggest) so that it's an encounter that both works well as a mechanical challenge and an in-game event.Similarly, there's not a listed in-game justification for why some powers are daily vs. encounter vs. at-will except that, mechanically, that's what the characters can do, so in-game that's what they can do. The players or the DM are free to come up with an in-fiction reason it works this way, and it can differ from campaign to campaign. So is there a way to justify all the stuff some folks have issues with? Absolutely. Is it mandated or provided by the game, beyond saying the DM should make sure he's giving the players and himself an environment they enjoy playing in? No, that's left up to the people at the table.It's just a matter of the focus being on providing a mechanical system that people can hang a fictional world on. It doesn't necessarily work by itself as a simulation of a fictional reality, because it doesn't try to.</blockquote>

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