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<blockquote data-quote="Johnny Angel" data-source="post: 4185935" data-attributes="member: 13334">I just picked up the <a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=18837&amp;it=1" target="_blank">Grim Tales Game Mastering</a> .pdf, which details a method for judging encounter difficulty that appears to reverse-engineer the EL system.The idea is that the power of a creature is not its CR, but actually the square of that.&nbsp; Then the EL of an encounter is one plus twice the base 2 logarithm of the sum of the side's power levels. Perhaps someone can explain to me how this works, because with my weak math fu I'm getting that a CR 2 monster has an EL of 5.&nbsp; In any case, this does seem to characterize the model that WotC was going for, only they have it dumbed down to require only basic arithmetic operations.&nbsp; What I don't get is how they figure that for example the power progression of class levels is an exponential curve.&nbsp; From another thread, I get that the model is something like Power = Defense x Offense.&nbsp; So the model seems to assume that as you level you get an amount of extra ability that amounts to an additional point of defensive ability and an additional point of offensive ability.&nbsp; So, defensive is hit points and saves and offensive is BAB and iterative attacks?&nbsp; This is all a wildly approximate model, like in the joke about the mathematician whose system for winning horseraces begins with &quot;Assume the horses are identical and spherical&quot; is it not?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Johnny Angel, post: 4185935, member: 13334"] I just picked up the [url="http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=18837&it=1"]Grim Tales Game Mastering[/url] .pdf, which details a method for judging encounter difficulty that appears to reverse-engineer the EL system. The idea is that the power of a creature is not its CR, but actually the square of that. Then the EL of an encounter is one plus twice the base 2 logarithm of the sum of the side's power levels. Perhaps someone can explain to me how this works, because with my weak math fu I'm getting that a CR 2 monster has an EL of 5. In any case, this does seem to characterize the model that WotC was going for, only they have it dumbed down to require only basic arithmetic operations. What I don't get is how they figure that for example the power progression of class levels is an exponential curve. From another thread, I get that the model is something like Power = Defense x Offense. So the model seems to assume that as you level you get an amount of extra ability that amounts to an additional point of defensive ability and an additional point of offensive ability. So, defensive is hit points and saves and offensive is BAB and iterative attacks? This is all a wildly approximate model, like in the joke about the mathematician whose system for winning horseraces begins with "Assume the horses are identical and spherical" is it not? [/QUOTE]

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