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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wulf Ratbane" data-source="post: 4189454" data-attributes="member: 94">I have two theories, and they're actually interrelated.1) The d20 is only so large. When you reach the point that the bonuses overwhelm any possible random result, the game doesn't feel right. 2) The higher level spells are populated with far more "Absolutes." (Save or Die spells, Immovable Objects, and Irresistible Forces.) If you ran a game without spellcasters of any kind, your sweet spot would last longer. For the record, I think the Sweet Spot ends right around 10th. Fifth level spells are a sea change. If your campaign was 13th level before you started to feel it, well... I'd say you were just cruising on post-orgasmic vibes for about 3 levels. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />You just needed to come down off the climactic high before you could see that coyote for what she was.I had quite a bit more to say about the Sweet Spot in the thread of the same name. If you can do a search for threads with title Sweet Spot and/or Quadratic Problem, with Wulf Ratbane, you should dig up some interesting... philosophy.I've been told by folks who have played 4e that much of it feels like it came out of the Sweet Spot thread...I am as guilty as anyone of letting my creative juices run wild with my better judgment. It happens.I have been intermittently chiseling away at this problem for a while now and Gary's passing gave me the opportunity to dig out my old 1e books, as well as the Rules Compendium. And in addition to some other interesting things it revealed (for example, if you take a look at the things they considered "extraordinary abilities," almost all of them would qualify as asymmetric game-breakers) it mainly occurred to me: I think it must be almost literally impossible that Gary Gygax was unfamiliar with Lanchester's Square Law. We are talking about a game born from military simulations. It's unthinkable that it didn't occur to Gary-- I just need to get a better understanding of how he dealt with it. (I would guess, mainly, by throwing level appropriate, equitable-power creatures at the party in appropriate numbers.)As for the SQRT (HP*damage/25) = CR, I think it is just an observation of emergence. I don't think there's a deliberate design behind that formula. It's definitely not going to work for every creature, and even when it hews "closely" to that model, the results are still not exact. The formula is going to take large numbers and spit out a number across such a small range that you're really aiming at some pretty big targets. I am still playing with the numbers there but in the meantime I am not sure it accounts for much more than a parlor trick.</blockquote>

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