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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5855843" data-attributes="member: 2067"><p>I think you're onto something. I think the problem might come in this:</p><p></p><p>XP can never be an accurate measure of a monster's challenge.</p><p></p><p>If XP is a precise measure of monster challenge, a monster alone should be worth less XP than a monster in a group, period. One orc? 25 XP. Four orcs? 100 XP each (or whatever). That's an issue with 4e right now: if you don't include the recommended quantity of critters, things get easier. </p><p></p><p>This is part of D&D's general problem of trying to measure an encounter's toughness by individual monsters therein. It's nearly impossible. Four mages with fireball in a small room are more challenging than four mages with fireball in an open field. A big solo monster is less challenging in a party with 3 strikers than the exact same XP quantity of minions. Two monsters with synergistic abilities (say, a skirmisher and a controller that can inhibit movement, or a lurker with insubstantial and a controller that imposes weakness) are a much bigger challenge than two other random monsters. A creature with Vulnerable Radiant is much less of a challenge in a party with a laser cleric than in a party full of martial characters. There's so many variables that affect an individual encounter that even in 4e (which probably gets it the most right), XP value is only a rough approximation. </p><p></p><p>So giving a precise measure of an individual entity's challenge is, clearly, a problem with no easy solution. To get it more accurate, you'd have to have a different XP total for every possible encounter, which is clearly a Sisyphean task: there are limitless possible encounters.</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure XP (or anything else) can be a measure of difficulty, reliably. It can be a rough approximation, but it can't get the details right.</p><p></p><p>So what if XP was a flexible reward, rather than a budget? What if the DM adjudicated the level of challenge overall, rather than with each specific monster? So the adventure guidelines would state that this is a Level 1 Adventure worth 300 XP, and the rules tell a DM what a level 1 Adventure's DC's an monster levels are, and the DM populates his adventure with as many skill checks and mosnters as he things should be "worth" that level of XP?</p><p></p><p>Since a DM is probably the best judge of what is actually a challenge for her particular party, I think that giving some broad guidelines and letting them figure out what happened might be a viable approach...perhaps...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 5855843, member: 2067"] I think you're onto something. I think the problem might come in this: XP can never be an accurate measure of a monster's challenge. If XP is a precise measure of monster challenge, a monster alone should be worth less XP than a monster in a group, period. One orc? 25 XP. Four orcs? 100 XP each (or whatever). That's an issue with 4e right now: if you don't include the recommended quantity of critters, things get easier. This is part of D&D's general problem of trying to measure an encounter's toughness by individual monsters therein. It's nearly impossible. Four mages with fireball in a small room are more challenging than four mages with fireball in an open field. A big solo monster is less challenging in a party with 3 strikers than the exact same XP quantity of minions. Two monsters with synergistic abilities (say, a skirmisher and a controller that can inhibit movement, or a lurker with insubstantial and a controller that imposes weakness) are a much bigger challenge than two other random monsters. A creature with Vulnerable Radiant is much less of a challenge in a party with a laser cleric than in a party full of martial characters. There's so many variables that affect an individual encounter that even in 4e (which probably gets it the most right), XP value is only a rough approximation. So giving a precise measure of an individual entity's challenge is, clearly, a problem with no easy solution. To get it more accurate, you'd have to have a different XP total for every possible encounter, which is clearly a Sisyphean task: there are limitless possible encounters. I'm not sure XP (or anything else) can be a measure of difficulty, reliably. It can be a rough approximation, but it can't get the details right. So what if XP was a flexible reward, rather than a budget? What if the DM adjudicated the level of challenge overall, rather than with each specific monster? So the adventure guidelines would state that this is a Level 1 Adventure worth 300 XP, and the rules tell a DM what a level 1 Adventure's DC's an monster levels are, and the DM populates his adventure with as many skill checks and mosnters as he things should be "worth" that level of XP? Since a DM is probably the best judge of what is actually a challenge for her particular party, I think that giving some broad guidelines and letting them figure out what happened might be a viable approach...perhaps... [/QUOTE]
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