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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 5392706" data-attributes="member: 58197">3E characters are designed to roughly double in power every 2 levels (emphasis on "roughly"). 4E characters double in power every 4 levels.If you assume that a 1st-level character in 4E is the rough equivalent, power-wise, of a 5th-level character in 3E, then 30th level in 4E is slightly behind 20th level in 3E. And that's just in terms of raw combat munchkinry. The utility magic available to 3E characters (which is really what makes high-level play unmanageable) even at mid-levels dwarfs anything in 4E.Of course, a large part of 3E's rapid scaling comes from magic items. The "Christmas tree effect" multiplies a high-level 3E character's power many times over. Constitution boosters provide a hit point boost that increases at a quadratic rate. Strength boosters are layered on top of weapon enhancement bonuses, and both get doubled or tripled by Improved Critical or the keen property. Weapons with elemental mods then stack on even more damage.Also, this assumes reasonably optimized characters and a mix of classes. Fighters fall behind the power curve at the high levels, but the spellslingers more than make up for it.</blockquote>