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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5879222" data-attributes="member: 54877">I think you definitely need the DM's guidelines, but I don't think having those on top of a "flat XP per creature" system is the best that can be done.  Look at it from the point of the 1 hour adventure. I've got, say 40 goblins, 20 giant rats, and a couple of tougher creatures to play with, using my planned XP budget. I end up spreading the goblins out a bit, over their lair, in ways that make sense. This means that the party, if they are careful, can pick a chunk of them off as stragglers. But those stragglers are still worth more XP than some lone goblin you meet elsewhere!  The threat of 40 goblins is that they get stirred up, realize they are under major assault, and then "enough of them" fall on the party from all directions. The more goblins you have, the more likely that the big threat can materialize. This is more important than having "another set of goblins". If 20 goblins is the threat, then the rest are worth something for being sentries, fodder, etc.--but that isn't true if you find them 4 in room A, and then 5 in far distance room B.  And then with numbers based on that adventure, you can more simply and intelligently apply those DM guidelines. Instead of, "Did the 2 goblins in the anteroom pose any threat, while the 3 in the barracks sleeping took too long to join, hmm, what's the modifier for that?"--you get, "I had 40 gobins. Of the 10 sentries, did any one of them do their job and let a big block of goblins fall on the party? And if not, was this due to something the party did, or just me or the adventure screwing up?" That is, did the 40 goblins magnify or diminish their overall challenge by placement and usage?</blockquote>

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