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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 3701022" data-attributes="member: 1645">While older editions did not have explicit wealth guidelines, they nonetheless had expectations about how much treasure was appropriate and how much gear a character should have at various levels.The larger difference is that many old-school games involved low-level characters who were expected to die in their pursuit of treasure, not young heroes destined for greatness.Over the years, D&D's designers have made a number of odd decisions about how "skills" (and other qualities) improve as a character progresses from level to level.Look at the difference in a company of archers who are first-level vs. second-level Fighters.  If you had no preconceived notions, what would you expect of "better" archers?  Above all, you'd expect them to hit their targets more often.  Perhaps the last thing on your list would be that they'd be more durable.  Yet they have twice the hit points and only hit their targets, say, 45% of the time instead of 40%.Now we add a skill system that recognizes that starting characters should have skills commensurate with a childhood and adolescence spent in training, or 4 ranks in the appropriate skills -- except for fighting, where a young knight or archer still has a BAB of +1.  Anyway, the difference years of training, an entire apprenticeship, makes is +4, or +20%.  Twin brothers who apprentice to different masters of different trades aren't much better or worse than one another at their respective trades.  OddLevels have also gone up considerably, increasing hit points considerably without increasing damage nearly as much.This has also changed the flavor of the game considerably.  It used to be that a sword hit was disabling half the time.  Now it's a good start -- and the first attack is never lethal, especially not when 0 hit points no longer means dead.I don't think that has anything to do with political values; it's about game design.  Choices have costs and benefits, and if a choice is early inferior -- it's "dominated" by another strategy -- then there's no point in including it in the game.I think it only makes sense to measure how tough potential foes are, and it only makes sense to use the same scale we use for player characters.  "This CR-4 monster is roughly as tough as a typical level-4 character with the expected level of gear."</blockquote>

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