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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 6984359" data-attributes="member: 6785785">Yeah I think you're right about why 5E doesn't have that scaling enemy factor, where there was a suitable orc or gnoll threat for just about any level. I think it kind of achieved the opposite effect of what I hope to achieve....the players knew that the enemies before them were level appropriate. In 5E, I essentially do the same thing myself. I create orcs that are more of a threat to a level 8 party, let's say. But because it's something I've done on my own, my players aren't privy to it, so it's unexpected. It makes them view orcs a little differently. Now, I don't rely on this alone because I don't want every instance of the party running into an or. To become a debate about how tough he may be....so I reibforce it with description and narrative elements. I think 4E perhaps went a bit too far with how many versions of each creature they provided, but I liked that aspect of the game. I also agree that monsters tended to have more varied abilities baked in. Mostly, I liked that...sometimes I thought it was being done out of habit rather than as some kind of synergy between theme and mechanics. Ultimately, I want my players to think of the fictional world as closely to their characters as possible. I think when an army of orcs doesn't cause a PC to blink, or when several high level threats are easily defeated, that works counter to that goal.</blockquote>