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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7701680" data-attributes="member: 42582">This is no different in 3E or 4e either, given that all of them use non-abstracted positioning rules. And subject to the usual caveats about missile weapons, AoEs, etc.The scaling I am referring to is of mechanical scaling that goes to the basics of action resolution. In AD&D, AC and damage per hit do not vary very much with level; though the chance to hit does increase fairly significantly. In 3E and 4e there is significant level-scaling of AC, damage per hit and chance to hit. In 5e there is significant scaling of damage per hit.As far as AD&D is concerned, the significance of this is that the stand-out difference between a bugbear, an ogre and a hill-giant is the number of hit points it can take before dropping; but not so much you chance to hit it (not hopeless even at 1st level) and not so much it's chance to kill you in a single hit (for most fighters of 2nd level or higher, the chance will be not all that great). The average damage from an AD&D hill giant is 9, and the maximum 16. Even the maximum won't kill an average 1st level fighter with a CON bonus to hp (with 7 hp, that character will be at -9 hp and still able to be saved). Whereas the 18 damage from a 5e hill giant will knock unconscious even an average 2nd level fighter with 12 CON (18 hp). And if the GM is rolling damage, there's a good chance of killing a 1st level fighter outright.What this means is that, in AD&D, a player-side approach of trying to manage the pacing of events so that even high HD foes can be taken down in ones and twos is viable, because the threat posed to the party from a single opponent is manageable; whereas in other editions, even 5e with its bounded accuracy, this involves greater risk (unless ranged attacks are being used vs opponents who lack them).The rest period is a week.That produces retreats, but not necessarily wipe-outs.But I don't think that 5e is as forgiving in the respect that I was referring to, namely, the ability of even low level PCs to take down a high-HD foe if they are able to ensure they engage in a piecemeal fashion.A 5e ogre has 59 hp, compared to an average of 19 for an AD&D ogre (ie 3 times as many), but the 5e ogre's AC is also lower (11 rather than AC 5), so a 1st level fighter (let's say +5 to hit) is hitting 75% of the time rather than little more than 25% of the time: so the tripling of hit points is compensated for by a tripling of the prospects of hitting (though in AD&D positioning, eg for rear attacks or backstab that give a bonus to hit, will generate relatively more payoff than in 5e, which means for some playstyles the 5e ogre is overall more resilient than the AD&D one). The 5e ogre has a bonus to hit of +6, meaning around a 50% chance to hit a 1st level fighter; and this is similar to the AD&D ogre's chance to hit a 1st level fighter's AC 3 or 4. But the 5e ogre does damage of 13 on a hit, meaning that unconsciousness is almost guaranteed on a hit, and there is a real chance of killing an injured or non-fighter-type outright on a hit; whereas the AD&D ogre does d10 damage, which a 1st level fighter may well survive without being knocked out, and which is unable to outright kill a character even on 1 hp.I assume this is why a 5e ogre is labelled as a level 2 challenge; whereas, despite its 4 HD, a single AD&D ogre is a viable foe for 1st level AD&D PCs to take on.This is not any sort of criticism of 5e. But I think it contributes to the explanation of why 5e is thought to need more involved encounter-building guidelines than AD&D does.</blockquote>

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