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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7701772" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think you are misunderstanding my point.I am not talking about whether or not it is more forgiving for players. (Obviously in many ways it is not: more safe or die, more brutal when a PC drops below zero hp, etc).I am saying that it is more forgiving when it comes to encounter design.For instance, 5e says this about challenge rating (SRD p 258, DM's PDF p 57): A monster’s challenge rating tells you how great a threat the monster is. An appropriately equipped and well-rested party of four adventurers should be able to defeat a monster that has a challenge rating equal to its level without suffering any deaths. . . . When putting together an encounter or adventure, especially at lower levels, exercise caution when using monsters whose challenge rating is higher than the party’s average level. Such a creature might deal enough damage with a single action to take out adventurers of a lower level.The need for encounter guidelines in 5e is, at least in part, a consequence of the relatively steep level scaling of monster damage. (In 3E and 4e there is also scaling of to-hit and defence numbers.)In AD&D there is very little level-scaling of anything but to-hit numbers. Damage and AC don't scale very much with HD at all.AD&D therefore doesn't need encounter-building guidelines. (Other than very basic stuff like "don't put high HD devils on your 1st dungeon level.) What it needs is rules and guidelines that will permit the players to control pacing and the number of foes they confront simultaneously. Which it has. (Wandering monster rules, expectations around placed encounters and the way dungeon scouting and mapping work, morale rules, rules for evasion of pursuit, etc.)But if this is literally true, then AD&D breaks down, because a typical group of 1st level PCs can't defeat 20 kobolds in open combat.AD&D assumes that the players will not have to be swarmed by the kobolds, but rather are able to control the terms on which they encounter them (eg by successfully scouting; by bribing or otherwise influencing sentries - hence the reaction roll mechanic as an alternative to "everything automatically attacks"; etc).Once AD&D scenarios began to be written which eschewed these rules and guidelines favouring player control of pacing and encounter numbers, and assuming that the GM would exercise control over these things, the game started to break down, because it didn't have encounter building guidelines; and the solution the system offered GMs was to fudge dice rolls.</blockquote>

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