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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Zardoz" data-source="post: 5115745" data-attributes="member: 704">In Theory, Theory and Practice are identical.  In Practice, they are not.Agreed.  However, as a game it is the nearest convenient point of comparison I can come up with.  The rest of your comment has one element that I want to focus a bit on, so empahsis within is mine.Everything you have said there is true, but I will pick apart one element of it.  An Elite is not necessarily twice as powerful.  It is twice as durable.  Elites and Solos, at least as a formal concept, did not exist until 4th edition.  In 3rd edition, if I wanted to have a monster that could stick around for a while, I would have to find a high CR monster, and deal with the higher damage output, making for a very dangerous fight.Now, you are correct that based on the XP vs party level value, the 5th level elite should be a viable encounter for 1st level characters.  However, I suspect that in this case, viable only means that the players can win the fight.  Not that the fight is one that would be advised as a regular type of occurance.Here is a thought experiment.  Throw together a 1st level party of 5 PC's, with only mild optimization (Not going to try to pump attack bonus to theoretical max).  Go for the 'classic' mix of Defender-Leader-Controller-Striker-Striker.  If I actually were to do this, I would probably go for Fighter-Cleric-Wizard-Ranger-Warlock.  (I expect factoring in sneak attack vs flanking will be a huge pain due to it being situational).  I would then set up a few different encounters.  Lets say two 5th level Elites, A comparable number of level 1 monsters, and then some level 3 monsters.  No Minions.Then lets compare the total HPs and typical Defenses of each encounter group to what the 1st level players can actually expect to inflict.  Then we could determine a reasonable number of rounds that it will take the 1st level characters to end each encounter.  I am probably not going to do this myself because of the unholy pain it will be to work out with any reliable accuracy, simply because I could expect debates of "but in this case, shouldn't the warlock use this power instead because it will attack Reflex which is weaker here...".  It would also take a while to do.What I would expect to find is that despite each encounter being equivalent as measured by XP value, that the fights against the higher level opponents take significantly longer to end, due to higher defences and higher HP.  I also expect if you did a level 1 party vs non Solo / non elite level 5 monsters, you would end up with a truly hideous encounter and a risk of a TPK.As noted earlier, I can absolutely drive a Smart Car or VW Beetle offroad in the mud.  However, I would not be stunned to discover that I get stuck in situations where a Humvee would not.  Going 4 or 5 levels higher then the PC's when selecting a monster is pretty much at the limit of what is reasonable to attempt.Still, since I have not run those numbers, I could be wildly incorrect.END COMMUNICATION</blockquote>

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