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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5633281" data-attributes="member: 82106">Yeah, I don't understand this at all. Lets look at my 1e AD&D fighter. His to-hit increases by... +1 per level! His saving throws (aka NADs basically) also increase by level in a similar manner. While technically his AC doesn't change automatically he will probably start out with chain armor at level 1 (or even studded leather if he rolled bad for GP and nobody else in the party will front him a few gold). At level 2 he'll probably manage to buy himself some scale armor, then banded, then maybe after a couple levels plate armor, or he'll find some magic armor/shield etc. His hit points also increase at a good clip, doubling at level 2, etc. Honestly the situation is not much different from 4e.Monsters still get tougher in the same exact fashion they did in the old days too. At level 1 kobolds are a weak monster, goblins are about equal to a PC, and orcs are a bit tougher than a PC. Go up a level and now its hobgoblins that are equal to the party, gnolls are slightly tougher, and at 3rd level its bugbears that are equal, then ogres, etc. Same thing happens in 4e. The escalation of defenses was a little slower in 1e and less consistent, but each level of monsters did a bit more damage, averaged a bit better defenses, and generally had this or that new trick. There were also ranges of types within many monsters. All humanoids had 'higher level figures', so there were sergeant orcs, captain orcs, and chieftain orcs, and even spellcaster orcs. I'm just not really seeing the difference. The progression was a bit jumpier and a 1e level was more like 2 4e levels, but the concept was the same. Characters DO get more powerful in each game, in the same way. A 5th level 4e PC laughs at kobolds, kills goblins easily, fights orcs on about an even footing, and worries about ogres. The exact levels are different, but you can put together the same old layer-cake dungeon as of old if you want.Note that those rules are ONLY in the DMG. Never in the PHB, the book which explains the rules which are held in common between DM and players is encounter budget or monster design even mentioned. PHB talks about encounters mechanically in the ways that players need to understand them, but you'd never be breaking a rule in that book by doing your encounter design differently. Nor does the DMG call encounter design 'rules'. It describes how an encounter can be designed in 4e. It doesn't say you have to do it that way. Chances are MOSTLY you do want to do it that way, but even then they give you leeway of up to +4 levels for encounters. They just tell you it will be a HARD encounter. Not too much different than if 1e level 1 PCs run into an ogre or two. It will be a hard encounter. Maybe too hard, but that's really up to you to decide. It might be what the players will have fun with.I guess I don't know what "more than an impression" would be. If actually being able to easily defeat monsters that were a challenge before isn't ACTUAL power increase then what is? You could do that. It is something that I've pondered, and something along those lines would certainly work with the right tweaks to other parts of the game. I don't think it is a trivial change. It will create a very different game, and I don't think that game will be as close to AD&D as 4e is now. It might be a cooler game, but we wouldn't know until we tried doing it.</blockquote>

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