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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4689243" data-attributes="member: 4937">Speaking from my experience with 1st edition, the fact that the monsters didn't follow the same rules as PC's generally didn't matter that much at low levels of play.  In particular, because the monster HD progression was highly compressed at low levels - incremental improvements at 1/2 HD, 1-1 HD, 1 HD, 1+1 HD, and 2 HD - low HD monsters tended to do a good job of keeping pace with low level PC's.  A 2 HD monster had a THAC0 comparable to a 5th level fighter (sans magic items which at that level weren't that significant anyway).  But as the PC's progressed in level and power, the fact that the monsters (mostly) didn't have ability scores and other things PC's had increasingly hampered the monster, not necessarily just because the players might have found a way to progress their ability scores but so many of their magic items granted the characters bonuses the monsters simply didn't have.  A 16 HD monster had THAC0 inferior to a 16th level fighter (sans magic items), and when you factored in magic items, strength bonuses and the like it was just no contest.Eventually, the fact that the PC's were high hit dice monsters that also had +5 (or more) to hit, +5 (or more) to damage, +5 to saving throws, bonus hit points per hit die, and so forth easily overwhelmed even the mightest monster in the monster manual. By late 1st edition, when I was beginning to be frustrated with 1st edition at every level of play, I started granting attributes like Str and Dex to every monster just to keep some sort of parity between the players and their foes over a longer range of play.If there are abilities that the PC's are consistantly gaining that doesn't have some parallel in the monsters stats, then that's definately a problem.  In 4e's case, the PC's have been gaining feats and magic all along the way.  I don't know alot about 4e, but it seems like enhancing your critical was a big portion of both, so it seems to me like criticals is an area a gap would open up that escaped the design team.  I wouldn't be surprised if there were others.</blockquote>

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