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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6654648" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'll leave the maths of that to someone else. And I'm not sure that those maths even matter. The 4e DMG has the following statement (p 40):When a power’s effect involves a character's allies, use common sense when determining how many allies can be affected. D&amp;D is a game about adventuring parties fighting groups of monsters, not the clash of armies. A warlord's power might, read strictly, be able to give a hundred &quot;allies&quot; a free basic attack, but that doesn’t mean that warlord characters should assemble armies to march before them into the dungeon. In general, a power's effect should be limited to a squad-sized group - the size of your player character group plus perhaps one or two friendly NPCs - not hired soldiers or lantern-bearers.In other words, the game's system is based around an assumption about numbers and targets. For instance, if I ran an encounter involving 5 13th level PCs against three dozen 3rd level hobgoblins, how would I factor in the effect on the hobgoblins' morale of having their allies mown down before them? How would I factor in the ability of the warriors to carve their way through the hobgoblins like a scythe through grass? In AD&amp;D this is modelled via the &quot;1 attack per level&quot; rule vs certain low-HD targets; in 4e it's modelled by restatting the low-HD targets as a swarm. That is, certain system elements have been offloaded to the monster-build side, and you can't just ignore the monster-build element of the game and assume that your system will continue to deliver &quot;true&quot; results.And that's not taking into account the (im)practicalities of running a combat in which three dozen enemies have hit point totals to be tracked, conditions to be tracked, etc.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6654648, member: 42582"] I'll leave the maths of that to someone else. And I'm not sure that those maths even matter. The 4e DMG has the following statement (p 40): [indent]When a power’s effect involves a character's allies, use common sense when determining how many allies can be affected. D&D is a game about adventuring parties fighting groups of monsters, not the clash of armies. A warlord's power might, read strictly, be able to give a hundred "allies" a free basic attack, but that doesn’t mean that warlord characters should assemble armies to march before them into the dungeon. In general, a power's effect should be limited to a squad-sized group - the size of your player character group plus perhaps one or two friendly NPCs - not hired soldiers or lantern-bearers.[/indent] In other words, the game's system is based around an assumption about numbers and targets. For instance, if I ran an encounter involving 5 13th level PCs against three dozen 3rd level hobgoblins, how would I factor in the effect on the hobgoblins' morale of having their allies mown down before them? How would I factor in the ability of the warriors to carve their way through the hobgoblins like a scythe through grass? In AD&D this is modelled via the "1 attack per level" rule vs certain low-HD targets; in 4e it's modelled by restatting the low-HD targets as a swarm. That is, certain system elements have been offloaded to the monster-build side, and you can't just ignore the monster-build element of the game and assume that your system will continue to deliver "true" results. And that's not taking into account the (im)practicalities of running a combat in which three dozen enemies have hit point totals to be tracked, conditions to be tracked, etc. [/QUOTE]

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