Post/Author/DateTime

Post

JamesMaissen 02-02-06, 04:11 PM

Now we all know that when determining the APL for a party of 6 you add 1 to the result to get the effective APL (after rounding). I know this is from CR based thinking revolving around a standard party of 4. That's all fine in theory. However it breaks down in practice. In reality it's obvious that the increase from adding 1 person is greater when you have fewer to start with. To whit the jump between a table of 4 and a table of 5 is larger than between 5 and 6. As an aside you have the annoying ability to easily 'lower' an APL of a 4 person table by adding a fifth player. That should only be able to happen with very abberant cases, but is not currently the case. A party of four 4th level characters wants to play APL 2 can't do so normally but can if a 1st level shows up to "add" to thier table. Solution: Apply a -1 modifier to APL for a party of 4. Drawbacks: It doesn't fit "CR theory" or some such. It's also only a hedge (but as much as +1 modifier to APL for a party of 6 is one). Advantages: It's dead on. This is not to say that parties of 4 are not viable and can't do superlatively well. However that is variation based on player and party, not due to number. Anyway it would be a good thing to do as it would more accurately model relative strength (and weakness) without becoming to unwieldy (APL with variable party size is, of course, inherrently flawed). Thanks, James Maissen