A Demon Haunted World

[DrPraetor]

I can see arguments either way.

So a minotaur emperor isn't, conceptually speaking, a pile of 13 hit minotaur hit dice.

On the other hand, an ice giant is, conceptually speaking, a pile of 8 ogre hit dice. It lives in a difficult-to-reach ice castle and maybe it provides some leadership bonuses to its flunky dire wolves, but do you need to specify a Brute+ class for it to multiclass into for the heroic tier?

During the climactic battle, while the armies surge around them, the heroes want to meet the minotaur emperor and his vanguard, and the vanguard might very well want to be, conceptually, pieces of minotaur which are 13 hit dice in size.

That is, there is assymetry in team player vs. team monster both that there are puzzle-monster powers that equal-level players shouldn't get, and in that there are grunt monsters which may have big piles of levels but have concepts that could've belonged entirely in a lower tier, so you might want longer level progressions for them.

I tend to think defining Brute and Brute+ as nominally different classes is probably a better accounting practice, though.

[DSMatticus]

I don't like it. I think it's a solution looking for a problem - you can just give the rogue class "look, ma, I'm a shadow now!" as an ability and they're clearly not fucking mundane anymore. The fighter class, as it exists, has two problems; they're bound to a mundane power source and grognards whine realizarm if fighters get to do anything cool, and that their concept is the thing literally every class in the game has to be able to do - fight things. The former can be solved by making them clearly supernatural by level X. The latter can't be solved, fucking delete them and make a new class.

But I also don't really care.

Either way, having a break at 5/6 drastically improves the monster subclass problem. Because a monster worth 3 levels being forced to pick 10 levels worth of abilities is 30% the monster you wanted to be and 70% chimeric bullshit the PC thought was cool to fill out their levels.

[Grek]

Classes in 6th Edition do not go from level 1 all the way to level 20. Instead, characters progress through a series of four tiers, each five levels long. Each new tier shifts the campaign into a different and broader scope. Within each tier, you can either take a Full Class, or you may Multiclass by combining two Subclasses together, but you cannot change classes (or multiclasses) within a tier. Monsters are handled in the same way as a Multiclass character - they simply take one normal Subclass to represent their training and one Monstrous Subclass to represent their monstrous abilities. Each Monstrous Subclass has an associated tier and you can't play a monster from a tier higher than that of the other players, for the same reason that you can't play a character who is simply higher level than the rest of the other players.

Each character starts out in a Base Class (or Base Multiclass) which goes from 1 to 5 and covers the full range of real life human ability. A character at these levels may have extraordinary or supernatural abilities, but nothing that they face inherently requires such things. As a result, their struggles are in many ways more realistic than the more fantastical conflicts faced by higher level characters. In a campaign focusing on the Base Tier, characters will never be faced with a problem that cannot be solved through some combination of finesse, determination and sound judgement. Dungeon Masters wanting a "Low Magic" campaign need only stop at level five.

At level six, a character takes an Advanced Class, marking the point at which a character must be able to face challenges which no real life human, no matter how exceptional, could realistically handle. At these levels it is no longer enough to slay a werewolf by wielding a silver sword, to banish a ghost by finding the tethers that bind it, or to face a basilisk with a mirrored shield. It becomes necessary to travel from the depths of the darkest ocean to the tops of the highest clouds, break magical mummy curses and to fend off invisible spectral assassins. In turn, the characters may gain access abilities - such as flight, scrying, telepathy and outright immunities - which would run the risk of invalidating the challenges of a Base Tier adventure.

At level eleven, a character takes a Prestige Class, marking the point at which their adventures not only determine the fate of nations, but are determined by the fate of nations. A character in the Prestige Tier becomes a player on the world stage, leading armies and taking territory. No longer is the character's enemy a single given orc or demon (no matter how powerful) but a horde of orcs or an abyssal legion. While a character doesn't necessary need to have a noble title or political authority in this tier, they are given the abilities necessary to seize (or even create) such a position for themselves if they wish to, be it through popular support, military coup or a network of intrigue.

It is important to note that the Prestige Tier cannot be entered without having first passed through the Advanced Tier. This is because any ruler who can't deal with Advanced problems on their own will get overthrown pretty much as soon as such a problem presents itself. If you can't drive back the invading Cloud Giants, they will electrocute your armies and seize your lands. While player characters are expected to deal with their problems directly, this isn't always the case for NPCs. There's a rich fictional tradition of ailing monarchs who will give half of their kingdom and the hand of their heir in marriage to anyone who can [insert Advanced Tier task here]. To that end, we have the NPC-only Patron class for the Advanced Tier, which represents a character who is not capable of personally dealing with Advanced Tier problems, but IS capable of recruiting other Advanced Tier characters to help them in exchange for lavish rewards.

Finally, at level sixteen, a character takes an Epic Class, marking the point at which they exist beyond the laws of man and enter into the society of immortals. Characters in this tier are not only personally capable of destroying armies and sundering nations, they are also unkillable for all practical purposes. Whether this is achieved directly, through lichdom or some other form of immortality, or simply the result of having loyal followers who will restore them to power in the event of their demise, the end result is the same: The obedience of the masses and the admiration of one's divine peers becomes the only things that truly matter. The struggles between Epic Tier characters determine not the fate of nations, but the destiny of worlds.

---

Mechanically, an 8th level Ice Giant is a "Brute 5, Giant/Beastmaster 3". Giant is an Advanced Monster Subclass; it lets you solve Advanced Tier problems by being Very Large and doing things on a Very Large scale. And Beastmaster is an Advanced Subclass which gives you just the Advanced Tier animal summoning and nothing else.

Mechanically, a 13th level Minotaur Emperor is under specified. They're "Brute 5, ??? 5, Warlord 3", but you need to fill in that ??? with something like "Warlock" or "Berserker" or "Trapsmith". Or "Patron", in which case you need to stat up a 10th level Evil Vizier or Bound Demon to be their flunky.

[OgreBattle]

Why do we need Brute to be a different class than Fighter? Lurkers to not be Rogues? If a Rogue with his chakra attuned with Medusa themed items is functionally similar to a Lurker Medusa with medusa chakra powers then what does Lurker and Rogue class levels do differently?

If we're doing that "Fighters level up into stormlords" thing they're pretty similar to a level appropriate storm giant so why not build both with the core class track?

They can have different racial/feat/chakra slots. So your storm giant is a lvl10 warrior with feats/chakra/race picks that make him different from the lvl10 warrior that swings mjolnir around.

I'm picturing your choice of species/race as basically the chakra slot mechanic, this idea started from a discussion about pixie rogues being functionally a haflling with magic items to fly and turn invisible right?

[nockermensch]

Why do we need Brute to be a different class than Fighter? Lurkers to not be Rogues? If a Rogue with his chakra attuned with Medusa themed items is functionally similar to a Lurker Medusa with medusa chakra powers then what does Lurker and Rogue class levels do differently

Because I don't think this project uses "chakras" (magical item slots) as a way to balance against monster abilities like "Strength +10, Con +4, Large size, Natural Armor +5".

The Ogre starts with these, and the game balances "ogre barbarian" vs. "half-orc barbarian" in that the ogre has to take levels in a "hollower" class for some levels, while the half-orc is taking levels in a full-strength class.

Frank still has to show the numbers for these, but probably it's something like:

Barbarian:
BAB +1/Level
HD d12
Strong Saves: Fortitude
Skills: 6/Level
Abilities: Picks from a list that has stuff like Frightening Rage, Fountain of Life and Commune with Spirits

Brute:
BAB +.75/Level
HD d8
Strong Saves: Fortitude
Skills: 2/Level
Abilities: Picks from a list that has stuff like Awesome Blow, Great Strength or Improved Natural Armor

EDIT:
This works even better if the MM Ogre is built from just abilities in the Brute list, so you make the Ogre by starting with a "LA +0" "Giant Base" (+1 NA, Toughness, Powerful build), and then adding Brute levels:

Brute 1 : Strong (+2 Str)
Brute 2 : Armored Skin (+2 NA)
Brute 3 : Large (pre-requisite: Level 3, requires and replaces Powerful Build) (+8 Str, -2 Dex, +4 Con, +2 NA)

Finally, if we give the Brute class +1 BAB/level and a heftier Hit Dice, we may even achieve HD/CR equivalence, so that the ogre is actualy a 3 HD monster that's an average challenge for a 3 HD party.

[Username17]

Why do we need Brute to be a different class than Fighter? Lurkers to not be Rogues? If a Rogue with his chakra attuned with Medusa themed items is functionally similar to a Lurker Medusa with medusa chakra powers then what does Lurker and Rogue class levels do differently?

You're looking at this from the wrong angle. The question isn't "What can an Elf Rogue do to be as good as a Medusa?" it's "What can a Medusa do to be as good as an Elf Rogue?" The Elf Rogue is a Player Character with levels in a Player Character Class. That means that the Medusa is supposed to be a normal encounter for the Elf, not the other way around.

When a player character runs head first into a monster of their level, they are in fact supposed to win. It has level appropriate abilities and is supposed to be (or at least "feel") dangerous, but the ultimate outcome of such a match shouldn't be much in doubt, and the outcome should be that the Player Character wins and the monster loses. The Monster classes exist to give creatures abilities and numbers that are relevant at the levels the players are playing at without giving total packages that are remotely as effective.

The question of monsters as characters is thus complicated because the Medusa is clearly getting a starting package that is better than a starting Elf gets, for fuck's sake it has abilities and numbers that are relevant at fifth level, which is a fuck more than 1st level Elves get. But it's equally complicated by the fact that by design the Medusa is simply much less deep and much less powerful than an equal leveled player character taking a "normal" character class. The Medusa player character needs to get more than the NPC Medusa gets, but they also need to get less options from the player character class lists because they are getting the monster powers instead of nothing.

Classes in 6th Edition do not go from level 1 all the way to level 20. Instead, characters progress through a series of four tiers, each five levels long.

Basically yes.

Now the thing that I'm butting heads against is that the Monsters do not need to have a Tier Shift at 6th level. A Hill Giant is just a big Ogre. A Wyvern is just a big Gryphon.

So the 6th level shift could honestly be handled with in-class options or something. Rogue's 6th level is a level where you could just be a Daggermaster or some shit. Yes, you need to be able to have adventures on the bottom of the sea or whatever - but some of the supported characters can still be "mundane badass" because the opposition is still pretty amenable to being stabbed in the face. There are Giants, and you can't be a bumbling scholar or a lucky kid with a shepherd's crook. But those Giants are also Hill Giants, which are basically Andre the Giant, and it's plausible to be Hulk Hogan and just body slam your way through the problem.

In any case, the exact requirements of the player character classes are a distant quandary, because the Monster Classes defining the challenge space for the first 10 levels are job one. The challenges define what the player characters need to be able to do. Only once you have your SGT for each level can you really determine whether the Paladin or the Ranger class is doing what it's supposed to do.

-Username17

[Omegonthesane]

Even if you don't give more interesting abilities, I don't see the downside of writing up <Tier> Brute for each of the tiers that have Brutes. Removing the concept of Advanced Brute adds the concept that not all classes have a tier shift.

Your Advanced class is meant to be good for level 10 adventuring, and it'll stick in some idiots players' craw if a Knight 8 has magic without having become a Knight 5 / Chaos Knight 3 or something.

[Grek]

Now the thing that I'm butting heads against is that the Monsters do not need to have a Tier Shift at 6th level. A Hill Giant is just a big Ogre. A Wyvern is just a big Gryphon.

They kinda do. Level 6 is the point where challenges start having "you must be this tall to go on this adventure" checks.

The classic example of this is Flight: in the Base Tier, no player character can be required to fly and as a result, all flying enemies are required to land in order to fight. The Griffon is Base Tier, because it lands and fights. In the Advanced Tier, players are expected to be able to deal with flying enemies, which puts monster concepts like Flying Grappler (Wyvern) or Flying Archer (Manticore) back on the table. But since one of the obvious answers to a flying enemy is for the player characters themselves to also be able to fly, 6th level also marks the point where Team Monster needs answers to the party Paladin deciding to become a Pegasus Archer. No specific individual monster need Pegasus Archer counters, but there needs to be enough monsters in the manual who can challenge the Pegasus Archer to stock an adventure with.

There's symmetrical situations with Incorporeality, Damage Immunity Requirements (ie. plane of fire), Invisibility, Teleportation, Burrowing, Ability Damage, Curses, Diseases, and probably a couple of other effects that I'm not thinking of right this second. This in turn suggests that every single monster of level 6+ should be required to have some kind of Advanced Tier counter to some kind of Advanced Tier tactic, in order to make sure that there's a reasonable supply of thematically appropriate challenges for every party composition.

[Mord]

Your Advanced class is meant to be good for level 10 adventuring, and it'll stick in some idiots players' craw if a Knight 8 has magic without having become a Knight 5 / Chaos Knight 3 or something.

In this hypothetical, is "Knight" meant to be a PC class?

In any case, if monsters are meant to be basically the same nature of threat from levels 1 to 10, it's all well and good that they be the same class from levels 1 to 10. However, if this is the case, why do PCs get a breakpoint at level 6?

If from the PC's perspective the level 6 breakpoint indicates "now it is time to put on your big boy pants and start adventuring in the Elemental Plane of Fire," it is probably appropriate for your Brutes to become Advanced Brutes in recognition of the fact that now these monsters exist in environments where there are higher barriers to entry. Probably it also will help from an organizational perspective, since now you can elegantly separate all the "you must be this tall" effects appropriate to level 6-10 onto an entirely different set of class lists as the effects appropriate to levels 1-5.

However, if from the PC's perspective the level 6 breakpoint indicates nothing so drastic, then neither monsters nor PCs really need a breakpoint.

If the idiom changes at level 6, then everybody needs new classes. If the idiom doesn't change at level 6, then nobody needs new classes. There is no good reason to have it different for different folks.

[maglag]

The question of monsters as characters is thus complicated because the Medusa is clearly getting a starting package that is better than a starting Elf gets, for fuck's sake it has abilities and numbers that are relevant at fifth level, which is a fuck more than 1st level Elves get.

Then the question you need to ask yourself is if the medusa really needs to be faster and healthier and smarter and healthier and more charismatic than elves. The medusa of legend clearly wasn't that smart or wise, being tricked by a simple mirror.

You can then add ability boosts as part of the monster classes. Like clearly each higher tier of giant has higher Str than the last one because the brute class gives a scaling bonus to Str.

Plus that way you avoid shit like your average wolf being much tougher and having significantly more strength than your average humie (and their teeth hit as hard as steel shortswords), which in turn raises the question why aren't all D&D armies breeding wolves/hunting dogs in mass since they grow up much faster than humies and are drastically more effective as shock troops with no need of riders or anything.

[Omegonthesane]

The question of monsters as characters is thus complicated because the Medusa is clearly getting a starting package that is better than a starting Elf gets, for fuck's sake it has abilities and numbers that are relevant at fifth level, which is a fuck more than 1st level Elves get.

Then the question you need to ask yourself is if the medusa really needs to be faster and healthier and smarter and healthier and more charismatic than elves. The medusa of legend clearly wasn't that smart or wise, being tricked by a simple mirror.

I don't know what version of the legend you picked up but Perseus didn't use a mirror to trick Medusa, he used it to sneak up on her and assassinate her without being subject to her petri-gaze.

In any case, as per 3.5 Medusas don't have particularly better attributes than Elves, they just start off with like 6 hit dice because they start out at a point where "your ally has been turned to stone" is a level appropriate challenge and they need the HP / HD / boring numbers to match.

[maglag]

The question of monsters as characters is thus complicated because the Medusa is clearly getting a starting package that is better than a starting Elf gets, for fuck's sake it has abilities and numbers that are relevant at fifth level, which is a fuck more than 1st level Elves get.

Then the question you need to ask yourself is if the medusa really needs to be faster and healthier and smarter and healthier and more charismatic than elves. The medusa of legend clearly wasn't that smart or wise, being tricked by a simple mirror.

I don't know what version of the legend you picked up but Perseus didn't use a mirror to trick Medusa, he used it to sneak up on her and assassinate her without being subject to her petri-gaze.

More in detail, "He received a mirrored shield from Athena, gold, winged sandals from Hermes, a sword from Hephaestus and Hades's helm of invisibility."

Perseus could approach safely because he also had the helm of invisibility. But clearly the mirrored shield wasn't turned invisible as well since by definition an invisible something doesn't reflect anything otherwise it wouldn't be invisible.

So basically we have Medusa seeing a mirrorred shield hanging in mid-air approaching and going all "Herp that doesn't look suspicious at all derp OW MY SPLEEN!".

In any case, as per 3.5 Medusas don't have particularly better attributes than Elves, they just start off with like 6 hit dice because they start out at a point where "your ally has been turned to stone" is a level appropriate challenge and they need the HP / HD / boring numbers to match.

Why? Isn't "can turn people to stone just by looking" dangerous enough? Does she need to be able to shrug off catapult hits and tearing people apart with her bare hands?

Or do you want to use the crippled 3.X version whose gaze is limited to 30 feet, thus with a base speed of 30 feet any commoner with a horse and sling can just kite her? Then yeah I guess she does need super durability, but then she's just another closet troll and should be using the Brute class.

[Omegonthesane]

Then the question you need to ask yourself is if the medusa really needs to be faster and healthier and smarter and healthier and more charismatic than elves. The medusa of legend clearly wasn't that smart or wise, being tricked by a simple mirror.

I don't know what version of the legend you picked up but Perseus didn't use a mirror to trick Medusa, he used it to sneak up on her and assassinate her without being subject to her petri-gaze.

More in detail, "He received a mirrored shield from Athena, gold, winged sandals from Hermes, a sword from Hephaestus and Hades's helm of invisibility."

Perseus could approach safely because he also had the helm of invisibility. But clearly the mirrored shield wasn't turned invisible as well since by definition an invisible something doesn't reflect anything otherwise it wouldn't be invisible.

So basically we have Medusa seeing a mirrorred shield hanging in mid-air approaching and going all "Herp that doesn't look suspicious at all derp OW MY SPLEEN!".

LITERALLY THE NEXT FUCKING SENTENCE YOU FUCKWIT
"Since Medusa was the only one of the three Gorgons who was mortal, Perseus was able to slay her while looking at the reflection from the mirrored shield he received from Athena."

Further reading:
"In the cave he came upon the sleeping Medusa.

The helmet isn't remembered because being invisible doesn't fucking save you from "if you see this thing directly you turn to stone". Similarly basing your interpretation of Greek myth on the assumption that the Classical Greeks knew how physics worked and thought through the mechanics of invisibility is fucking stupid.

In any case, as per 3.5 Medusas don't have particularly better attributes than Elves, they just start off with like 6 hit dice because they start out at a point where "your ally has been turned to stone" is a level appropriate challenge and they need the HP / HD / boring numbers to match.

Why? Isn't "can turn people to stone just by looking" dangerous enough? Does she need to be able to shrug off catapult hits and tearing people apart with her bare hands?

Or do you want to use the crippled 3.X version whose gaze is limited to 30 feet, thus with a base speed of 30 feet any commoner with a horse and sling can just kite her? Then yeah I guess she does need super durability, but then she's just another closet troll and should be using the Brute class.

Because if you are a level 6 encounter then you have to be hardcore enough that a fucking level 6 party considers you worth writing home about even if they're in no doubt about whether they can defeat you when taking you seriously. End of fucking discussion.

Glass Medusas are fucking stupid and "is as durable as a level 6 Rogue" is not "super durability" you disingenuous spaghetti dildo.

[Thaluikhain]

While I don't see why the Greeks couldn't have seen a problem with an invisible mirror, I was always led to believe that he murdered Medusa in her sleep, thus making all his nice magic gear rather superfluous (though, chopping off her head and picking it up and putting it into a bag while only looking at a reflection of it would be really difficult).

Don't recall him tricking her with his shield in Classic Myth. There was the Classic Movie "Clash of the Titans", featuring Harryhausen monsters and some humans that went on to do other things where that happens:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7W-oPhY48

I like that movie, but it's taking rather a few liberties with the source material.

[Username17]

They kinda do. Level 6 is the point where challenges start having "you must be this tall to go on this adventure" checks.

The point is that monsters have those checks at every level. It gets more drastic as levels go up, but even 4th level monsters have abilities and numbers that make them harsh for 1st and second level players to face.

The idea is that you write up the challenges first and the player character classes after. The player character classes need Final Fantasy style hat changes at various points, because the concepts that are viable at first level aren't necessarily entitled to the kinds of abilities and numbers they'd need to face off against the enemies at 9th level. But the monsters don't need hat changes because until you hit mass battles the concept of every monster is just "level appropriate monster."

Manticores don't need to have an advanced monster class. They are whatever level they are, and they just act as Harriers at whatever level you set them. It is the responsibility of every playable character class to deliver numbers and abilities that don't get automatically kited to death by Manticores at the level that Manticores are expected opposition.

-Username17

[Whipstitch]

While I don't see why the Greeks couldn't have seen a problem with an invisible mirror, I was always led to believe that he murdered Medusa in her sleep, thus making all his nice magic gear rather superfluous (though, chopping off her head and picking it up and putting it into a bag while only looking at a reflection of it would be really difficult).

I wouldn't go quite that far. The Apollodorus Bibliotheca claims that of the three gorgons Medusa alone was mortal so Perseus ganks her with an adamantine sickle while they're all asleep (they apparently lair together) but still uses the invisibility cap to keep from getting hella murdered in retaliation.

[Wiseman]

I can see arguments either way.

So a minotaur emperor isn't, conceptually speaking, a pile of 13 hit minotaur hit dice.

On the other hand, an ice giant is, conceptually speaking, a pile of 8 ogre hit dice. It lives in a difficult-to-reach ice castle and maybe it provides some leadership bonuses to its flunky dire wolves, but do you need to specify a Brute+ class for it to multiclass into for the heroic tier?

During the climactic battle, while the armies surge around them, the heroes want to meet the minotaur emperor and his vanguard, and the vanguard might very well want to be, conceptually, pieces of minotaur which are 13 hit dice in size.

That is, there is assymetry in team player vs. team monster both that there are puzzle-monster powers that equal-level players shouldn't get, and in that there are grunt monsters which may have big piles of levels but have concepts that could've belonged entirely in a lower tier, so you might want longer level progressions for them.

I tend to think defining Brute and Brute+ as nominally different classes is probably a better accounting practice, though.

Speaking of which...
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=505818#505818

[Schleiermacher]

You're looking at this from the wrong angle. The question isn't "What can an Elf Rogue do to be as good as a Medusa?" it's "What can a Medusa do to be as good as an Elf Rogue?" The Elf Rogue is a Player Character with levels in a Player Character Class. That means that the Medusa is supposed to be a normal encounter for the Elf, not the other way around.

When a player character runs head first into a monster of their level, they are in fact supposed to win. It has level appropriate abilities and is supposed to be (or at least "feel") dangerous, but the ultimate outcome of such a match shouldn't be much in doubt, and the outcome should be that the Player Character wins and the monster loses.

Hey, hang on. Why are we moving away from the foundational concept that character level = CR?

I mean, yes, the monster should have fewer options and less complicated resource management than a member of a standard PC class because obviously, and that will give a mixed party of PCs the advantage over an undifferentiated group of monsters even in an nominally even fight, but the bedrock of the SGT and a major appeal of the game (to me) is that the system doesn't differentiate between PCs and NPCs - when the Rogue meets the medusa, if neither of them has allies or circumstantial advantages, it's a coinflip.

[Username17]

We are moving away from level == CR because fights against one enemy at a time are kind of dumb. 4e sucked in many ways, but the goal of having a standard encounter for X level Y characters be X level Y monsters is clearly superior.

The standard encounter should be the one you actually use, not the one that TPKs the party half the time. And the standard encounter being four or five monsters makes encounter design way better than if it's just one monster.

4e failed to deliver math or relevant abilities to make that happen. But since the monster classes deliver whatever power level you want them to, you might as well select the better target of 4e rather than the worse target of 3e.

[MGuy]

You're looking at this from the wrong angle. The question isn't "What can an Elf Rogue do to be as good as a Medusa?" it's "What can a Medusa do to be as good as an Elf Rogue?" The Elf Rogue is a Player Character with levels in a Player Character Class. That means that the Medusa is supposed to be a normal encounter for the Elf, not the other way around.

When a player character runs head first into a monster of their level, they are in fact supposed to win. It has level appropriate abilities and is supposed to be (or at least "feel") dangerous, but the ultimate outcome of such a match shouldn't be much in doubt, and the outcome should be that the Player Character wins and the monster loses.

Hey, hang on. Why are we moving away from the foundational concept that character level = CR?

I mean, yes, the monster should have fewer options and less complicated resource management than a member of a standard PC class because obviously, and that will give a mixed party of PCs the advantage over an undifferentiated group of monsters even in an nominally even fight, but the bedrock of the SGT and a major appeal of the game (to me) is that the system doesn't differentiate between PCs and NPCs - when the Rogue meets the medusa, if neither of them has allies or circumstantial advantages, it's a coinflip.

You can still get that if you want even with what Frank is suggesting just by giving the Medusa class levels. A Medusa is a pile of stats that you describe as gorgon that has a petrifying gaze. You can really just take an equal leveled rogue give it a petrifying gaze and say it looks like a snake woman with snake hair and you'll have a pretty even fight between a rogue and the medusa (assuming that the idea that Advanced Class Rogue can deal with medusa's gaze somehow by default holds). The CR system is for determining challenges for the players though. You don't want every even leveled challenge for players running at a 50% lethality rate or you're going to have some dead players. Frank is right that you should instead do encounter design around making challenges that don't threaten to kill the PCs frequently. You could just advise DMs to use lower CR/level encounters instead of course but why do that when you can just make the CR (and the challenges themselves) fit what people should actually be using in the first place?

[Schleiermacher]

You could just advise DMs to use lower CR/level encounters instead of course but why do that when you can just make the CR (and the challenges themselves) fit what people should actually be using in the first place?

Mostly because, if CR =/= level, it means "level" no longer has a consistent meaning as a measure of power and it makes it more difficult to build encounters with NPCs using character classes.

Which, I mean, Frank is right about everything he says in his post but those still seem like things that are valuable enough that they deserve to be preserved. So this gets tricky.

[MGuy]

"Level" would still have the meaning you would want. What you would be changing is its relationship with "CR".

[Mord]

3e already solved the CR versus Level issue by having separate concepts of CR and EL, which appear to be getting conflated here.

Your lone CR 5 Medusa is an EL 5, which is a "Very Difficult" (aka fatality coinflip) challenge for your lone Level 5 Rogue. This EL 5 encounter is an Easy challenge for a party of four Level 5 PCs. Four CR 5 Medusae are EL 9, which is a TPK coinflip challenge for four Level 5 PCs.

If you want to design your standard encounter to have more monsters in it, which you should because solo monsters are lame, then the individual monsters are lower-CR.

What am I missing here?

[Schleiermacher]

3e already solved the CR versus Level issue by having separate concepts of CR and EL, which appear to be getting conflated here.

Your lone CR 5 Medusa is an EL 5, which is a "Very Difficult" (aka fatality coinflip) challenge for your lone Level 5 Rogue. This EL 5 encounter is an Easy challenge for a party of four Level 5 PCs. Four CR 5 Medusae are EL 9, which is a TPK coinflip challenge for four Level 5 PCs.

If you want to design your standard encounter to have more monsters in it, which you should because solo monsters are lame, then the individual monsters are lower-CR.

What am I missing here?

That Frank (for good reasons) wants to change this relationship so that the lone CR 5 Medusa is an Easy (aka normal) encounter for the lone level 5 Rogue, and the party of four PCs encounters four Medusas (or more likely one Medusa and three CR 5 Earth Elementals or something) as an Easy encounter.

Although there are very real and good reasons to do this, I think the game is better off (more consistent, versatile and easier to understand and modify) with CR == Level and encounter building guidelines that make the relationship between individual monster level and group Encounter Level clear.

Edit: It's not actually necessary for CR to be equal to level for these benefits to be preserved, but it needs to have a fixed and formulaic relationship to level, such as e.g CR=Level+4 (which would make a group of 4 CR N monsters a standard encounter for a level N party of four). I think the best such relationship (the easiest to design and balance, and most tractable for encounter building) is simply '='.

[nockermensch]

We are moving away from level == CR because fights against one enemy at a time are kind of dumb. 4e sucked in many ways, but the goal of having a standard encounter for X level Y characters be X level Y monsters is clearly superior.

The standard encounter should be the one you actually use, not the one that TPKs the party half the time. And the standard encounter being four or five monsters makes encounter design way better than if it's just one monster.

4e failed to deliver math or relevant abilities to make that happen. But since the monster classes deliver whatever power level you want them to, you might as well select the better target of 4e rather than the worse target of 3e.

But D&D isn't simply monster stabbing. Usually the PCs are also expected to face-off against enemy knights, assassins or wizards. Are these supposed to be weak "like a lurker of the same level" by the lack of PC-appropriate treasure?