mikestrauss
Squire
Normal APL is in the 14-15 range. That may not sound much lower than 17.5, but trust me, it is rather significant.
We do go out of our way to put lower end monsters into every wave battle and crunchies run the gambit. Modules will be scaled 99% of the time (beware the unscaled modules). IMO, a 5th level fighter or rogue can contribute reasonably is most wave battles. A 5th level caster can contribute meaningfully in about a third of the wave battles. I wish I could say better, but if a 5th level character could contribute meaningfully in every wave battle, level 25-30 guys would solo the wave battles (Scott nearly got to solo the final wave battle of last weekend... much to his dismay).
-MS
We do go out of our way to put lower end monsters into every wave battle and crunchies run the gambit. Modules will be scaled 99% of the time (beware the unscaled modules). IMO, a 5th level fighter or rogue can contribute reasonably is most wave battles. A 5th level caster can contribute meaningfully in about a third of the wave battles. I wish I could say better, but if a 5th level character could contribute meaningfully in every wave battle, level 25-30 guys would solo the wave battles (Scott nearly got to solo the final wave battle of last weekend... much to his dismay).
-MS