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<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5984802" data-attributes="member: 54877"><p>For now, I'm only going to answer this part and see if some of the other stuff comes into focus as a byproduct. Also, did you read my earlier post?</p><p> </p><p>There is no Task A and Task B with the chance for the party to pick to only do part of it. There is a set of tasks comprising an "adventure day" that is worth 1,000 XP. The question was how to handle encounter balance in such an environment, since obviously ten 100 XP encounters are not equal to five 200 XP encounters are not equal to one 1000 XP encounter. My anwer is that for <strong>pacing advancement purposes only</strong>, maybe they are equal. </p><p> </p><p>If the party does the set of tasks fast (i.e. charges through, drawing the opposition to them, but taking relatively little game time), then they get 1,000 XP. If they party does the set of tasks slow (carefully using divide and conquer tactics, hording resources, etc.), then they also get 1,000 XP. If they fail with the set, they get less or even no XP (depending on other playstyle factors outside this discussion). Thus for pacing purposes, the DM sets up the general pace when he places that 1,000 XP worth of opposition, but the players choose the exact pace by how aggressive or cautious they are. Aggressive players run more risk but advance their characters faster in game time. The tasks remain the same.</p><p> </p><p>Of course the XP systems (including reward as included) have to tie together. That's why they all use the same XP system. It's the scale and focus of measurement that varies across my three categories, which is why they are conceptual categories, not totally separate systems. (I do tend to pull a large part of reward out of it as a separate system, as I noted in passing above, but that is also a separate issue that has nothing to do with encounter versus daily XP balancing.)</p><p> </p><p>So a theoretical subsystem specifically for challenge ratings has to be built in the context of the overall XP system. It's simply that conceptually there are some details in the challenge ratings that really don't have anything to do with the pacing part, and thus can be broken out. Plus, some people will want to vary the pacing and challenge ratings (and rewards) separately. So it would be good to specify when XP discussion is affecting one or the other more strongly. </p><p> </p><p>You can think about it also like this, as an analogy: The adventure is measured in leagues, the adventure "day" in miles, but the individual, actual encounters in yards, feet, or at times even inches. (I suppose "inches" would be important but minor details of single monsters in this analogy.) You can talk about 6,543 yards worth of adventure, but somewhere well below that you are probably better switching to miles. Likewise, you can talk about .234 miles, but at some point well above that, you are probably better off switching to yards. The units need a consistent conversion, but they <strong>are</strong> separate units. Same with balancing encounters versus handling "adventure days". (Reward doesn't really fit in this analogy, though.)</p><p> </p><p>That some people are going to basically eyeball the encounter part as fractions of the "adventure day" doesn't change that it is conceptually different. It's merely that some people want more precision and detail, while others want less.</p><p> </p><p>That's really no different than using precise encumbrance, merely eyeballing it, or some middling approach. No matter which method is chosen, we assume the fighter can wear chainmail, can't carry a dragon, but can certainly haul many coins in a bag. And likewise, we don't want to overly complicate the Str mod for all uses merely to accommodate encumbrance, even as an option. (For example, we don't want to consider the weight of a sword by the "pound" when determining combat statistics.) At the end of the day, it's all "strength," but it is zooming in or out on strength to a useful degree for the particular purpose at hand.</p><p> </p><p>I'm saying that rewards, character advancement pacing, and challenge ratings all occur at different zoom levels on the XP ruler. This affects the mechanics that best serve each conceptual category, and also affects how and when people want to vary those mechanics.</p><p> </p><p>Make more sense?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5984802, member: 54877"] For now, I'm only going to answer this part and see if some of the other stuff comes into focus as a byproduct. Also, did you read my earlier post? There is no Task A and Task B with the chance for the party to pick to only do part of it. There is a set of tasks comprising an "adventure day" that is worth 1,000 XP. The question was how to handle encounter balance in such an environment, since obviously ten 100 XP encounters are not equal to five 200 XP encounters are not equal to one 1000 XP encounter. My anwer is that for [B]pacing advancement purposes only[/B], maybe they are equal. If the party does the set of tasks fast (i.e. charges through, drawing the opposition to them, but taking relatively little game time), then they get 1,000 XP. If they party does the set of tasks slow (carefully using divide and conquer tactics, hording resources, etc.), then they also get 1,000 XP. If they fail with the set, they get less or even no XP (depending on other playstyle factors outside this discussion). Thus for pacing purposes, the DM sets up the general pace when he places that 1,000 XP worth of opposition, but the players choose the exact pace by how aggressive or cautious they are. Aggressive players run more risk but advance their characters faster in game time. The tasks remain the same. Of course the XP systems (including reward as included) have to tie together. That's why they all use the same XP system. It's the scale and focus of measurement that varies across my three categories, which is why they are conceptual categories, not totally separate systems. (I do tend to pull a large part of reward out of it as a separate system, as I noted in passing above, but that is also a separate issue that has nothing to do with encounter versus daily XP balancing.) So a theoretical subsystem specifically for challenge ratings has to be built in the context of the overall XP system. It's simply that conceptually there are some details in the challenge ratings that really don't have anything to do with the pacing part, and thus can be broken out. Plus, some people will want to vary the pacing and challenge ratings (and rewards) separately. So it would be good to specify when XP discussion is affecting one or the other more strongly. You can think about it also like this, as an analogy: The adventure is measured in leagues, the adventure "day" in miles, but the individual, actual encounters in yards, feet, or at times even inches. (I suppose "inches" would be important but minor details of single monsters in this analogy.) You can talk about 6,543 yards worth of adventure, but somewhere well below that you are probably better switching to miles. Likewise, you can talk about .234 miles, but at some point well above that, you are probably better off switching to yards. The units need a consistent conversion, but they [B]are[/B] separate units. Same with balancing encounters versus handling "adventure days". (Reward doesn't really fit in this analogy, though.) That some people are going to basically eyeball the encounter part as fractions of the "adventure day" doesn't change that it is conceptually different. It's merely that some people want more precision and detail, while others want less. That's really no different than using precise encumbrance, merely eyeballing it, or some middling approach. No matter which method is chosen, we assume the fighter can wear chainmail, can't carry a dragon, but can certainly haul many coins in a bag. And likewise, we don't want to overly complicate the Str mod for all uses merely to accommodate encumbrance, even as an option. (For example, we don't want to consider the weight of a sword by the "pound" when determining combat statistics.) At the end of the day, it's all "strength," but it is zooming in or out on strength to a useful degree for the particular purpose at hand. I'm saying that rewards, character advancement pacing, and challenge ratings all occur at different zoom levels on the XP ruler. This affects the mechanics that best serve each conceptual category, and also affects how and when people want to vary those mechanics. Make more sense? [/QUOTE]
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