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L&L 5/21 - Hit Points, Our Old Friend
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5918226" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Obviously I don't find this sort of problem to be as widespread or jarring as you. But even I agree in respect of some monsters - especially some of the epic-tier humanoids introduced in MM3 (the Weavers and the like) which don't really seem to have the fictional context to warrant their extraordinary stats. (They remind me a bit of the Watchers and the like from the Marvel Universe.)</p><p></p><p>And I definitely agree that published material doesn't pay enough attention to things like delevelling strategies by depriving foes of equipment.</p><p></p><p>I agree that fictional positioning has limited points of input.</p><p></p><p>I think the published rules tend to overlook or underemphasise some key ones, though - keywords in particular (eg fireball sets things alight because it's a [fire] power).</p><p></p><p>And geography is another thing that matters, obviously - and the way I use geography in encounters has really changed in 4e.</p><p></p><p>But the other, and more important way, that I try and use fiction is at the motivational/"framing" level - ie there are no relationship mechanics or augments, but you can get something like the same effect if you set up situations in which the fighter PC has a fictional, contextual reason to go one-on-one against his nemesis, the imp has a reason to single the sorcerer PC out for taunting and attack, etc. (To use another comics comparison, it becomes a bit like a group supers fight.)</p><p></p><p>In a sense this can be done in any system, but I find 4e especially good because it puts more of the action and tension into the fight itself rather than the prep (as in buff-style play, which I've had a lot of in Rolemaster), and also because I find it pretty forgiving of a certain degree of party looseness (we haven't experienced any strong focus-fire imperative in our game). And its PC build rules inject a decent amount of baseline fictional context (I'm a dwarf, so a former slave of the giants, so an enemy of the primordials and beloved by Moradin, etc) which this sort of context for conflict can then be hung on.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't know if that makes any sense.</p><p></p><p>Again, for my group the meaning has to be found in the broader context - both the story significance of what happened during the combat, and then the consequences of it afterwards. One upshot of this is "no filler encounters" - which is already a bit of a departure from traditional exploratory D&D.</p><p></p><p>Like your smiley says, they're going to have to find an approach more robust than this to make D&Dnext work across the styles!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5918226, member: 42582"] Obviously I don't find this sort of problem to be as widespread or jarring as you. But even I agree in respect of some monsters - especially some of the epic-tier humanoids introduced in MM3 (the Weavers and the like) which don't really seem to have the fictional context to warrant their extraordinary stats. (They remind me a bit of the Watchers and the like from the Marvel Universe.) And I definitely agree that published material doesn't pay enough attention to things like delevelling strategies by depriving foes of equipment. I agree that fictional positioning has limited points of input. I think the published rules tend to overlook or underemphasise some key ones, though - keywords in particular (eg fireball sets things alight because it's a [fire] power). And geography is another thing that matters, obviously - and the way I use geography in encounters has really changed in 4e. But the other, and more important way, that I try and use fiction is at the motivational/"framing" level - ie there are no relationship mechanics or augments, but you can get something like the same effect if you set up situations in which the fighter PC has a fictional, contextual reason to go one-on-one against his nemesis, the imp has a reason to single the sorcerer PC out for taunting and attack, etc. (To use another comics comparison, it becomes a bit like a group supers fight.) In a sense this can be done in any system, but I find 4e especially good because it puts more of the action and tension into the fight itself rather than the prep (as in buff-style play, which I've had a lot of in Rolemaster), and also because I find it pretty forgiving of a certain degree of party looseness (we haven't experienced any strong focus-fire imperative in our game). And its PC build rules inject a decent amount of baseline fictional context (I'm a dwarf, so a former slave of the giants, so an enemy of the primordials and beloved by Moradin, etc) which this sort of context for conflict can then be hung on. I don't know if that makes any sense. Again, for my group the meaning has to be found in the broader context - both the story significance of what happened during the combat, and then the consequences of it afterwards. One upshot of this is "no filler encounters" - which is already a bit of a departure from traditional exploratory D&D. Like your smiley says, they're going to have to find an approach more robust than this to make D&Dnext work across the styles! [/QUOTE]
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L&L 5/21 - Hit Points, Our Old Friend
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