Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Worlds of Design: A Worthy End?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Stormonu" data-source="post: 9230544" data-attributes="member: 52734"><p>I'm not talking about balancing, but a shift towards the desire to have combat. In older editions, initiating a combat was a dangerous prospect. You were likely outclassed from the onset and replenishing the resources lost to combat wasn't easy. The system was designed to nickle-and-dime you to death, if not outright kill you in an overwhelming encounter. The group wanted to get in an area and avoid as much trouble as possible and hurriedly get out. </p><p></p><p>Some of that changed in 2E, with the advent of roleplaying XP. Published adventures shifted more towards undertaking a story goal, but engaging in combat was still a very risky business. Adventures were designed with the intent the characters should put forethought into scouting, looking for secret side passages or interacting with monsters to avoid a confrontation, though set-piece unavoidable combats started to appear as story points.</p><p></p><p>In 3E, the entire XP system shifted to "defeating the encounter" - primarily via killing monsters. Budgets for encounters started to appear. While some adventures still featured overwhelming encounters (such as the Roper in <em>Forge of Fury</em>), they mostly got shouted at for being unfair. As the edition lagged on players more and more expected that any encounter they faced <em>should</em> be defeatable by brute force.</p><p></p><p>This reached a climax with the Delve format and 4E, with a "combat behind every door" and those combats being set-piece encounters. You were expected to fight and defeat anything thrown at you (look back at the outrage over Irontooth in <em>Keep in the Shadowfell</em>), and there was rarely ways to avoid or mitigate the fight as they had already been prebalanced to face the party's power, and the party had increasing ways to recover resources after each encounter.</p><p></p><p>5E is a bit of a mix. Encounters are built using budgets, encouraging a certain level of interaction. Facing encounters and killing monsters is still the default method, but there are other methods to gain XP that do not endorse the "hunt down and kill everything in sight" method of play. Players do have many resources to quickly recover after a fight, but they can slowly be drained over time. Many of the published adventures often have monster encounters that aren't expected to be overcome by rushing in to fight, and stealth or avoidance have a much better chance at success.</p><p></p><p>In short, it hasn't been that actual fights have changed so much over editions as much as the question "fight or avoid?"</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Stormonu, post: 9230544, member: 52734"] I'm not talking about balancing, but a shift towards the desire to have combat. In older editions, initiating a combat was a dangerous prospect. You were likely outclassed from the onset and replenishing the resources lost to combat wasn't easy. The system was designed to nickle-and-dime you to death, if not outright kill you in an overwhelming encounter. The group wanted to get in an area and avoid as much trouble as possible and hurriedly get out. Some of that changed in 2E, with the advent of roleplaying XP. Published adventures shifted more towards undertaking a story goal, but engaging in combat was still a very risky business. Adventures were designed with the intent the characters should put forethought into scouting, looking for secret side passages or interacting with monsters to avoid a confrontation, though set-piece unavoidable combats started to appear as story points. In 3E, the entire XP system shifted to "defeating the encounter" - primarily via killing monsters. Budgets for encounters started to appear. While some adventures still featured overwhelming encounters (such as the Roper in [I]Forge of Fury[/I]), they mostly got shouted at for being unfair. As the edition lagged on players more and more expected that any encounter they faced [I]should[/I] be defeatable by brute force. This reached a climax with the Delve format and 4E, with a "combat behind every door" and those combats being set-piece encounters. You were expected to fight and defeat anything thrown at you (look back at the outrage over Irontooth in [I]Keep in the Shadowfell[/I]), and there was rarely ways to avoid or mitigate the fight as they had already been prebalanced to face the party's power, and the party had increasing ways to recover resources after each encounter. 5E is a bit of a mix. Encounters are built using budgets, encouraging a certain level of interaction. Facing encounters and killing monsters is still the default method, but there are other methods to gain XP that do not endorse the "hunt down and kill everything in sight" method of play. Players do have many resources to quickly recover after a fight, but they can slowly be drained over time. Many of the published adventures often have monster encounters that aren't expected to be overcome by rushing in to fight, and stealth or avoidance have a much better chance at success. In short, it hasn't been that actual fights have changed so much over editions as much as the question "fight or avoid?" [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Worlds of Design: A Worthy End?
Top