New Legends and Lore:Head of the Class

[pemerton]

XP in 4E is gained through overcoming challenges which are made up of individual encounters. If the encounter is set up as a combat challenge then the foes must be overcome to earn the xp. Treasure is a reward for jumping through the hoops of the challenges.

Throwing down food to distract them to what end? No combat = no xp for the encounter.

Why couldn't throwing down food to distract creatures be a skill challenge?

More generally - what makes you think it's the GM and not the players who get to determine whether a given encounter is a combat or a non-combat challenge?

 

[ExploderWizard]

This suggests and importance more than just time or resource managment but also suggests, in line with your previous point, that the world and the choice of door taken is more than just a functional link between combat nodes of XP harvesting.

If only those sentiments were reflected in the mechanics for rewards and adventure construction advice then perhaps they wouldn't seem so empty.

 

[pemerton]

You wouldn't do it in 4E because you don't have any kind of rules for those things, and the guidelines for ruling out-of-the-box are pretty shallow. Essentially, everything in game is there to support the (blech) "awesome" combat engine...so the only reason to do anything is the next fight...something like that would simply never occur to a 4E player, because the game is all about stitching together killer combos like marvel vs. capcom (running at full resolution on a commodore 64's processor I might add) and every other option in the game is inferior to simply using their daily, action point, using their other daily.

This suggests and importance more than just time or resource managment but also suggests, in line with your previous point, that the world and the choice of door taken is more than just a functional link between combat nodes of XP harvesting.

There's at least one 4e GM reading and posting to this thread (maybe others also). Do we need this stuff?

Any way, I personally don't see that throwing down food or treasure to distract monsters from attacking the party while exploring a dungeon is some profound step beyond hack and slash play. For some more interesting examples of 4e games - including non-combat play - maybe have a look at some of Chris Perkins recent columns on the WotC website.

 

[pemerton]

If only those sentiments were reflected in the mechanics for rewards and adventure construction advice then perhaps they wouldn't seem so empty.

4e has four sources of XP: combat/tactical encounters; skill challenges; passing time roleplaying so as to advance the game; and quests. Only one of these is linked to combat.

As for the adventure construction advice - it is focused on scene/encounter driven play, rather than exploration. Like many, many contemporary RPGs.

The upshot of the adventure construction advice, plus the XP rules, is this: that PCs advance in level as the players drive the game forward. Level gain isn't really a reward at all - this is one of 4e's major differences from classic D&D. It's just one facet of the game progressing.

I get it that you prefer exploration to scene-oriented play (whether narrativist, or gamist, play). But to imply that all non-exploration oriented play is necessarily shallow - that choices made are just conduits between XP-harvesting nodes - is needlessly dismissive. (And is a description that can equally be applied to dungeon crawls, and frequently has been, by those wishing to denigrate exploratory play.)

 

[ExploderWizard]

Why couldn't throwing down food to distract creatures be a skill challenge?

I suppose it could be a skill challenge but what purpose would it serve to the characters. If anything it would soon be a standard pre-combat tactic to first distract the monster via skill challenge to mine xp then double back and kill it for the combat xp.

More generally - what makes you think it's the GM and not the players who get to determine whether a given encounter is a combat or a non-combat challenge?

Published adventures.

 

[pemerton]

I suppose it could be a skill challenge but what purpose would it serve to the characters. If anything it would soon be a standard pre-combat tactic to first distract the monster via skill challenge to mine xp then double back and kill it for the combat xp.

Why would that even be a problem?

Published adventures.

The only published adventure I know that expressly discusses this issue is P3, which makes it clear that it's the players' choice.

EDIT: I think I mean P2 - the one with lots of drow.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Why would that even be a problem?

It might not be.

The only published adventure I know that expressly discusses this issue is P3, which makes it clear that it's the players' choice.

There was at least one encounter in Against the Giants that was written as a skill challenge involving some NPCs. The NPCs were not given any stats other than the DCs required to run the challenge.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Exploration rules are only as meaningful as time management is in the game.

Are there wandering monsters? Does the party have enough food, ammunition, oil, spikes, etc.?

If these concerns are skipped or glossed over then exploration just becomes flavor text between encounters.

Are you saying then, that there can be no exploration without resource management?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Are you saying then, that there can be no exploration without resource management?

Not at all. Resource management is important if exploration is the goal of play. If it exists as filler between dramatic scenes then its importance may diminish.

 

[pemerton]

There was at least one encounter in Against the Giants that was written as a skill challenge involving some NPCs. The NPCs were not given any stats other than the DCs required to run the challenge.

There are multiple encounters in the real Against the Giants - which I'm rereading in the course of adapting G2 to 4e - in which no stats are given except those necessary to run combat encounters. Would you therefore infer that no other approach is permitted to those encounters by orthodox AD&D?