Search results

Ten sessions per level at low levels? How long do you play per session? Does it really take you 30 weeks to go from level 1 to level 3? Because, yeah, that would be a very low death rate. In my games, that would have been 3 PC deaths in about a six weeks, which is 1 PC death every other session...

I lost a post because I hit backspace, dammit, but my personal experience with RAW in 2E, 3E, and 4E turned out differing levels of swinginess, with 2E hitting the preferred niche of both players I had and myself (both as DM and as player) better than the others. 4E just took too much work to...

I like this idea. Yeah, but based on the above idea, I could see something like "Skeletons take extra damage from bludgeoning weapons" working fine.

I think the simpler solution might be that martial healing provides Temp HP. If I ever run 4E again, that's on my list of houserules to try.

Don't you houserule the length of time it takes to recharge spells? Of course you're going to kill more people if you play by houserules. And, like I said, if you have more combat, you will have more deaths. I was talking specifically about the average campaign that is run strictly by the rules...

Whoa, whoa, whoa, horsey. Who says that's the goal of D&D? It's certainly not mine.

Die as in outright -Con or -10 or whatever system "die"? In a combat heavy campaign (meaning more than 50% of all experience was earned from fights to the death), probably 1 every level between 1 and 3. Dropped to negative hit points and at death's door requiring the use of magical healing...

Like I said in my XP comment, that's an excellent point, and one I hadn't considered. Where that differs from what 4E did is what Minigiant pointed out. The FitM nature of hit points resolved during the same action/turn that they were interacted with. Each loss of hit points was narrated to a...

They have definitely not "always been this way." They were this way in 1E (apparently, although in the few times I played 1E it wasn't played that way) and 4E. They aren't really defined at all in OD&D or BD&D, and in 2E they're defined specifically as "meat." 3E is muddy and occupies a weird...

I had a post earlier that said essentially this, but accidentally closed the window and didn't feel like rewriting it. I think this is right on the money. And I think it actually does a lot to explain some of my dislike of how 4E plays. FitM in one individual action is something that I both...

Not a lot of them, mind you. Maybe only 1 or 2. I was being sort of tongue-in-cheek about it, but my point really was that on any given day, for whatever reason, I won't necessarily be fighting at full strength. But that's real-world not game world. As for my wife being healed in three days in...

His Arthur books are my favorite Arthurian fiction.

Hell, it could be as simple as: Player: When I attack, I want to knock him down. DM: Okay, roll your attack and damage, and roll a Strength Contest. Player: *roll* DM: Hit. *roll* And your Strength Contest beats the Orc's, so he's now prone as well. (EDIT - removed stuff that wasn't really all...

I agree with your sentiment, but I think Kamikaze Midget addressed this already, in that you don't have to use the "pools" really at all. It's a sliding scale that you can tailor as you like. So you and I would both use "no pool" in effect, which in KM's system might read as "100% pool fate, 0%...

Surprise attack, roll for initiative, as I'm fairly sure killing the innkeeper won't be the end of this conflict. Combination of skills and combat depending on how things happen. If NPCs try to fight and skills don't convince them not to, then it's roll initiative and go to combat. Combat. Maybe...

My point in all this is what power level the characters start at. In AD&D 2E and previously, characters started out as commoners with a bit more skill or blessed with some magic, but weren't really all that much more powerful and couldn't really risk pissing off a few people in the bar. 3E...

I wasn't comparing just hit points to just hit points. I was comparing the relative hit points of a 1st level character to a regular commoner in each edition. By taking into account the fact that 4E characters even have more HP than actually listed (since Second Wind is a fact, and adds another...

Individually, sure. But all of those taken together? Not so much. Some of them can be shrugged off easier than others. I think your definition of "short-term" and mine must be different. A bruise still hurts tomorrow. A small cut still hurts tomorrow. But they're not long-term injuries (deep...

You're right. Because if you add in Healing Surges, 4E HP pool is even 6-14 times larger, plus overnight full heals and full Healing Surge restoration, something commoners definitely don't have. You just made my point even stronger. First level PCs in 4E are so far above the commoner that they...

Wow. Totally different outcomes. I suppose some of it could be that the kobolds had good attack rolls, but we very nearly lost the fighter in the first round of combat. Luckily the last kobold was killed before it could attack again, or else we'd have been going into the caves with one seriously...