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<blockquote data-quote="dkyle" data-source="post: 6051779" data-attributes="member: 70707">No, the major difference is that healing surges are an actually constrained resource, that enable precisely the kind of gameplay you are looking for, and wands of CLW are an effectively unlimited resource to any party with sufficient system mastery, that prevents the kind of gameplay you are looking for.HP is primarily an encounter-duration resource in 4E, yes, but that's why we have healing surges, to be a longer term resource that allows for attrition over the course of the adventure.So the trap isn't there to merely deal damage, and weaken the group's HP totals in advance of an encounter an hour late; it's there to potentially require spending a healing surge, requiring more careful play later in the day.If you want a trap to cause the party to have less HP for the next encounter, that's trivial; just make the trap the first opening &quot;surprise&quot; of an encounter!4E's skill challenges aren't perfect by any means, but they do come closer to reducing &quot;roll to see if the DM lets you win&quot; than any other edition of D&amp;D, by placing skill rolls in a well-defined mechanical context.I don't really understand what you've finding fun and engaging in your non-4E games that's non-combat, and not &quot;roll to see if the DM lets you win&quot;, that 4E can't also do. Skills pre-4E are pure DM-fiat.&nbsp; The only major non-DM-fiat non-combat pre-4E is Spells, but 4E has Rituals that perform largely the same non-combat role Spells did pre-4E.It seems like your problem with 4E is that there's so much going on with combat, that non-combat looks anemic, even though 4E has just as much, if not more, real non-combat mechanics than past editions.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="dkyle, post: 6051779, member: 70707"] No, the major difference is that healing surges are an actually constrained resource, that enable precisely the kind of gameplay you are looking for, and wands of CLW are an effectively unlimited resource to any party with sufficient system mastery, that prevents the kind of gameplay you are looking for. HP is primarily an encounter-duration resource in 4E, yes, but that's why we have healing surges, to be a longer term resource that allows for attrition over the course of the adventure. So the trap isn't there to merely deal damage, and weaken the group's HP totals in advance of an encounter an hour late; it's there to potentially require spending a healing surge, requiring more careful play later in the day. If you want a trap to cause the party to have less HP for the next encounter, that's trivial; just make the trap the first opening "surprise" of an encounter! 4E's skill challenges aren't perfect by any means, but they do come closer to reducing "roll to see if the DM lets you win" than any other edition of D&D, by placing skill rolls in a well-defined mechanical context. I don't really understand what you've finding fun and engaging in your non-4E games that's non-combat, and not "roll to see if the DM lets you win", that 4E can't also do. Skills pre-4E are pure DM-fiat. The only major non-DM-fiat non-combat pre-4E is Spells, but 4E has Rituals that perform largely the same non-combat role Spells did pre-4E. It seems like your problem with 4E is that there's so much going on with combat, that non-combat looks anemic, [i]even though 4E has just as much, if not more, real non-combat mechanics than past editions[/i]. [/QUOTE]

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