4e "getting back to D&D's roots" how?

[Simon Atavax]

And more went into in this then just the "XP Budget" for encounters. For example, to have 5 PCs vs 5 equal level monsters work, you need to take certain considerations into account - how tough are the monsters compared to the PCs? How can the PCs be challenged in such an encounter without having to rest again?

Of course, the sheer amount of randomness (a la dice rolling!) in *any* combat encounter should remove a lot of the stress of building a "balanced" encounter. To me, chess is balanced. But a game where *every turn* there are tons of dice rolling to determine results has such a high degree of chance (which is a good thing, IMHO) that the notion of balance automatically is somewhat misleading, I think.

 

[Imaro]

.... 3E CR/EL system was a good start, but 4E system works better. Ultimately, it's a refinement after 8 years of learning what worked and what didn't - and what would be desirable.

And more went into in this then just the "XP Budget" for encounters. For example, to have 5 PCs vs 5 equal level monsters work, you need to take certain considerations into account - how tough are the monsters compared to the PCs? How can the PCs be challenged in such an encounter without having to rest again?

You know, first I would say give 4e's xp budget system a chance to be thoroughly tested, I mean honestly there are already vagaries popping up in how encounters have to be structured dependent upon what roles are present in a party. As an example, a large number of minions can either be a cakewalk (if your party has a wizard or two and/or dragonborn in it) or easily become more deadly than their xp cost would suggest if your party lacks these things.

 

[Spatula]

Ummm.... my brain considers the word multiple to mean more than 1, not 5. What am I missing?

The rapidly-moving goalposts.

 

[Hussar]

Ummm.... my brain considers the word multiple to mean more than 1, not 5. What am I missing?

No one ever claimed that you cannot do encounters with 1-5 opponents in 3e. However, there are lots of claims that it is very difficult to go above that.

If you want to be 100% pedantic, then, yes, doing encounters with 2-5 opponents is no problem in any edition. However, it's that 6+ mark where 3e has problems.

 

[Tigerbunny]

Yah. Not so much 1 party: 1 monster as no more than 1:1 combatants. You really, really don't want to do the "hordes of weak enemies" thing. Which 4E does gloriously.

 

[Spatula]

No one ever claimed that you cannot do encounters with 1-5 opponents in 3e.

Actually the comment that started this tangent was Scribble saying that encounters with multiple foes weren't possible "by the book."

 

[Hussar]

Actually the comment that started this tangent was Scribble saying that encounters with multiple foes weren't possible "by the book."

Ah, yes, if we're going to get all pedantic about it, then you're 100% right and that 3e supports encounters with multiple opponents. However, most people are bright enough to realize that multiple is more than 2. And the context is typically more than 5. The issue has been around long enough that you shouldn't have to place disclaimers on the end of every statement.

Honestly, I think 3e works best with 2-3 opponents. 1 opponent of an equivalent EL tends to be able to do too much damage and makes combat very swingy. Two or three opponents drops the damage of each creature and adds all sorts of tactical variety to the encounter.

Where 3e has problems is once you get past about 5. The EL system just doesn't work very well. It does work if you use a lot of leveled humanoids (not giants) and go very high on the EL scale. If you use critters though, either it cake walks or obliterates.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Maure Castle: 9 Encounters (not counting trap rooms) 2 with more than 5 opponents.

Even if we count the encounters with 2-5 enemies, I ran Maure Castle from beginning to end with my group. I found that pretty much any encounter that had multiple enemies was too easy for the PCs due to the way that ELs were calculated. When there were 4+ enemies, each of them had to be 4 CRs below the PCs level for the EL to come out equal to their level. That much below the PCs meant that they had too few hp, ac, and attacks to do much to the PCs.

Likewise, individual enemies were almost as weak because they only got one action to the PCs 5. Especially if the enemy was a spellcaster. Given the low hitpoints and one spell per round they were dead before they did anything signifcant...except fire off one save or die spell(but most of the NPCs in the mod don't have any prepared).

 

[Hussar]

Well, 4 or 5, tomato tomahto. I'm not terribly fussed either way. The point is well taken.

It all comes down to how 3e builds monsters. The assumption is that a CR=Average party level encounter (with only 1 monster, not EL=APL), you will have the same effect as a multiple CR encounter where EL=APL. This is simply not true and cannot be true. As CR increases, HD increases (obviously) but also stats increase and special abilities as well. So the attack bonus of a CR 5 creature is not simply 1 higher than a CR 4 creature, it's 2 or 3 higher. And a CR 6 creature is 2 or 3 higher than that.

Now, AC somewhat scales by level, to some degree. So, if you are average to be hit by a CR 6 creature, then a CR 4 creature, because its +2-4 lower on its attack bonus, has a much, much more difficult time to hit you. Go even lower, and the creatures are only hitting on 20's.

Note, the numbers here are spit balling, I'm not saying it's always true. I find that you can go much higher than EL=APL with classed humanoids and get a fairly decent encounter. This is because classed humanoids are so much weaker than monsters of an equivalent CR. Going EL+3 or 4 with classed humanoids allows you to make a challenging encounter with multiple opponents without wiping the floor with the party. Go EL +3 or 4 with, say, large grappling monsters (or worse, huge grappling monsters) and you just TPK'd.

This all comes down to the EL/CR system which assumes that an equivalent EL encounter will use 20% of your resources. But, when you only have one opponent, it can only take those 20% from one or maybe 2 PC's. Thus, it has to be much stronger in order to have any effect. Which leads to a very large jump in power levels between CR's.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

How do you know?

Seriously, how?

You can "just tell"? I guarantee you, if that's your yardstick, you're wrong almost half the time, at least. (Not just "you" personally, but "you" anyone.) Seriously. Unless you know the people writing the books, you have no way of telling. I guarantee you, some of the ones you think are the most obvious are actually not nearly so clear-cut.

Especially considering the fact that there really isn't a solid line of demarcation between "flavor" and "mechanics" in terms of which came first. Usually when an idea comes to an RPG writer, it has a mix of both from the get-go.

Well, to be fair, there's no way to KNOW exactly. However, you can certainly get a good sense from some rules that are difficult to comprehend from a game point of view but make perfect sense by a simulation point of view.

I mean, I'm certain no one sat down and thought "You know what would be fun, we could make Longsword the best weapon in the game CLEARLY." when they were writing second edition. And I'm certain no one thought very much about how fun it would be for the game when they printed 20 weapons with the exact same stats with different names. Instead, they were thinking "We need the stats for a Falchion, they should be about the same power as....this weapon here." I find it extremely unlikely that back in 1st or 2nd Edition the writers were actually thinking to themselves: "We need a weapon that does 1d10 damage, is two handed, and is piercing so we can make sure that there is one of those in the table to round it out. Now, what do we call it?"

It's certainly possible I'm wrong. But I wouldn't have thought like that back when I played 2nd Edition. The entire concept is that the game is supposed to simulate the real life properties of the items. You start by looking at the items properties in real life and them attempt to model them in game mechanics. You trust that whatever kept them balanced in real life keeps them balanced within the game world. And even if they aren't balanced, who cares? It just means that no one will be running around attempting to take out people in plate mail with a dagger. Which only enhances the simulation.

On the other hand, I've changed my way of thinking over the years since I've played more and more gamist games and realized that they are simply more fun for me.

As for the original topic. Not everything about 4th Edition reminds me of 1st edition. But there is a slight shift back to letting the DM make stuff up that doesn't follow the rules precisely if it is fun. There is a shift back to putting the focus more on the roleplaying at the table and less on the skills on the character sheet.

For instance, in 1e it was perfectly acceptable(and expected) to find a well that when you drank from it gave you a permanent bonus to a stat. I probably wouldn't use this one in 4e for balance reasons, but it seems perfectly acceptable by the rules to say "Someone created a ritual to make water that permanently increased the strength of the drinker."

Whereas in 3e, if I found one of those, my thought would be "Wow, that seems like someone would have had to imbue the water with a wish spell that continually refreshes itself. If that's the case, I should be able to drink 5 times in a row and get my strength up by 5 points. It also cost him millions of gold by the magic item creation rules. Which seems odd that they'd just leave it here...being worth more than a couple of kingdoms."

So, it likely wouldn't be done in 3e, because it seems like it is contrary to the spirit of the game rules.