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<blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4429591" data-attributes="member: 710">There is a difference between &quot;power&quot; and &quot;theme&quot;. Why does there need to be a sacrifice? Chosing between Astral Fire and Skill Training (Bluff) can be construed as a &quot;power-trade-off&quot;, but it's mostly a thematic choice. Do I define this character more by his power over otherworldly energy, or by this fast-talking attitude? Or would this be a valid example of &quot;trade-off&quot; or sacrifice - I am giving up extra damage for non-combat ability?In the end, you still have to choose what you are _really_ good at. But you never have to make a sacrifice that means you're gimped in your core abilities. And these core abilities are obviously defined by the class you choice (otherwise, what would be the point of a class-based game?) <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />These are the types of encounters where the PCs face a potential TPK. We had only equal level challenges last evening (scaled to a four-man party, even), and while we didn't run into any TPK situations, each combat was tense, because my Fighter was consistently beaten down and even dropped below 0 hit points in two out of 6 encounters, and was very close to it in the other encounters...I never had such a thing occurring in CR = EL typical challenges in 3E, excluding maybe encounters with (real) save or die spells. There is a wide spectrum between &quot;no one ever dies&quot; and &quot;TPK&quot;, and 4E allows us to explore this spectrum (in an entertaining way...)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mustrum_Ridcully, post: 4429591, member: 710"] There is a difference between "power" and "theme". Why does there need to be a sacrifice? Chosing between Astral Fire and Skill Training (Bluff) can be construed as a "power-trade-off", but it's mostly a thematic choice. Do I define this character more by his power over otherworldly energy, or by this fast-talking attitude? Or would this be a valid example of "trade-off" or sacrifice - I am giving up extra damage for non-combat ability? In the end, you still have to choose what you are _really_ good at. But you never have to make a sacrifice that means you're gimped in your core abilities. And these core abilities are obviously defined by the class you choice (otherwise, what would be the point of a class-based game?) ;) These are the types of encounters where the PCs face a potential TPK. We had only equal level challenges last evening (scaled to a four-man party, even), and while we didn't run into any TPK situations, each combat was tense, because my Fighter was consistently beaten down and even dropped below 0 hit points in two out of 6 encounters, and was very close to it in the other encounters... I never had such a thing occurring in CR = EL typical challenges in 3E, excluding maybe encounters with (real) save or die spells. There is a wide spectrum between "no one ever dies" and "TPK", and 4E allows us to explore this spectrum (in an entertaining way...) [/QUOTE]

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