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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Syrsuro" data-source="post: 4923157" data-attributes="member: 58162">After playing 4E for over a year (and 3.5 for several years before that) I have finally come to grips with what it is that makes me yearn quietly for the older school systems (O/AD&D)and why I see both 3.x and 4E as serious departures from that. And no, I don't want to get into system bashing - that isn't the point. People like what they like. In my case, although I like many things about 4E I do see a major shift in what the players do during a play session. Not one mandated by the rules and not one that couldn't be avoided in theory. But one that, none-the-less was due to the game mechanics. In the older games, combats were shorter. Now this seems so obvious, that it hardly needs to be said. It wasn't difficult to fit 10 or more combat encounters into a game session. But was is often missed is that those 10 or more combat encounters still took up only around half of the game time. The rest was spent exploring and interacting with the environment (both physical and social). This is the reason why many people say that there is less roleplaying in 4E - it isn't that there needs to be, it is just that combats are these huge, monolithic blocks of time which tend to not leave as much time for anything else (unless you decide to cut back on the number of combats which, although fine for some, doesn't actually represent how the game was played - at least not in my experience. Which brings me to the change I am considering for some areas... Create an area with some reason why resting (even 5 minute rests) are not viable. This reason can be wandering monsters, hazardous effects (extreme cold) or whatever.  Decide on the monsters that will populate this area and modify them by reducing them to 1/4 hit points (and reduce their experience awarded by 1/4 to compensate*). Damage and other abilities are unchanged. Create a difficult encounter using these modified creatures. This gives you around 20 monsters with which to populate the area. Place them in a variety of different rooms (perhaps with the ability to come running if an alarm is sounded, etc.)  The end result is an area where the players experience is that of numerous monsters requiring an ongoing battle of multiple 'encounters. Rather than encounter driven combats with no time left to consider the space between those encounters, the entire area is now relevant and exploring and interaction becomes more important.  Because this extended encounter space takes place without resting (and is thus a single encounter), the game mechanisms are still somewhat balaced. In short, you have an area that feels more like an old-school game than it does a modern game while adhering to the basic game mechanics. (In practice, I will probably have this area lead to a more traditional 4E encounter whose opponents feel even stronger by comparison to the 1/4 hp ones mentioned above.) Comments? Anyone tried anything like this? Carl *And yes, I know that this makes them grant the same experience as a minion by RAW. However I don't think there is any question but that minions are not worth 1/4 of a regular. These creatures are far closer to being 1/4 of a regular. Minions ought to be more like 1/8 or less.</blockquote>

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