"4th Edition will assume roughly 10 encounters per level"

[Hammerhead]

22 years? No thanks. I wonder why on earth that so many people think it's a good idea to make it virtually impossible to reach the "maximum" level. I joking back in 2e after the defeat of a particularly epic foe (like the Tarrasque) that "I only needed to kill 17 more to level."

 

[Treebore]

Assuming 4 encounters per play session, and 1 session per week, that's a 22 year campaign.

Its usually 7, and we often get to play twice per week for 4 to 6 hours each time (the group is my wife and 3 kids), so its more like 10 years. 12 at the most.

 

[FireLance]

I think the definition of a "standard encounter" will change between 3e and 4e.

A "standard encounter" in 3e is supposed to consume about 25% of a party's resources.

A "standard encounter" in 4e will probably be expected to consume about 80% of a party's resources (most of the party's at will or per encounter abilities, and one or two per day abilities).

So, a standard encounter in 4e will roughly be the equivalent of three standard encounters in 3e, and ten standard encounters in 4e will be the equivalent of thirty standard encounters in 3e.

In a way, the PCs will have to work harder for their levels, even if they are gaining them more quickly (in terms of sessions).

 

[FireLance]

Its usually 7, and we often get to play twice per week for 4 to 6 hours each time (the group is my wife and 3 kids), so its more like 10 years. 12 at the most.

My group is made up of working adults and it's rare for us to be able to get together more than once per month. We'd probably want to level at the rate of once per session so that we can get the full 1st- to 30th-level experience within a reasonable time frame.

 

[Just Another User]

I hope this is true, but ... +6 wands scare me

Like I said "if they do it right", but consider this, all the announcement they made until now seems to have the single objective to "psyche" us up, And apparently seems to be aimed to a 12 years old public or very near, just look at how many time they use words as "cool", "exciting" and similiars, and keep referring to things like doing criticals with a fireball or how they characters can "kick ass" (which IO personally I don't give a damn about) so I assume (hope?) that they mention wands +6 in 4D! as they would mention , I don't know, vorpal blades in 3.x, if there are they are incredibly rare items.

(don't take me wrong, I think 4D! will mostly sucks, but not for the wands +6 or the abuse of magic items, that problem is so obvious that even WotC designer should be able to make it right this time.)

or so I hope.

 

[Jhaelen]

A "standard encounter" in 4e will probably be expected to consume about 80% of a party's resources (most of the party's at will or per encounter abilities, and one or two per day abilities).

Well, hit points are a resource, too. If a 'standard encounter' cost the party 80% of their resources the chance for one or more player deaths per encounter would be _very_ high.

As a reminder: if the party loses 20% of their resources on average, this may also mean that one of them loses 100% of his/her resources (i.e. ending up dead), while noone else loses anything at all. While rare in 3E, this can happen with single foe encounters: One character is ambushed and killed before any of the other player characters get to act, but they don't have any difficulties to dispatch the foe afterwards.

Unless they're also making some significant changes to the death & dying rules, the game would be almost unplayable in the long run.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Well, hit points are a resource, too. If a 'standard encounter' cost the party 80% of their resources the chance for one or more player deaths per encounter would be _very_ high.

Unless they're also making some significant changes to the death & dying rules, the game would be almost unplayable in the long run.

I'm guessing they'll adopt the SWSE rule that you can spend an Action Point (well, a 'Force Point' in Star Wars, but they work the same) to convert 'dead' into 'unconscious.'

With that simple change, the chance, indeed, the expectation that one or more PCs will go down in a typical fight becomes quite playable.