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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6698973" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, I never liked the 'reduce hit points' thing, I thought it missed the point, which was that the game, by default, mechanically puts the whole contest onto hit points. This frees up the GM to determine what other factors play into victory, so he can be sure that powers will give the players a certain toolset, and the rest is situational. If the plot calls for grabbing the McGuffin and running away, then its irrelevant how many hit points the monsters have, beyond enough to make running a more sensible option (or at least one of several). Likewise if the situation is highly dynamic, then control, clever use of powers, and creative problem solving are likely to trump or at least bypass a lot of the chewing down of hit points. In that context a soldier monster is a roadblock, not a boring trap, you WANT to get around him, and his hit points are part of the problem set, not something that forces the fight to become static. Likewise the modest per-round damage that monsters usually dish out means you can pick tactics like 'run past the monster and take a hit', which in older editions was pretty much suicide or at least a huge gamble (and even if you carried it off then you had super limited healing). So I go for real action-sequence type combats, you may still wipe out the bad guys, but a lot of it will turn out to be pushing them into some bad place, using a terrain power, maneuvering so that the terrain forces half the monsters to fight you at a time, etc. Once you get into that mode then 4e fights work great. I think the game COULD be tweaked, but what I would do is redesign it so terrain is a bit more significant, streamline the turn sequence a bit, and make somewhat fewer but weightier powers. 5e actually did some of that, but they also messed with a lot of the other areas in a negative way.</blockquote>

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