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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lkjopajdowma" data-source="post: 5117854" data-attributes="member: 55568">If I'm misinterpreting what you're saying here, I apologize, but it seems to me you're talking about something I've noticed as a player in 4e...I'm looking at my options in combat, looking at the surroundings, thinking of all these cool things I could try to do from a cinematic or heroic perspective that isn't using a power, then looking at my powers, and realizing that the powers are just a better option, mechanically and tactically, and risk-wise.Now, this could be relieved by a really flexible DM, but if you don't have one of those, you've got two options in that situation: Try something cool and cinematic with a high chance of failure for little mechanical payoff (if the DM will even allow it), or take the safe route of using a power that maybe has at least a 50% chance of succeeding, and where failure really has no disadvantages other than the combat might take an extra round.Right now my group is trying out Savage Worlds, and I really like a lot of what it does. I played 3.5 before 4e, and while I think 4e is a better game overall, especially the combat, SW is reminding me the one thing I missed about pre-4e combats--attempting cool stuff because the success was worth the risk of failure. In 4e the risk of failure isn't worth the reward for success when you can just fire off a power that would just do more damage to the enemy, have better/more effects, and where failure carries little risk.The way 4e is set up with the power system seems to facilitate a more rigid combat system with less free-form choices. Not because you can't do something else, but because in the confines of the RAW, it's not a tactically sound decision to do so.  It's a tactical game, and there's nothing wrong with that, but I'm not sure that's what I'm looking for exactly. After a stint with SW (which will hopefully go a bit longer, or trying a few other systems), I hope to go back to 4e with some ideas for shaking things up (I'm already thinking of giving APs more uses and being a bit more liberal with them, similar to SW's bennies)....As far as adventure pacing, I've been reading some of your threads recently, Merric, and I like the idea of gutting most of the non-plot-related combats from an adventure, and I think if I run 4e again it's something I'm going to do. Part of the reason my group made an abrupt switch to SW from 4e was the combat slog. We were halfway through Trollhaunt Warrens, and every session was just combat after combat, and we weren't even sure what the plot was anymore. It just wasn't working.</blockquote>

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