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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ltbaxter" data-source="post: 4109917" data-attributes="member: 60472">Very good post, and some very good points. I would disagree with a few, or make some comments."In traditional old D&D (up through 3rd edition), battles were basically won by attrition."Hmmm.. more so than in 4e, but not overall. At early levels, each hit could take you down. You had almost no resources to converse, so not much impact of attrition.In the sweet spot, attrition had its biggest effect. Spells were useful but limited in number.At higher levels, there was an overabundance of healing capability, and you started each encounter fully healed. Wands and scrolls kept you from running out of stuff, and the ultimate answer to attrition... go ahead and sleep. "Like in a wargame -- your forces go down, your resources go down, and you die. Or you manage those resources well, and you're lucky, and you don't die...."Gah, what a nihilistic view  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />  Sounds like a rough DM. For us it was 'manage well or get lucky, or you're getting to wish you could die'"Spellcasters have to choose what spells they memorize for the day. You have to have the right stuff -- if you're fighting a wraith and you don't have a magic weapon, or if you're fighting green slime and you don't have fire, you better run..."I'll hold off final judgement til I see the 4e PHB, but this in fact one thing I expect to miss quite a bit - I really liked that aspect of playing a wizard. From what I've seen of 4e, I think there will still be a fair amount of resource management, both within battles and within the day. With one second wind and the leader having several people to take care of, those healing surges never seem to be common enough, *and* when the monsters are smacking you for 33% of your hit points, taking a round to get back 25% is definitely turning towards an attrition-based battle.I think players who are carefully and take resource management seriously, and enjoy that aspect of the game, will very much guard their daily powers and will enjoy the tough choice of when to use the daily and when to hold back. While I enjoyed choosing the right spells as a wizard, it was frustrating to basically sit on the sidelines when your choices ended up being not that great due to unforeseen circumstances.In some ways, 4e may be the best of both worlds - I think we'll get the fun 'must get up and help Jim!' nearly superhero actions people are calling anime, but we'll also have resource management that will be hugely impacted by your tactical skill."Instead, what's the model for 4e combat? Everyone's on their feet as much of the time as possible, and everyone can do effective stuff as often as possible! <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    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ... Hit points are no longer quite as zealously guarded either, since now everyone can "second wind" and get back their hit points to a certain extent."Have you played at all with 4e rules? (that's not being snarky, I'm curious) In the several sessions I've played in or run, characters were dropping like flies frequently. The fun thing is that there weren't staying down, adding a lot to the feeling of brink-of-death while reducing the chance of killing a well loved character quite significantly. Along those lines, all the characters I've seen were very much watching their hit points, not at all cavalier about them just because a healing surge might come up. In practice at these very early levels, I'm seeing almost identical fall down and healing rates as third level characters, since 1d8+1/lvl for a cure light is fairly close to 25% of health and also takes a standard action.(What does seem anime to me, and not in a good way, is pushing foes around not just a square or two but the rogue positioning strike-artful dodger synergy)Thanks for the sharing the thoughts in your post.</blockquote>

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