D&D 4E Dave Noonan on his 4e Playtest
- Thread starter Scholar & Brutalman
- Start date
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
The more the designers post about 3rd edition, the more I suspect that they are either deliberately obtuse or they didn't understand the game as it is actually played outside Renton at all. "Two EL 12s is only an EL 14." Well no kidding. And if your party is 12th level, it goes from being a cakewalk to being a moderately challenging fight. If your party is 10th level, it goes from a challenging fight to a climactic fight where there's a decent possibility a character or two might die. If your party is 8th level, it goes from a climactic fight to a stong possibility of a TPK--all depending upon the monsters and characters in question of course, but without assuming unusual conditions, that's the way it works. And it's exactly the way that the 3rd ediiton DMG said it works.
The only way I can see his comments making any sense at all is if:
1. His default 3rd edition encounter was actually EL=party level
2. His default 4th edition encounter is a challenging encounter
Now both of those make sense within the context of everything else I've heard about 4th edition, but that concept of 3rd edition doesn't resemble any adventure I've read, played, written, or run whether published by WotC or anyone else. Granted, a large portion of my experience is in Living Greyhawk format where the xp system writers have to use strongly encourages either a level+1/level +2/level +3 or level +2/level +2/level +2 three encounter module, but I've also played or run all of the fantastic locations products except for City of Peril, Red Hand of Doom, Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, Age of Worms up to the Alhaster mod, and Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil up to the crater ridge mines section and those all seemed to fit the default encounter level being party level+1 or party level +2 scenario. (The only published mod I've run that would fit the "most encounters at party level" formula is the new Dungeon Lost Caverns of Tsjocanth and I reduced the party's starting level from 11th to 9th for the mod and amped up the encounters in the first section (though I ran the second section more or less by the book) in order to make it interesting for my players).
[As an aside, I've actually found the CR/EL system to be a pretty good tool for estimating the difficulty of a fight as long as I don't go looking for ways to break it. Some monsters are simply mis CRed (arrow demons come to mind). Other monsters have powers that make them scale in very wonky manners (hezrou are the prime example of this--their blasphemy ability makes them completely unsuitable as a challenging encounter for lower level opponents or a part of a challenging encounter for equal level opponents, but once the players level exceeds the blasphemy caster level, they work fine). But as long as I keep away from the corner cases, it works quite well].
The only way I can see his comments making any sense at all is if:
1. His default 3rd edition encounter was actually EL=party level
2. His default 4th edition encounter is a challenging encounter
Now both of those make sense within the context of everything else I've heard about 4th edition, but that concept of 3rd edition doesn't resemble any adventure I've read, played, written, or run whether published by WotC or anyone else. Granted, a large portion of my experience is in Living Greyhawk format where the xp system writers have to use strongly encourages either a level+1/level +2/level +3 or level +2/level +2/level +2 three encounter module, but I've also played or run all of the fantastic locations products except for City of Peril, Red Hand of Doom, Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, Age of Worms up to the Alhaster mod, and Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil up to the crater ridge mines section and those all seemed to fit the default encounter level being party level+1 or party level +2 scenario. (The only published mod I've run that would fit the "most encounters at party level" formula is the new Dungeon Lost Caverns of Tsjocanth and I reduced the party's starting level from 11th to 9th for the mod and amped up the encounters in the first section (though I ran the second section more or less by the book) in order to make it interesting for my players).
[As an aside, I've actually found the CR/EL system to be a pretty good tool for estimating the difficulty of a fight as long as I don't go looking for ways to break it. Some monsters are simply mis CRed (arrow demons come to mind). Other monsters have powers that make them scale in very wonky manners (hezrou are the prime example of this--their blasphemy ability makes them completely unsuitable as a challenging encounter for lower level opponents or a part of a challenging encounter for equal level opponents, but once the players level exceeds the blasphemy caster level, they work fine). But as long as I keep away from the corner cases, it works quite well].
IceFractal
First Post
Another factor might be that 4E fights seem to last many more rounds than 3E fights. If a second group of monsters heard a commotion and arrived three rounds later in 3E, the first group of monsters was quite possibly defeated, or on its last legs. In 4E, the fight is just getting started.
Also, as mentioned, in 3E the combining could actually help you because you'd have your buffs still up. In 4E, most buffs seem to be of the "swift/free action to activate, only lasts one round" type, so there's less benefit to having the fights closely spaced.
Which brings up an interesting point. In 3E, there may have been the 15-minute day, but during those 15 minutes you often went blazing from one encounter to another if they were closely spaced. In 4E, you've got more longevity, but also more reason to pause between battles. So faster paced action in the course of a day, yes - but maybe not as high a peak speed.
Also, as mentioned, in 3E the combining could actually help you because you'd have your buffs still up. In 4E, most buffs seem to be of the "swift/free action to activate, only lasts one round" type, so there's less benefit to having the fights closely spaced.
Which brings up an interesting point. In 3E, there may have been the 15-minute day, but during those 15 minutes you often went blazing from one encounter to another if they were closely spaced. In 4E, you've got more longevity, but also more reason to pause between battles. So faster paced action in the course of a day, yes - but maybe not as high a peak speed.
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Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Hey, could this be the first playtest report that involves characters above the heroic tier?
Not that I'm too excited, since it just tells us that they died...
It would be nice to see the odd thing posted about paragon and epic playtests, to give us a little flavour of what is going on in those areas...
Cheers
Not that I'm too excited, since it just tells us that they died...
It would be nice to see the odd thing posted about paragon and epic playtests, to give us a little flavour of what is going on in those areas...
Cheers
UngeheuerLich
Legend
Plane Sailing said:
I bet others will be excited because they died...
EATherrian
First Post
Plane Sailing said:
I was wondering that too, but the player levels aren't revealed. It could very well be that there were two challenging encounters for just on the cusp of Paragon level characters. I'd like to know more.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
That seemed to be the assumption, indeed. 4E has a slower advancement curve (I think we can confirm that from the example monsters from the DDXP, too.spunky_mutters said:
This means monsters of lower level remain viable for longer, and this also means that if you add monsters of two encounters, the difficulty increase should be higher, too.
In 4E, the curve might be more described by this Difficulty (n+5) = n * 2... (I wonder if any designer reading this board would care to comment
)I remember that Wulf Rutbane, many moons ago, had a thread open that would discuss the "Math of D&D"...
UngeheuerLich
Legend
seems like X+4=x*2
