Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Libramarian" data-source="post: 7650226" data-attributes="member: 6688858">No, no...what? No. Random encounters DO make the last battle tougher. You sound like you started with 4e, maybe late/degenerate 3e. In most editions of the game, healing is limited. Your HP don't recharge completely after every battle. Random encounters deplete your resources, making the rest of the adventure more difficult.Every adventure paradigm is going to have some &quot;filler&quot; content. You can't have 100% concentrated story-juice all the time. In 4e, it's the sheer length of the battles. Imagine running 4e where battles were resolved in 10 minutes instead of 1 hour+. Think about how much more prep you would have to do as a DM per 4 hours of play time. In standard 4e, you've only got to prep a couple of story beats per session. Much of the rest of the time you're playing the battle system.It's the same way with random and &quot;trash&quot; encounters in other editions--they stretch out an adventure with low-prep content. In this sense, a bit of exploration with 4 or 5 trash encounters is analogous to the first round or two of a 4e encounter. They're not any more or less a waste of time. It's an alternative &quot;game&quot; to play between story beats. IMO it's a better one, done well.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Libramarian, post: 7650226, member: 6688858"] No, no...what? No. Random encounters DO make the last battle tougher. You sound like you started with 4e, maybe late/degenerate 3e. In most editions of the game, healing is limited. Your HP don't recharge completely after every battle. Random encounters deplete your resources, making the rest of the adventure more difficult. Every adventure paradigm is going to have some "filler" content. You can't have 100% concentrated story-juice all the time. In 4e, it's the sheer length of the battles. Imagine running 4e where battles were resolved in 10 minutes instead of 1 hour+. Think about how much more prep you would have to do as a DM per 4 hours of play time. In standard 4e, you've only got to prep a couple of story beats per session. Much of the rest of the time you're playing the battle system. It's the same way with random and "trash" encounters in other editions--they stretch out an adventure with low-prep content. In this sense, a bit of exploration with 4 or 5 trash encounters is analogous to the first round or two of a 4e encounter. They're not any more or less a waste of time. It's an alternative "game" to play between story beats. IMO it's a better one, done well. [/QUOTE]

Verification