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Discuss: Combat as War in D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8264469" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Not a bad description, and I personally think the avoidance of any of the language attempting to cast CaW actions in terms of actual strategic thinking is a plus point. </p><p></p><p>I think where the focus on lethality often comes in is that it is the 'stick' in this equation. In other words, you face the level 1 PCs with a group of ogres instead of some goblins. They are not going to beat that by wading into combat (in any edition of D&D). This will force a more involved plan to be developed. Another element is the color of relations as a 'war', since this implies immediate and direct conflict which must be resolved with some urgency (IE the ogres are COMING TO THE VILLAGE). If the threat was just "some goblins live in a cave down the road, sometimes they make trouble" then the players are much less incentivized to come up with some sort of strategic plan beyond "we go down the road, enter the cave, kick their asses, and take their loot." Now, maybe in any case the later plan will fail, but chances are the adventure will be organized as a graded series of fairly linear encounters with weaker goblins, medium goblins, and the toughest goblins at the end. Maybe the goblins WILL react to the PCs, maybe some sneaking or whatever is indicated, and this could even be an SC in 4e, but the key point is the encounters need not be THAT hard, since the PCs won't be doing anything especially strategic to tilt the odds in their favor.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8264469, member: 82106"] Not a bad description, and I personally think the avoidance of any of the language attempting to cast CaW actions in terms of actual strategic thinking is a plus point. I think where the focus on lethality often comes in is that it is the 'stick' in this equation. In other words, you face the level 1 PCs with a group of ogres instead of some goblins. They are not going to beat that by wading into combat (in any edition of D&D). This will force a more involved plan to be developed. Another element is the color of relations as a 'war', since this implies immediate and direct conflict which must be resolved with some urgency (IE the ogres are COMING TO THE VILLAGE). If the threat was just "some goblins live in a cave down the road, sometimes they make trouble" then the players are much less incentivized to come up with some sort of strategic plan beyond "we go down the road, enter the cave, kick their asses, and take their loot." Now, maybe in any case the later plan will fail, but chances are the adventure will be organized as a graded series of fairly linear encounters with weaker goblins, medium goblins, and the toughest goblins at the end. Maybe the goblins WILL react to the PCs, maybe some sneaking or whatever is indicated, and this could even be an SC in 4e, but the key point is the encounters need not be THAT hard, since the PCs won't be doing anything especially strategic to tilt the odds in their favor. [/QUOTE]
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