random user said:
I've talked to some people, and they seem to place great emphasis on balancing all encounters so that they challenge the party. Time is precious, so why waste it on an easy encounter?
But on the other hand, some people think it's unrealistic that all the encounters a party has are just barely beatable (ie properly balanced). And sometimes it's fun just to whale on monsters (though of course as with everything else moderation is key... you can't do that too often).
What are other people's thoughts on this? In your opinion, Is it ok to have some encounters where the party basically steamrolls and uses only a small amount of resources, or should all those battles be skipped and only major encounters be rolled out?
It really depends, but my most recent opinion is that combat as encounters is unnecessary, and really gets in the way of what is important. I suppose D&D is geared to the heroic fantasy where characters take on hordes of evil creatures, slashing, burning, or killing those they encounter.
The last few characters I've created, they've really been focused on everything BUT combat. I had a Gnomish Rogue who was a professional. He was a Security Systems Specialist, and was there soley to work his trade. I felt obligated to get involved in combat, though that would be something my character would not do. I did everything possible to steer the group away from danger... they just never listened to me
. As it turned out, I had the character with the highest XP total when the game ended... go figure :\
My next character was in d20 Modern. The character was a musician, and everything was geared to his career. He had no weapons, low strength and con, and no desire to run into trouble (as it turned out one other player had the title of more "useless" character, as right up until the end he did whatever possible to stay out of the campaign
).
I've just become unsatisfied with the whole XP paradigm connected to the overly broad plateau based character advancement system. I much prefer HarnMaster in that the skills you use improve dependant on how often you use them. Combat is a task you do after negotions fail. While general character survivability is low (if you try to attack anything that moves), combat is only something you resort to when you have to.
On Tuesday I started a new campaign (after TPK'ing the previous party), which is city-based. I stated upfront that combat would not be the focus of the campaign, and thus XP would not be awarded for combat. The player of the dwarven fighter was a little annoyed at first, but probably became the primary character for his ability to play beyond the hack and slash, and was the focus of the first major plot thread. Not a single attack roll was made, and it was a very interesting session. The players enjoyed it immensely. Here are some things I did.
1. Contacts: This is especially important. Each character had 4 contacts generated for them. These contacts ranged from an enemy, to acquaintances, all the way to close friends. I used index cards for each contact, and listed basic information that the player would know (Name, Occupation, Age, Gender, Race), as well as "Skills of Note". These were skills that their contact might have in which the player can in time of need, go to that contact for help. The players liked having contacts alot, and allowed them to get involved in many different ways than the usual "I swing at the Orc".
2. Background info: While intending to add more than what I included, I generated information on Sibling Rank, Estrangement (Popularity of the character within the family/clan), and Parentage (Bastard, Orphan, Parents Alive and Living together, etc). For the most part the group had a basic idea of what their characters backgrounds might have been, but I added these details.
I used HarnMaster to generate this information, and is another reason why I like the system very much. It integrates a characters background details into the character generation process. If your character was of the Guild Social Class, he would have access to a variety of occupations which would then determine skills the character would have access to.
Imagine a streamlined version of the "system" from the Hero Builder's Guidebook integrated into the D&D PHB.
Yes, I suppose I did go off on a tangent.
This leads to a final point. How do I deal with XP and the ability of the characters to improve ? I've decided to have each player write a "journal" about the things their character has done in each session. Base XP would be given at the rate of 75XP per hour of session play, modified to take into account a number of different factors. This follows in line with WotC's expected number of encounters, and average session length. WotC presumed that an average group plays once a week for about 4 hours. In these 4 hours, a character would face approximately 4 "average" encounters, thus one encounter per hour. One CR1 challenge nets 4-1st level characters 300XP. Divide by number of characters and you have 75XP. We're barely able to manage to scratch out 4 hours in a session as it is. Some may be shorter, some longer. Ideally, the players will see that their characters will improve without them ever needing to enter combat. Disconecting the links between Combat and XP is my first step in eventually converting them over to HarnMaster.
