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<blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 6988420" data-attributes="member: 12731">For me, a combat needs a reason for existing. I definitely include &quot;story&quot; or &quot;world verisimilitude&quot; as very valid reasons, so it's not that I can't have Easy fights.But that doesn't remove my misgivings about the entire encounter structure assumptions of the DMG. Who in their right mind would want to waste their afternoon on a series of combats that individually present no challenge? That's right, I question the entire idea that the goal of a combat should be to see whether you can defeat it without spending too many limited resources. Especially since the game doesn't even lift a finger to make the recharging of said resources itself a challenge! (If most official adventures enforced hard limits on things like hit points, spell slots and long rests, much like D&amp;D Online does, it would be a whole different story)So. The central reason is &quot;challenge&quot;. A combat needs to present, at some level, a challenge, or you could just as well save time and simply narrate &quot;you kill them, you find no loot, let's move on&quot;.This doesn't mean every combat needs to be Deadly (for any definition of that term). But it does mean I have very little to add in a discussion about quantifying terms like &quot;Easy&quot; &quot;Medium&quot; and &quot;Hard&quot;. I just want to relabel them into &quot;No challenge&quot;, &quot;Minimal But Still Way Too Little Challenge&quot;, and &quot;Some challenge&quot; and refocus the discussion: This is no videogame where resolving a long string of easy encounters has its entertainment values and doesn't take too long (think Diablo or Torchlight where an endless stream of easy challenges becomes almost meditative). The correct question IMNSHO isn't &quot;how much xp makes an Easy encounter&quot; but &quot;how to merge Easy encounters into something that's actually worth my players time&quot;... But since this would amount to exactly the type of post I myself loathe (and too frequently am subjected to) where a poster barges in and questions the entire premise of a thread, I will simply leave this here, and ask that you do not reply (in this thread at least).<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="CapnZapp, post: 6988420, member: 12731"] For me, a combat needs a reason for existing. I definitely include "story" or "world verisimilitude" as very valid reasons, so it's not that I can't have Easy fights. But that doesn't remove my misgivings about the entire encounter structure assumptions of the DMG. Who in their right mind would want to waste their afternoon on a series of combats that individually present no challenge? That's right, I question the entire idea that the goal of a combat should be to see whether you can defeat it without spending too many limited resources. Especially since the game doesn't even lift a finger to make the recharging of said resources itself a challenge! (If most official adventures enforced hard limits on things like hit points, spell slots and long rests, much like D&D Online does, it would be a whole different story) So. The central reason is "challenge". A combat needs to present, at some level, a challenge, or you could just as well save time and simply narrate "you kill them, you find no loot, let's move on". This doesn't mean every combat needs to be Deadly (for any definition of that term). But it does mean I have very little to add in a discussion about quantifying terms like "Easy" "Medium" and "Hard". I just want to relabel them into "No challenge", "Minimal But Still Way Too Little Challenge", and "Some challenge" and refocus the discussion: This is no videogame where resolving a long string of easy encounters has its entertainment values and doesn't take too long (think Diablo or Torchlight where an endless stream of easy challenges becomes almost meditative). The correct question IMNSHO isn't "how much xp makes an Easy encounter" but "how to merge Easy encounters into something that's actually worth my players time"... But since this would amount to exactly the type of post I myself loathe (and too frequently am subjected to) where a poster barges in and questions the entire premise of a thread, I will simply leave this here, and ask that you do not reply (in this thread at least). :) [/QUOTE]

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