Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 5560477" data-attributes="member: 386">On to my thoughts about currency.  I don't think I'm well-versed in 4E's currency, since I've been focused on my own game.One of the reasons I really like 4E is because the currency of the game is so transparent.  It's easy to give everything a level, and from that level you can determine XP, DCs, GP, encounter difficulty, and other game mechanics.How does what your dwarf cleric did feed into the currency of the game?  I think it's pretty simple.  He made some checks against DCs - DCs which have levels attached to them - and is therefore due some kind of consequence.  The consequence, I suggest, should be equal to the level of the DCs.How to translate the fictional positioning into concrete game mechanics?  I think that's pretty simple as well.  You just have to look at magic items that provide the same benefit - items such as the Ebony Fly (in this situation) provide a template that can be used to determine the effectiveness of the PC's resource!(Since things like the Ebony Fly are Daily, I'd suggest that the NPCs are too tired after a single encounter to be of much use.  They could probably assist in Aid Another actions - that's fictional positioning in play! - but no more fighting.)The only criticism I have of 4E is that it doesn't suggest this sort of use of its mechanics in the DMG.  This is the whole reason I use 4E as the base for my hack; I often marvel at how easy it is to make these sorts of rulings: how much should something cost, how many guys can you recruit and for how much, how much damage does a catapult made by a 7th-level character do, and other such questions.So I agree with you that they are unstated, but there's a really robust system underneath the hood.  I think the key is that everything has a level; from that, pretty much anything else can be determined.(The only issue I've noticed is time; it doesn't seem to be part of the game's currency.  I don't think that's exactly true, though; it's not really time that the game is concerned with, but encounters, short rests, and extended rests.  How one deals with these can make a big difference in the choices the players make.  Time was one of the big things that I had to add to my hack, and I did it in more of a game-world passing of time sort of way, but I imagine you could work out a system that ties actions to rests that works better than what I've come up with.)So, based on the above, I think that these currency rules are in the rulebooks, they're just not framed in that way.  (It would be interesting to draw some flowcharts about how 4E's currency works.)  There are some missing places; if you get into a skill challenge to recruit more dwarves, it's only the DM's call that determines the Complexity of the challenge.  As a comparison, when you have a "martial loss" (whatever that means; the vague notion of a martial loss is what allows fictional positioning to apply) in my hack, that gives you a -4 penalty to "Reaction Rolls", which I use to determine the Complexity of a social skill challenge.However, even in the (in my opinion) flawed skill challenge write-ups that you see from Wizards, you can easily apply the fictional positioning into effectiveness - would you make Diplomacy a skill in a skill challenge with the dwarf fortress from which you gathered your recruits?*Anyway, that's how I see 4E's currency working.  I added some things for my hack (time, as above, and I did work on interaction with settlements) but I think I only spelled out what already existed.  I'm not sure how the currency of the game works with the advice in the DMG and the new monster damage expressions; someone who's not so far removed from the game as I could probably do a better job at that!</blockquote>

Verification