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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pickles JG" data-source="post: 5977623" data-attributes="member: 61501">I think everyone is seeing this far too black & white from their entrenched positions.  I think that Mr Mearls has recognised that there will have to be classes with largely daily resources & others with almost none. This is what defines D&D to a lot of people & has never been absent even in the lovely 4th edition. Given that constraint it follows that some classes will be stronger in a shorter adventuring day & some will be better in a longer one. That is the same sort of thing as saying some classes will be better when  you are attacked by a load of fliers or in very difficult terrain (underwater :O) or by eg fire resistant monsters if you are a Flame mage or Skeletons is you are a 3e archer.  Someone else made this point sarcastically earlier but it is valid in its own right. The thing is to recognise that it may be a problem & to mix things up, which is what Mr M has done.  He has made mechanical changes to make it less of an issue – the relative power of Wizards at will abilities have increased compared to their daily resources which makes them less nova dependent.  There is still the opportunity to power down the hugely effective strategic spells as well.  I do take issue with balancing the game around a number of XP per day. There is obviously no comparison between fighting 20 ogres one at a time & all at once & yet on the face of it Mearls is saying they would provide exactly the same challenge. Given the patent absurdity of this I assume he is holding something back.4es encounter balance rules work because the power level of PCs in a given encounter is pretty well constrained, with just a few daily powers in reserve to vary it. Attrition in 4e was mostly in terms of Surges & Dailies. As surges do not effect your combat power, until you run very low, encounter balance was very good. 3e more or less worked in the same way though their default encounters were often a bit trivial & the logarithmic EL system was needlessly confusing.  FWIW I hate the suggestion of Hussar’s that encounters should take up 10% of the party’s resources. These type of encounter offer nothing of interest to me, as did most of 3es 20% type encounters.            This whole trend to lots of small non threatening encounters that gradually attrite your HP? Dailies? leaves me cold. (Though I am told it is a trend back to AD&D style – I can’t really remember as I played it around 30 years ago but stopped as it did not fit my tastes ie I thought it was dumb.) As a player I hate the 5mwd aesthetically & try not to abuse it, as a DM it is always the in the background & I try to make it so that it is not the default play style. Most of the people I play with share my sentiments but at least one of them would rest every fight if he could get away with it – peer & plot pressure prevent it.  I am not one for huge dungeons that demand repeated incursions they really strain my credulity so this may be less of an issue for me – I tend to try to design dungeons you can clear on the bounce with very significant consequences for retreating.</blockquote>

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