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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Xorn" data-source="post: 4191712" data-attributes="member: 61231">The level 4 solo dragon?  Is that the admittedly unbalanced encounter you are referring to?  In the times I've run this fight, the dragon has been defeated twice.  Once the dragon went down to 18 hit points and escaped; this was with a group that had played before, and were really learning how their characters worked.  They still rolled really well, I didn't, there were six of them, and four were standing at the end.  And the dragon got away.  If they have 5 characters, it goes much worse.  Four characters and it's almost a guaranteed TPK if they don't run.  But six 1st level means a 600 xp encounter budget and 875 is the dragon, so it should be a very difficult encounter, with a chance for a TPK.  Mike & Dave stated on the podcast that you can go higher and lower on the level bar without wiping your party or putting them to sleep.  I see this as a good thing.I saw the mechanics of recharging start with 2E breath weapons.  Power Attack is a prime example of an At-Will special attack, only I can combine Power Attack with Spring Attack with Great Cleave with Insert Splat Book Feat and get a daily power every attack.  The power curve doesn't favor lower level characters; it stretches the sweet spot of play from 3-13 to 1-30, at least that's what the designers told us their goal is.As my own personal observation--it's fitting to me that you see this power scale affecting low level play, but don't mention the scaling of high level play--which is currently approaching unplayable.  On the podcast they mentioned that they did a survey and found out that a considerable number of the DMs surveyed either start their campaign at level 3, or fast-track the game to 3.I'll throw in my WoW resume though, before I comment on the 4E-WoWish blend:I started playing WoW during the friends and family only alpha.  City of Heroes was HOT at the time, breaking single-day sales records and destroying EQ's userbase.  I've played WoW since then, and I am eager to get WotLK.  So I've played a long time--and playing WoW feels similar to D&D for me.I play with the same group of people, all friends I know in the real world, we all use Ventrilo, and we all talk about things that have nothing to do with WoW.  We adventure together on the same team, play iconic characters that fill roles (if your 1E cleric isn't filling a role then I don't know what a role is), and we all want to slay the dragon and cheer.If I can play 4E with my friends, and fight the dragon and cheer, from the perspective of an iconic hero filling a role in a game where we play cooperatively on the same team--then I guess you can say D&D (4E and previous) is a lot like WoW.But I'm going to jump on the "There's no chicken and egg question at stake here." and continue hoping that folks will eventually recognize that if you're playing WoW, it's because Gary & Dave came up with a cooperative fantasy role-playing game more than 3 decades ago.</blockquote>

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