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<blockquote data-quote="SlagMortar" data-source="post: 3979405" data-attributes="member: 24821">I've played more low level than high level D&amp;D, which may color my persceptions.&nbsp; Scary combats always had:1.&nbsp; Big drops in proportion of hit points.2.&nbsp; Some characters being disabled.Character deaths do not make the game gritty to me.&nbsp; I'd rather have knockouts and revivals both be easy - for example in 3e have 10 hits points for a first level fighter, but you don't actually die until -20 so those x3 crits don't kill you every time.&nbsp; Everyone can be just fine once the combat is over.&nbsp; The scary part is when two out of four PCs are unconscious and my character just took a two hits that knocked off 50% of his hit points.&nbsp; Now, what I might not know is that the DM can only actually hit my character on a roll of 19 or higher, and happened to get lucky and hit on two of the last three shots.&nbsp; The character can still be fairly safe, but I don't feel that way.The 4e designers talk a lot about balancing expected damage per round.&nbsp; I agree that expected damage per round is important.&nbsp; However, there is a big difference in the feel of the game between an attack that does 30 damage with a 10% chance to hit and an attack that does 4 damage with a 75% chance to hit, though the expected damage per round is the same.&nbsp; It sounds like 4e is going more toward the everyone hits, but the damage is low relative to the hit points.&nbsp; I'm much more in favor of nobody hits as often, but the damage is higher relative to the hit points.&nbsp; It makes the game feel more dangerous to my character.Making 4e more this style might be as simple as all attacks do double damage, but all attack bonuses are cut in half.&nbsp; However, that won't quite work unless the monsters of a particular level have pretty similar AC scores.&nbsp; Hopefully the SRD will include the base monster formula's WoTC is using so it will be pretty easy to tweak the AC scores of the monsters to keep expected damage the same but add in more misses.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="SlagMortar, post: 3979405, member: 24821"] I've played more low level than high level D&D, which may color my persceptions. Scary combats always had: 1. Big drops in proportion of hit points. 2. Some characters being disabled. Character deaths do not make the game gritty to me. I'd rather have knockouts and revivals both be easy - for example in 3e have 10 hits points for a first level fighter, but you don't actually die until -20 so those x3 crits don't kill you every time. Everyone can be just fine once the combat is over. The scary part is when two out of four PCs are unconscious and my character just took a two hits that knocked off 50% of his hit points. Now, what I might not know is that the DM can only actually hit my character on a roll of 19 or higher, and happened to get lucky and hit on two of the last three shots. The character can still be fairly safe, but I don't feel that way. The 4e designers talk a lot about balancing expected damage per round. I agree that expected damage per round is important. However, there is a big difference in the feel of the game between an attack that does 30 damage with a 10% chance to hit and an attack that does 4 damage with a 75% chance to hit, though the expected damage per round is the same. It sounds like 4e is going more toward the everyone hits, but the damage is low relative to the hit points. I'm much more in favor of nobody hits as often, but the damage is higher relative to the hit points. It makes the game feel more dangerous to my character. Making 4e more this style might be as simple as all attacks do double damage, but all attack bonuses are cut in half. However, that won't quite work unless the monsters of a particular level have pretty similar AC scores. Hopefully the SRD will include the base monster formula's WoTC is using so it will be pretty easy to tweak the AC scores of the monsters to keep expected damage the same but add in more misses. [/QUOTE]

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