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<blockquote data-quote="hailstop" data-source="post: 5052703" data-attributes="member: 62201"><p>A large part of our last gaming session involved airing out what bugged us about 4e after playing it for 18 months. One of the comments was that there are no 'quick' combats anymore.</p><p> </p><p>I mentioned to the player that while I agreed with him on that, the reason is that earlier editions involved one or two monsters of roughly equal level to the party, or several weaker creatures that normally weren't much more of a speedbump. The balance was brought in through attrition...the party usually wasn't in major threat of death until the 3rd, 4th or 5th encounter. Whereas 4e had encounters that involved several creatures of roughly equal level of the PC's. 'Weak' creatures were replaced by minions, and the single or pair of creatures were now Solos and Elites...but had the staying power of 2-5 creatures now.</p><p> </p><p>That said, there isn't any reason that the 'old school' combat couldn't work. Either a single Elite...or 2-3 standard creatures with minions, or even just a pack of minions.</p><p> </p><p>The one problem, as Sly Flourish mentioned in this post on his blog:</p><p> </p><p><a href="http://slyflourish.com/giving-4e-an-old-school-feel/" target="_blank">Sly Flourish» Blog Archive » Giving 4e an Old School Feel</a></p><p> </p><p>Is that some house rules may be needed (although he didn't specify).</p><p> </p><p>But what ones?</p><p> </p><p>The resources in 4e are a bit different than earlier editions. Hit points aren't really a 'day' resource, but an 'encounter' resource, since they can easily reset by applying Healing Surges. Instead the daily resource there are the healing surges themselves. This actually isn't too different than 3e, due to the existence of Wands of Cure Light Wounds. However, PC's usually have too many hp that the short combats can't possibly threaten to drop them.</p><p> </p><p>So you'd either need to alter damage, or healing, or both...or mix up the encounters with small ones (which would allow the return of wandering monsters) with the big set piece battles (which 4e excels at).</p><p> </p><p>Another is 'spells'. In previous editions, every spell was technically a 'daily', but not necessarily, as often there would be multiples being memorized or cast (ie Sorcerors, or multiple Fireballs). Chances are, in most smaller combats (unless it's against say, a single Elite of Lv +4 or something), the PCs probably won't use Dailys at all...instead just relying on their Encounter Powers or At Wills. I'm not sure this is a bad thing...since that saves up the big guns for those set piece battles.</p><p> </p><p>One thing that definitely would need altering is what constitutes a Milestone. It'd have to be more than 2 small combats.</p><p> </p><p>Any thoughts?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="hailstop, post: 5052703, member: 62201"] A large part of our last gaming session involved airing out what bugged us about 4e after playing it for 18 months. One of the comments was that there are no 'quick' combats anymore. I mentioned to the player that while I agreed with him on that, the reason is that earlier editions involved one or two monsters of roughly equal level to the party, or several weaker creatures that normally weren't much more of a speedbump. The balance was brought in through attrition...the party usually wasn't in major threat of death until the 3rd, 4th or 5th encounter. Whereas 4e had encounters that involved several creatures of roughly equal level of the PC's. 'Weak' creatures were replaced by minions, and the single or pair of creatures were now Solos and Elites...but had the staying power of 2-5 creatures now. That said, there isn't any reason that the 'old school' combat couldn't work. Either a single Elite...or 2-3 standard creatures with minions, or even just a pack of minions. The one problem, as Sly Flourish mentioned in this post on his blog: [url=http://slyflourish.com/giving-4e-an-old-school-feel/]Sly Flourish» Blog Archive » Giving 4e an Old School Feel[/url] Is that some house rules may be needed (although he didn't specify). But what ones? The resources in 4e are a bit different than earlier editions. Hit points aren't really a 'day' resource, but an 'encounter' resource, since they can easily reset by applying Healing Surges. Instead the daily resource there are the healing surges themselves. This actually isn't too different than 3e, due to the existence of Wands of Cure Light Wounds. However, PC's usually have too many hp that the short combats can't possibly threaten to drop them. So you'd either need to alter damage, or healing, or both...or mix up the encounters with small ones (which would allow the return of wandering monsters) with the big set piece battles (which 4e excels at). Another is 'spells'. In previous editions, every spell was technically a 'daily', but not necessarily, as often there would be multiples being memorized or cast (ie Sorcerors, or multiple Fireballs). Chances are, in most smaller combats (unless it's against say, a single Elite of Lv +4 or something), the PCs probably won't use Dailys at all...instead just relying on their Encounter Powers or At Wills. I'm not sure this is a bad thing...since that saves up the big guns for those set piece battles. One thing that definitely would need altering is what constitutes a Milestone. It'd have to be more than 2 small combats. Any thoughts? [/QUOTE]
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