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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snoweel" data-source="post: 4486448" data-attributes="member: 4453">Do you feel you can't have both?And I'm sure most of us have a different take on the game than you or anyone else does. Unless you're claiming to be part of a monolith?I think it's fair to say that no two people game exactly alike. But nice appeal to the masses anyway.I don't think you are.I think you've built up so much preconceived resistance to 4e that you're unwilling to try and look at it from a different point of view. You're married to your gripe that "OMFG TEH WHOLE WORLD LEVELS AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!!!1!!!"" and can't see that the mechanics now serve the game, not the other way around.Obviously.My point is that you can have any sort of game you want. You create the campaign world, you write the adventures, you build the encounters.You do all this with your own view of how the world works and when it comes time for the PCs (the protagonists of the story, remember?) to swing their swords you start with the question "How challenging would this encounter be?"If you're attached to the idea that a party of 15th level characters pwnz0r 100 pirates then you can handle it in a number of ways, depending on how much time (preparation and gaming time) you've got or whether anyone could be arsed rolling a combat involving 100+ combatants.If you really want to roll initiative, attacks, saving throws and damage for 100 3rd level pirates against your 15th level PCs then fill your boots. The rules are there, it's all very straightforward. Nobody's going to stop you.Just bear in mind that your PCs aren't really going to be chalenged. If you're happy with that and your players are too then go for it. But you could save a lot of time and dice rolling by turning the encounter into a skill challenge (or a series of them).How about if your PCs meet the Pirate King's honour guard? Tougher pirates right?How tough? Can you really give an absolute answer? Are they 5th level? 8th level? 10th level? 15th level? Are your players ever going to know without fighting them? Will it kill your verisimilitude if the pirates are 5th level or 15th? What the **** is a level anyway?Decide how tough you want the encounter to be ('easy', 'normal', 'hard') and then build the encounter around the PCs. It'll be a bit of a downer if you come to the climactic battle and your 15th level party mauls the Pirate King and his mates in 2 rounds because you decided they just had to be 5th level.Surely you mean "This is where you (and others) and I (and others) part ways"?How is that any different to what I've said?I might have emotional hangups but they've got nothing to do with your understanding of D&D 4e.I'm not sure that the majority of people who play D&D do want a wargame. I'm talking about rules to simulate theatre-level conflict.Sure they've popped up from time to time in the past but they don't exactly fly off the shelves do they?I mean, I'm hardly one to subscribe to the rational actor approach to capitalism, and I'm firmly convinced the majority of consumers are dupes, but ultimately the market is driven by demand.If people really wanted a wargame there'd be something decent on the market, don't you think?<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Funny.You've made it clear what you think I'm trying to say but I ask you to look a bit closer.I don't for a second suggest that town guards and the like should level at the same rate as the party. I believe I've made that clear.What I am saying is this - town guards should be a varying challenge for a range of party levels.This is what the PCs will notice.. how hard the guards are to fight. They won't see the guards' levels or any of the numbers, they will only see how hard or easy the fight is.Who determines how hard the fight is? The gaming group. There are several different schools on how tough a 1st level PC is. Is it a kid with a sword? A highly trained soldier? Something in between?That's for the group to decide beforehand.So with your party's expectations in mind, the DM builds an encounter featuring the PCs and the town guard.How tough are four guards against four 1st-level PCs? 'Hard', 'normal', 'easy'?That's up to you. Choose your difficulty level and then assign levels. If you have levels in mind first then the difficulty level is decided for you. Easy.How about 10th level characters? Are four guards an 'easy' encounter? No challenge at all? How many is 'easy'? Ten? Twenty?Your call.Just keep it in mind that if you decide you're not happy with 'no challenge at all' (which you can still play out using the combat rules, or turn into a skill challenge, or narrate through the encounter) and instead want the encounter to be 'easy' then you have to give the guards levels (or should I say "levels") that enable them to at least be a token threat to the PCs.Then you make them X-level minions and off you go. Easy encounter. Your heroic, dragon-slaying party wiping the floor with a bunch of guards (4 x 10th level PCs vs 20 x 7th level minions = 'easy' encounter).At what point of that encounter are the players or their characters going to wonder about metagame concepts like 'levels'?But if that doesn't sit well with you then assign the guards whichever level makes you happy and resolve the encounter to your heart's content. Flip a coin, whatever. I don't really care.</blockquote>

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