Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Goonalan" data-source="post: 4257524" data-attributes="member: 16069">Of course I agree with this, however my existing 3e and 3.5e campaigns are roleplay heavy, combat encounters are a necessity (conflict=story, a game without tough choices- attack, retreat, surrender et al is not what I signed up for, and silly to boot), my players love them (most of the time). However my brief exposure to 4e has me on edge. My first TPK for 26 years, two combat encounters took two hours to play through, the second involved so much tactical play (counting squares and referencing each others character sheets) that it became intensely frustrating. The roleplay happened in between, and was up to the usual standard. And let me add my players and I have been through a dozen or more edition & rules system changes over the last quarter of a century, but nothing compared to our first game of 4e, except maybe Rolemaster (but that was for other reasons).Simply put the combat mechanics/encounter were not up to it, they (for us) lacked fizz, they became very mechanical and very slow. I realise I'm a neophyte when it comes to 4e and things will inevitably get better, I just worry that my once or twice weekly five hour sessions are going to become combat heavy- we already slow play because of the rolepley aspect. I can cut out combat encounters along the way, but then I have to refigure the XP system.If it takes the same time to play out on Sunday (my next attempt at 4e) then I may be faced by a mutiny. What I would like from this forum, and particularly regarding KTOS, is suggestions as to how I am going to fix the dilemma I am currently facing- I can't be the only person who is experiencing the above problems- can I?Is there anyway of streamlining the combat encounters, making them less clunky- my players are action heroes straight out of the silver screen and the pages of fantasy writers first, and game players (and rollers of dice) second- not anyones fault, not even our own.We've been sitting in the lap of luxury for a while it seems, 4e has turfed us out of our comfort zone (no bad thing), and yet the alternative it provides doesn't seem as well developed (particularly for players and DMs like us).On Sunday there will be five players around the table that have in the past created "false" character sheets, to protect the identity of their real character class/traits/stats/whatever. That even now in the campaigns they are playing do not feel the need to share their skills/talents etc. For them its not that sort of team game, I have one player who keeps casting spells that no-one can identify- the other players have no idea what he is (class wise) and not a clue as to what he is capable of- and that works just great, for us.I sent out copies of the Pre-gens to the players for KTOS, they're not particularly happy with that- "why should everyone else know what I've got?"So what happens on Sunday and it turns out that their tactical prowess is, well... not up to it. Does that mean we can't play anymore? That 4e is not for us? Because that's how it appears at the moment...And sorry again for the long winded replies, I have marking that needs to be done, and I haven't done the washing up yet etc. The problem is I'm very attached to this cruel and heroic game- I want to be able to play 4e, and be happy with it (in some form). Er... Help, please.</blockquote>

Verification