Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5499081" data-attributes="member: 22779">Sorry, just pulling this one out.&nbsp; I know, context and all that, but, this one speaks to me.&nbsp; Think about it for a second.&nbsp; In 3e, you tell the players they have to cross a swift moving river and that entails a swim check.&nbsp; Which in turn requires them to take off their armor or start breaking out the spells.I can see this bogging way down in micro-managing analysis paralysis for many, many groups.&nbsp; &quot;Do we take off our armor?&quot;&nbsp; &quot;Oh, this has to be a trap.&quot;&nbsp; &quot;Ok, start searching the surrounding area for ambushes (roll roll roll)&quot; &quot;Detect spells on the river to see if anything's hiding beneath the surface&quot;... on and on and on.4e's design philosophy is much more up front about it.&nbsp; You don't have a specific river to cross, so, there's no analysis of the river and how to cross it.&nbsp; You simply make your checks and each failure carries some sort of penalty.&nbsp; And, let's not forget this from the DM's perspective.&nbsp; In 3e you have to stat out combat with the bandits, which takes not an inconsiderable amount of time.&nbsp; Running that combat is going to take the better part of an hour in 3e as well.This skill challenge, even with the bandits included (Failure number 3 - the party is ambushed by bandits, lose 2 healing surges) could easily be resolved in a few minutes and requires about 10 minutes to set up by the DM.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 5499081, member: 22779"] Sorry, just pulling this one out. I know, context and all that, but, this one speaks to me. Think about it for a second. In 3e, you tell the players they have to cross a swift moving river and that entails a swim check. Which in turn requires them to take off their armor or start breaking out the spells. I can see this bogging way down in micro-managing analysis paralysis for many, many groups. "Do we take off our armor?" "Oh, this has to be a trap." "Ok, start searching the surrounding area for ambushes (roll roll roll)" "Detect spells on the river to see if anything's hiding beneath the surface"... on and on and on. 4e's design philosophy is much more up front about it. You don't have a specific river to cross, so, there's no analysis of the river and how to cross it. You simply make your checks and each failure carries some sort of penalty. And, let's not forget this from the DM's perspective. In 3e you have to stat out combat with the bandits, which takes not an inconsiderable amount of time. Running that combat is going to take the better part of an hour in 3e as well. This skill challenge, even with the bandits included (Failure number 3 - the party is ambushed by bandits, lose 2 healing surges) could easily be resolved in a few minutes and requires about 10 minutes to set up by the DM. [/QUOTE]

Verification