Mearls: The core of D&D

[Hussar]

Are we back to this? There is no presumption of 4 encounters per day in 3e. All they state in the DMG is how much of the party resources 4 encounters of ECL= party level would be expected to use. It is merely a guide to help the DM in pacing how much resources are used when designing an adventure.

The section on adventure design recommended that half of an adventure's are a combination of encounters above and below the party's level.

The section on encounter design discusses mixing status quo (no consideration of party level) with tailored (consideration of party level).

Thus the second line of what you quoted. If you want more encounters - use a lower EL. If you want less, go higher. I wasn't really saying that 3e was locked into 4 encounters per day. Most of the design figures along those lines as a baseline though. If you want 6 encounters per day, don't use 6 EL Par encounters because it's too much for the party. If you want 10 encounters per day, you're going to have to dip pretty far down in the EL range to achieve that.

Not a problem, the EL guidelines are just that - guidelines. I actually LIKE the CR/EL system in 3e despite the warts. I found that the CR/EL system in 3e works fairly well, so long as you don't get too caught up in it. And, when I moved into systems like Savage Worlds which don't have CR at all, I found it very difficult to design scenarios since my inexperience with the system led to me to overwhelming the PC's way too easily.

No, my question is where is the baseline assumptions in 4e found. I'm not even questioning their existence. I just want to know where to look.

 

[Yesway Jose]

Popping a bit late into the conversation, but Mearls identified "Levels and experience points as a measure of power and a mechanic that lets characters become more powerful over time" as part of D&D core.

I think that can be expanded slightly to state that "hit points, attack bonuses and saves must increase in parallel with level increases". That's a bit of a sacred cow, in the sense that a fighter cannot become a better fighter without becoming significantly tougher, or a wizard cannot become a better wizard without also getting better wielding a dagger even if she never uses a mundane weapon in her entire adventuring career. Usually that's not a disadvantage, but it is a D&Dism. You can't really model a veteran expert soldier with moderate hit points, or a master wizard that's incompetent with a staff, regardless of whether this makes sense or not to roleplay, I'm not defending it per se, I'm just stating the obvious about D&D.

To have a contrast, are there other systems where levels and/or hit dice are not systemically tied with better combat, and does it work?

 

[Bluenose]

To have a contrast, are there other systems where levels and/or hit dice are not systemically tied with better combat, and does it work?

Rolemaster was the earliest that I'm aware of. It was class and level based, but rather than giving fixed abilities it gave you a certain number of points each level to spend on your 'skills'. Which might mean getting better at swinging an axe, improving your skill in one field of magic, learning another type of magic, picking up a language, etc. Different classes would learn different skills more or less easily, so warriors weren't going to pick up magic easily and magicians probably wouldn't be great swordsmen too - but they could be. Anima does something similar more recently, and there are probably other.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

To have a contrast, are there other systems where levels and/or hit dice are not systemically tied with better combat, and does it work?

Dragon Quest split the difference. Some of the things you bought were essentially skills based, including weapons and spells. However, the DQ "professions", like Merchant or Beastmaster were collections of abilities that got better with each "rank", and you couldn't pick and choose within a profession. If you got a rank in "Ranger", you got better at all the ranger stuff. The closest equivalent to a "Fighter" class was the "Military Specialist" profession, that was pretty critical for anyone that wanted to be a good warrior/leader. But strictly speaking, if you wanted to be great with a 2 handed sword and not otherwise be a great warrior, you could. Or you could be a cunning leader that wasn't personally that hot with his main weapon.

A D&D designer that had the guts to do something that radical might get away with a similar idea, but he or she would need to be careful that "Fighter" and "Wizard" still meant something, after you took all the combat weapons and spells and put them into skills. (It would be easier with the Cleric, and trivial with the Rogue.)

I actually think one of the earlier versions would be a better place to start with something like this, though, as much as I prefer the later versions when playing D&D right now. You need a system where "Fighters" can have followers, be parts of orders, have stongholds, etc. with some mechanics to go into this new "Fighter" class that isn't about being good with weapons anymore. Likewise, the "Wizard" class has to have some mechanics for rituals or lore or whatever you want to tie to it. See Dausuul's topic about a BECMI clone using some of the 4E design principles for an idea of how this might look.

Of course, you could drop "Fighter" and "Wizard", rather than come up with something for them to do. But I think if you do that, you probably lost sight of the "I'm still D&D" border, whether you were still in up to that point or not.

 

[pemerton]

are there other systems where levels and/or hit dice are not systemically tied with better combat, and does it work?

Rolemaster was the earliest that I'm aware of.

I GMed Rolemaster for nearly 20 years.

The main challenge a RM GM faces is encounter design - because the PCs can have very varied abilities across the range of standard adventuring activities (climbing, social, fighting, crafting etc), it can be hard to design an encounter that will engage all the PCs, and thereby all the players.

RM has some features that mitigate against this, though - such as open-ended rolls, and a critical hit system - that mean that even weak foes can still be meaningful against a PC with strong combat bonuses, in a way that is not the case for D&D.

Runequest and Classic Traveller are other games that separate PC progression from combat prowess. Both give rise to comparable issues as does Rolemaster, and both have some comparable mitigation features.

Overall, though, I would expect combat to play a less prominent role in a RM, RQ or Traveller game than it does in a typical D&D game. In that respect, they're less gonzo and a bit more gritty.

 

[Bluenose]

I GMed Rolemaster for nearly 20 years.

The main challenge a RM GM faces is encounter design - because the PCs can have very varied abilities across the range of standard adventuring activities (climbing, social, fighting, crafting etc), it can be hard to design an encounter that will engage all the PCs, and thereby all the players.

RM has some features that mitigate against this, though - such as open-ended rolls, and a critical hit system - that mean that even weak foes can still be meaningful against a PC with strong combat bonuses, in a way that is not the case for D&D.

Runequest and Classic Traveller are other games that separate PC progression from combat prowess. Both give rise to comparable issues as does Rolemaster, and both have some comparable mitigation features.

Overall, though, I would expect combat to play a less prominent role in a RM, RQ or Traveller game than it does in a typical D&D game. In that respect, they're less gonzo and a bit more gritty.

On the other hand, RQ and Traveller don't really have levels, and the lack of significant hit point advancement means you'll face a different sort of risk in any combat situation to the one you would in Rolemaster, let alone in D&D. Still true, frankly. I think it helps with that grittiness that resurrection is extremely hard to come by in RQ and not exactly likely in Traveller. Frankly, I can't remember many times we had fights in Traveller, given the types of game we played. In RQ they were more common, but rarely as 'to the death' as I see routinely in D&D.

 

[pemerton]

On the other hand, RQ and Traveller don't really have levels, and the lack of significant hit point advancement means you'll face a different sort of risk in any combat situation to the one you would in Rolemaster

Bluenose, I basically agree with your post, and just wanted to pick out this comment - because RM combat turns mainly on crits rather than hits, and crit reduction is very hard to come by, RM also doesn't have significant hit point advancement in the D&D sense (and most non-combat-oriented PCs won't be able to afford much Body Development in any event). It is escalating DBs (with improved skill, spells and items), plus better self-healing magic, that allow combat to become less risky as PCs gain levels.