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Message: <blockquote data-quote="weem" data-source="post: 5144299" data-attributes="member: 9470">As mentioned regarding pulling out XP as a reward for combat, and using Inherent Bonuses, this is a really cool thing that goes a long way towards calming the urge to kill everything......and having the right players helps a lot too (if not more than anything).In my current campaign (my second 4e campaign, 10 games in now) I level the group when I feel like it's time, and we use inherent bonuses. On top of that...1) I mix things up... some bad guys give up mid fight - it's just not worth it to them - but the rest continue. It adds a bit of chaos to the fight... does he want me to think he gave up so he can get behind me, or is he really giving up.2) I reward the players for letting an enemy go, or letting them surrender - not every time, but it happens. I had a  young man (who was part of a group the PC's were fighting) give up mid fight. The fight continued all around him and the PC's let him stay there on the floor, huddled down. After the fight, they questioned him and let him go. Two game sessions later, they are being hunted by a clan of thieves/thugs/etc so they hid in wagons belonging to an entertainment troupe who is leaving town. The men search the wagons... and one of them discovers the PC's... but it's the young man who they let go a few days before... the young man signals to his pals that the wagon is clear and moves on, effectively saving them in return. Good stuff.3) I turn the tables on them - One example: I ran a game in my last campaign (again, 4e) where they had to work their way up an old, decrepit tower that belonged to a man who led a group of bandits. The tower was filled with all kinds of shady people, but there was no real organization. The tower was mostly used as a hangout for drug/alcohol abuse, gambling, etc.The players needed to not draw attention to themselves so they worked their way up slowly - room by room - pretending to be drunk sometimes, other times having to knock some peoples heads together but stealth was key. When they reached the top, and the leaders room (where they were to snag an amulet from him) they were caught... the room slowly filled with his men as he entered. They were surrounded.Expecting a fight, they prepared to roll init when the leader of the group spoke to them asking them what they were doing here. They told him the truth. So he GIVES them the amulet... "and you know what... take these as well" and proceeds to give them a bunch of his belongings (a treasure parcel basically). He then tells his men (who now want to kill the PC's and are saying as much) "No no, we are going to let them have this treasure... not only that, but they are now going to leave here, and no harm is to come to them... but they, in turn, will tell their people that they killed me in the process" - and so they walked out without a fight and instead had a cool RP encounter there with them.This kind of sets the tone I think too - after this encounter, there was more consideration for those who gave up in combat - they also thought more about ways to avoid combat.With all that said, I go back to the players as was also mentioned above. I hand selected mine for what I knew would be a combat-lite (for 4e standards) campaign. They knew up front that 1) combat will be tough 2) PC death is not something that bothers me as long as i feel the combats are MOSTLY balanced (leaning towards tough as I mentioned) - in other words, watch your ass because i wont pull punches and i roll out in front of everyone, and 3) there might be multiple games without combat. Knowing those up front helps.Anyway, just some quick thoughts on my way to bed - sorry for the length <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /></blockquote>

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