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<blockquote data-quote="Pseudopsyche" data-source="post: 5940375" data-attributes="member: 54600">Well, I only intended my argument to address short-rest powers in the abstract. If you want to say that Game A is 3E and Game B is 4E, I would say that 4E added encounter powers that inflict more damage than 3E/4E at-will powers, but it then increased the number of hit points for both PCs and monsters to compensate. This change made combat less swingy and gave every class a variety of options, but it made parties particular effective against lower-level encounters.I think this effect contributes to the complaint that some of us have about 4E adventure design. If a party of 10th-level 3E adventurers faces five separate ECL 8 combats before facing an ECL 13 set piece, their effectiveness in the final encounter is almost certainly reduced more (compared to how they would fare skipping the easy encounters) than a party of 10th-level 4E adventurers would be facing a level-13 encounter after a string of five level-8 encounters. In fact, unless those level-8 encounters managed to reduce some PC to under 3 healing surges before being obliterated by the onslaught of encounter powers, the 4E party may even be stronger, after achieving some milestones.Yes, you could argue that the 4E DM should combine some for those level-8 encounters into a smaller number of &quot;real&quot; encounters, but that's exactly the point. The 3E DM doesn't need to change his design.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Pseudopsyche, post: 5940375, member: 54600"] Well, I only intended my argument to address short-rest powers in the abstract. If you want to say that Game A is 3E and Game B is 4E, I would say that 4E added encounter powers that inflict more damage than 3E/4E at-will powers, but it then increased the number of hit points for both PCs and monsters to compensate. This change made combat less swingy and gave every class a variety of options, but it made parties particular effective against lower-level encounters. I think this effect contributes to the complaint that some of us have about 4E adventure design. If a party of 10th-level 3E adventurers faces five separate ECL 8 combats before facing an ECL 13 set piece, their effectiveness in the final encounter is almost certainly reduced more (compared to how they would fare skipping the easy encounters) than a party of 10th-level 4E adventurers would be facing a level-13 encounter after a string of five level-8 encounters. In fact, unless those level-8 encounters managed to reduce some PC to under 3 healing surges before being obliterated by the onslaught of encounter powers, the 4E party may even be stronger, after achieving some milestones. Yes, you could argue that the 4E DM should combine some for those level-8 encounters into a smaller number of "real" encounters, but that's exactly the point. The 3E DM doesn't need to change his design. [/QUOTE]

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