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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="OB1" data-source="post: 7184961" data-attributes="member: 6796241">I'm so totally confused by the latest turn in this thread.  Wouldn't the relevant threat of a single encounter in the wilderness or a town be something in flux?An area that is deadly for a party of 1st level PCs isn't deadly for the kings army and won't be deadly for the PCs at 5th level unless something in the world changes.  If a Tier 1 party clears out the bandits raiding the Kingsroad between Winterplace and Harencoridor, traveling on that road between adventures will no longer be dangerous unless an army of undead ice zombies moves in.  The Tier 2 party clears out the undead ice zombies because the Queen sent her troops to deal with a traitor rather than fight an army of the undead.  Everyone is happy for a while until a couple of ancient white dragons decide to take up residence between Winterplace and Harencoridor, and suddenly the economy is wrecked because trade is completely shut down and the Queens army was decimated when it fought the traitor and so now the Tier 3 heroes have to go and fight the ice dragons.With that taken care of, our heroes decide they've had enough of this petty world and travel to Sigil, but on the way there are attacked by a Balor and his minions, but now being Tier 4 they are able to defeat them and make their way to the city of doors.So yes, in a living world you can have deadly challenges across all tiers of play and a reason for them in game by working with the system.Or you can work against the system and prove how easy it is to "break" the game.And while there are mechanical ways to ensure that every single encounter is balanced for challenge, as has been discussed, there are also plenty of story ways that also allow you to have variety in the challenge being presented.  I like the fact that sometimes after fighting a deadly fight early in the morning and worrying about the next encounter that there isn't one, and that we "got off easy" that day.  I like the fact that sometimes after facing a full day's encounters, I'm still not to the objective and have to decide whether to push on at a disadvantage or retreat and risk failure of my goal.  I like the variety of stories that are able to be told without a set in stone mechanical solution to ensuring balance in every fight.  I also don't begrudge those who wish to play differently.</blockquote>

Verification