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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6863146" data-attributes="member: 6787650">You're focusing on something other than what I meant to draw your attention to. I actually highlighted the different scopes of play as the most important difference. For purposes of this conversation, let's assume he really means it when he says "bees everywhere! With nasty poison!" I.e. take the number of bees that would be a fair fight by your standards, and multiply by twenty. That's when combat as war comes into play at my table.In CAW, there is no obligation for the DM to give you a fair, winnable fight, or a challenging fight.If the Sorceress at your table were to use her social skills and wealth to scare up an extra two dozen mercenaries to bring along on an adventure, would the DM consider that foul play? In 5E, even basic mooks are a huge force multiplier for an 8th level party, but because I run CAW I don't mind at all if players do this because there's no "encounter balance" in the first place to throw off. Players are doing what makes sense to survive, and that's fine. (Though in practice they are actually more likely to try zany stuff or stealth than hiring mercs. And I play the zany stuff completely straight, which means that yeah, maybe the mud doesn't help AT ALL against the bees and they really would have been better off with missile weapons.)So when you say, "it's combat as something other than war," maybe it's just "combat by PCs who are sixty seconds away from finding out what war really is." Hence the DM's "ghoulish grin" and "what could possibly go wrong?"Do you understand now why your example demonstrating the value of Con 18 doesn't resonate with me? It might keep you alive when plans turn into a disaster, but most disasters go wrong so spectacularly that 50 HP don't matter either way. Player decisions matter more than PC stats in the vast majority of cases, even though stats inform options for player decisions. The player who keeps dying dies a lot not because of stats but because in a situation where someone else would Dodge or Hide, he goes nova with smites or throws a Molotov cocktail. I have rarely seen a situation where higher stats would have made a difference. That's not a "never", because there have been a handful of high-stakes gambles where everything came down to one initiative roll--but I don't remember which if any of those moments were decided by only one point on the roll so that stats made the difference. Those were all disasters BTW after plans went horribly wrong due partly to faulty recon. Good, successful plans don't hinge on one roll.</blockquote>

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