Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Charles Dunwoody" data-source="post: 6006639" data-attributes="member: 17927">Just got back from camping and saw your post. In reverse order, part 2 is up now.A set-piece battle is how I ran about half my 4E battles. A big battlemap, lots of enemies, and the PCs battle it out. I don't bring in new monsters not already on the map or have to much intrude on the balance of the battle.Some of my 4E games and all of my earlier D&amp;D edition games ran differently. I might have a battle map out (2E or later) but I also watched everything in surrounding rooms and kept part of my brain aware of the noise of the battle (and light if it made a difference).Blowing up something in one room might bring down the occupants of two adjacent rooms for example. I tried this in 4E and nearly wiped out the party a couple of times, so I started spreading out the encounters a bit more.At D&amp;D Experience, if we got ambushed by kobolds outside the caves and started tossing fireballs, a patrol of orcs might wander over and join in the brawl. It was glorious, dangerous mayhem.At Gen Con, my brother's wizards blow up a bunch of exploding crystals and took down part of a cave (the crystals were meant to free up a cave in later we learned). It only brought one patrol of kobolds. No organized defense, so protection in depth, no consequences for our actions.I love big battles, but I don't like a set-piece battle. One well-balanced and that poor or poorly thought out choices cannot suddenly overwhelm the PCs.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Charles Dunwoody, post: 6006639, member: 17927"] Just got back from camping and saw your post. In reverse order, part 2 is up now. A set-piece battle is how I ran about half my 4E battles. A big battlemap, lots of enemies, and the PCs battle it out. I don't bring in new monsters not already on the map or have to much intrude on the balance of the battle. Some of my 4E games and all of my earlier D&D edition games ran differently. I might have a battle map out (2E or later) but I also watched everything in surrounding rooms and kept part of my brain aware of the noise of the battle (and light if it made a difference). Blowing up something in one room might bring down the occupants of two adjacent rooms for example. I tried this in 4E and nearly wiped out the party a couple of times, so I started spreading out the encounters a bit more. At D&D Experience, if we got ambushed by kobolds outside the caves and started tossing fireballs, a patrol of orcs might wander over and join in the brawl. It was glorious, dangerous mayhem. At Gen Con, my brother's wizards blow up a bunch of exploding crystals and took down part of a cave (the crystals were meant to free up a cave in later we learned). It only brought one patrol of kobolds. No organized defense, so protection in depth, no consequences for our actions. I love big battles, but I don't like a set-piece battle. One well-balanced and that poor or poorly thought out choices cannot suddenly overwhelm the PCs. [/QUOTE]

Verification