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Message: <blockquote data-quote="robertliguori" data-source="post: 4331873" data-attributes="member: 47776">The pattern described here is my biggest problem with 4E rules.  The designers had a clear idea of how they wanted the world to work, but completely failed to write rules that actually brought that idea to life.  The Credible Threat rule (or non-rule) fails to address the underlying issue of perverse incentives; namely, that it's mechanically advantageous to engage in multiple, boring party-on-single-minion encounters.  Rather than call out the fact that the perverse incentive exists and point out that having the characters find reason to ignore it makes for a more fun gaming experience, they instead threw in a rule-that-isn't, that is applied wildly and inconsistently across the gameworld.Likewise, the clear intent of the rules is to avoid the party carrying multiple wagonloads of loot and bodies out of a furnished dungeon, sextupling their net worth, and buying their way up to level N+5 effectiveness.  Again, the 20% price rule is intensely problematic; characters seeking optimal return will simply spend even more non-fun game time seeking interested buyers for their items.One of the points that 4E harps upon (and often correctly so) is that DM adjudication is vital for a living and interesting game and game world.  However, it doesn't go quite far enough.  I'd much rather the system be simple, clean, and elegant, and warning flags be explicitly raised whenever the logical consequences of the system lead to (possibly) undesired outcomes.  "You can gain benefit from ganking sole minions, but it's not fun, so please don't." is a much stronger statement than "You can gain benefit from ganking sole minions, but I don't want you to, so it's now difficult."; I think that 4E should have had much more of the first style statement than the second.</blockquote>

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