Telling a story with 4th Edition

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I haven't yet had had any high-level experience, but I have high hopes for 4E in this department.

3rd Ed was an utter wreck of an adventure thrasher. And the Monte Cook Defense, that "this is Right and Good, and if you believe otherwise you are wrong and an incompetent adventure designer", is utter bollocks.

I think he has a point to some extent. The problem in 3E is that the "plot-breaking" powers are all over the place and you really don't seem to have a safe spot where you can run a "standard" plot. I think the 4E tiers are a big step in that regard - scrying, long-range teleporation and similar effects only become reliably available at the paragon tier, giving you at least 10 levels to run the typical investigation and travel plots you want to run.
But I think it's also nice to be able to find a spot where you say that Teleport or Discern Lies are expected and not breaking your plot. (They might not be expected by the antagonists, by the way - they might not count on someone identifying the assassin and then teleporting to their base, but the DM expected this to happen!)

I think without such a shift in powers that you account for and expect to be used in an adventure, high level play would just be like low level play with bigger numbers, and there is really no point to continue playing your characters.

 

[dammitbiscuit]

That there should be a couple minute break between significant encounters for some reason so powers can recharge. Or you create an arbitrary breakpoint that counts as a short rest.

What kinda arbitrary-hate-cookies are you smokin? In many 3.5-based D&D novels such as, oh... Voyage of the Mourning Dawn was a good one, combat was typically followed by rest or fleeing.