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<blockquote data-quote="Kraydak" data-source="post: 4366460" data-attributes="member: 12306">The problem of 4e lethality suffers from the extremely limited novaing ability of PCs.&nbsp; For example, a standard low level party might only have 2 healing words for the party and one second wind apiece available for healing.&nbsp; If you don't cut down your opponent's numbers fast, you will tap out healing wise early... and then die.Basically, PC power stays roughly constant for the first few rounds (per encounters, maybe a daily or two per PC) and then plummets.&nbsp; If the fight isn't over by the time the PCs run out of abilities, life gets very ugly.&nbsp; So in 4e a fight is only interesting if you get towards the end of the PC's resources (otherwise nothing of importance is spent), but if you accidentally add even one monster too many, the PCs will be tapped out too early (monsters having rechargeable abilities at least puts PCs out of the misery relatively fast if it comes to that).This means that DMs who tend to use easier encounters will run 4e with less lethality than 3e (slower combat=less swingy combat), but DMs who tend to use harder encounters will run 4e as more dangerous than 3e (no ability to nova if things go wrong).&nbsp; Finally, note that 4e is designed (not perfectly) for everyone to roughly need 10s on the d20 to do something.&nbsp; 3e was designed for the target to drop well into the single digits.&nbsp; This means that putting PCs up against higher level opponents (with better ACs/to-hits) is more brutal than in 3e (a +1 when you only need a 5 is worth less than a +1 if you need a 10).&nbsp; Add in the messed up PC/NPC scaling (NPCs scale faster than PCs on a level basis) and you have a recipe for DM failure.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Kraydak, post: 4366460, member: 12306"] The problem of 4e lethality suffers from the extremely limited novaing ability of PCs. For example, a standard low level party might only have 2 healing words for the party and one second wind apiece available for healing. If you don't cut down your opponent's numbers fast, you will tap out healing wise early... and then die. Basically, PC power stays roughly constant for the first few rounds (per encounters, maybe a daily or two per PC) and then plummets. If the fight isn't over by the time the PCs run out of abilities, life gets very ugly. So in 4e a fight is only interesting if you get towards the end of the PC's resources (otherwise nothing of importance is spent), but if you accidentally add even one monster too many, the PCs will be tapped out too early (monsters having rechargeable abilities at least puts PCs out of the misery relatively fast if it comes to that). This means that DMs who tend to use easier encounters will run 4e with less lethality than 3e (slower combat=less swingy combat), but DMs who tend to use harder encounters will run 4e as more dangerous than 3e (no ability to nova if things go wrong). Finally, note that 4e is designed (not perfectly) for everyone to roughly need 10s on the d20 to do something. 3e was designed for the target to drop well into the single digits. This means that putting PCs up against higher level opponents (with better ACs/to-hits) is more brutal than in 3e (a +1 when you only need a 5 is worth less than a +1 if you need a 10). Add in the messed up PC/NPC scaling (NPCs scale faster than PCs on a level basis) and you have a recipe for DM failure. [/QUOTE]

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