Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6006716" data-attributes="member: 42582">Agreed.Not every game has an action economy of the D&D sort. In some games, for example, additional actions can be generated by taking penalties to the associated rolls (both Rolemaster and HARP have elements of this, for example). Under such a design, scaling bonuses can produce the additional actions necessary for effective "boss" monsters.But D&D, with its strict action economy, needs effective "boss" monsters to scale in that dimension also.None. That's why, upthread, I posted this:To add to that last clause: I think D&Dnext will use flatter maths than 3E, but not as flat as 4e played in accordance with the encounter design guidelines. In this respect, I think it will be closer to B/X or AD&D.It's not an illusion if everyone can see through it. The point of the +1/2 per level is, quite obviously, not to change the maths of action resolution. It's to drive the story in a certain direction: the PCs start fighting goblins and end up fighting Orcus, Demogorgon or Lolth.Yes. In conjunction with the published monsters, it drives the story in a certain direction. There may or may not be powergaming fantasies, but they play out in the fiction, not in the action resolution, which in its basics doesn't change fundamentally between 1st and 30th level (though in certain ways it becomes more complex: more complex PC builds with levelling, more complex status effects (eg blinded, removed from game), etc).Not "unnecessary", though perhaps "not desired by all". The effect of scaling in 4e isn't to change the odds of hitting. It's to drive the story in a certain direction.Again, the bonuses have a purpose - to drive the story in a certain direction (assuming that the GM uses the published monsters more-or-less as published). And as I said above, D&Dnext will have maths that is not as flat as 4e's in the functional sense (4e maths is very flat when the encounter building guidelines are followed). Part of the design goals of D&Dnext is that changes in the PC's numbers are meant to change the odds of success in the action resolution mechanics - otherwise, +X weapons would be factored into "the maths", whereas we have already been told that they won't be.That's not entirely how I'd describe it - eg the use of "fluff" has pejorative overtones, whereas the whole point of 4e is that the thematic weight of the game is carried by the fiction as expressed by the mechanics, and not by the mechanics themselves (eg we know the PCs are getting tougher because they are now fighting mind flayers rather than kobolds - the process of action resolution on its own, divorced from the fiction, doesn't reveal this). In this respect it resembles two foundational indie games - Maelstrom Storytelling and HeroWars/Quest - which is further evidence in favour of my contention that of all versions of D&D 4e is the closest to modern indie RPGs. Whereas D&Dnext is clearly turning in a more traditional direction.</blockquote>

Verification