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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5021820" data-attributes="member: 4937">Curiously, measuring character skill is not something I am interested in an rpg.First of all, I didn't say it didn't matter.&nbsp; Not long after the suggested levels for the original ToH, the character power will go up sufficiently that solving most of the tomb becomes a trivial excercise in spell-casting and monster bashing.&nbsp; Even Acererak himself goes down hard to high level party that includes a Paladin and a couple of spell-casters.&nbsp; In fact, ToH is actually easiest using the suggested characters if you play with fewer people because the high level characters are so much more compotent than a large mass of low level characters.&nbsp; Additionally, playing a high level character will give you the best chance to recover from each mistake (in our group's play, our barbarian survived a mistake just by having too many hit points to kill).&nbsp; If you have a party of 30th level characters, you'll just overwhelm Acererak's tomb with even minimal player skill.&nbsp; You're just too powerful; you have too many options; too many 'I win' buttons; and too many means of acquiring information from the DM.&nbsp; It's like, &quot;Tomb of Horrors?&nbsp; Good thing we've got that Easy button!&quot;Secondly, there are lots of reasons for character advancement other than...whatever reason you think character advancement is for.1) As a reward for skillful play by the player.2) To advance the story of the hero in the classical story arc of myth, such as we find in Theseus or Beowulf.&nbsp; 3) To change the way that the game is played over time so that you don't find yourself doing the same thing and having the exact same style of campaign at 15th or 30th level that you had at 1st or 5th.&nbsp; That last one in particular makes me wonder why 4e has character advancement at all, since 'the math' is actually designed to keep it from happening.We did it as a one shot so that the inevitable player deaths would not distract from the fun.&nbsp; And it was an amazing time.If you are supposed to win, if winning is the expected result, is it really a challenge or is it really just the illusion of success?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 5021820, member: 4937"] Curiously, measuring character skill is not something I am interested in an rpg. First of all, I didn't say it didn't matter. Not long after the suggested levels for the original ToH, the character power will go up sufficiently that solving most of the tomb becomes a trivial excercise in spell-casting and monster bashing. Even Acererak himself goes down hard to high level party that includes a Paladin and a couple of spell-casters. In fact, ToH is actually easiest using the suggested characters if you play with fewer people because the high level characters are so much more compotent than a large mass of low level characters. Additionally, playing a high level character will give you the best chance to recover from each mistake (in our group's play, our barbarian survived a mistake just by having too many hit points to kill). If you have a party of 30th level characters, you'll just overwhelm Acererak's tomb with even minimal player skill. You're just too powerful; you have too many options; too many 'I win' buttons; and too many means of acquiring information from the DM. It's like, "Tomb of Horrors? Good thing we've got that Easy button!" Secondly, there are lots of reasons for character advancement other than...whatever reason you think character advancement is for. 1) As a reward for skillful play by the player. 2) To advance the story of the hero in the classical story arc of myth, such as we find in Theseus or Beowulf. 3) To change the way that the game is played over time so that you don't find yourself doing the same thing and having the exact same style of campaign at 15th or 30th level that you had at 1st or 5th. That last one in particular makes me wonder why 4e has character advancement at all, since 'the math' is actually designed to keep it from happening. We did it as a one shot so that the inevitable player deaths would not distract from the fun. And it was an amazing time. If you are supposed to win, if winning is the expected result, is it really a challenge or is it really just the illusion of success? [/QUOTE]

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