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[Very Long Indeed] Reconciling Combat as War and Combat as Sports in 5ed
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<blockquote data-quote="Daztur" data-source="post: 5819000" data-attributes="member: 55680"><p>To get back to where I left off...</p><p></p><p>Response to Tony Vargas:</p><p></p><p></p><p>Encounter balance: nothing wrong with difficulty-gauging tools.</p><p></p><p>Class balance: well even within 4ed itself you have classes like the Slayer without any dailies (right?) are they unbalanced compared to fighters with dailies. But you’re right; if you have some classes that can Nova and some that can’t you either yoke yourself to certain forms of pacing or throw balance off. I think that throwing balance off in that way is an unfortunate price worth paying. However it can be mitigated in certain ways, if every adventure has a bunch of stuff in it and all of that stuff wears down character resources and all classes have their resources worn down in different ways then balance can be maintained. For example, if the PCs are fresh and will have only one fight before getting an Extended Rest then the Wizard can throw caution to the wind and rain fire but the Fighter can also throw caution to the wind and switch to an all-out offensive combat stance and do massive damage at the cost of running out of HPs. Similarly make sure that out-of-combat stuff uses up Wizard spell slots as well (and that Fighters are better at skills than Wizards) so that you don’t NEED combat to wear down the Wizard dailies.</p><p></p><p>CaW = Powergamer/munchkin: well that’s basically true. Under my definition CaS/CaW are both subsets of Gamism (to whatever extent that GNS makes sense) so they’re both about winning. For me playing to win is part of D&D, just not the only part. A CaW player who ONLY cared about that aspect of D&D would definitely be a powergamer, as would a CaS player. </p><p></p><p>Encounter based design: I mean everything in 4ed (and late-3.5ed) that focuses mechanically on the encounter level.</p><p></p><p>Expended rest: the basic idea is to only let players refresh their resources once per iteration of going back and forth from their home back to into the field, or the equivalent, the exact mechanism for doing that isn't important (I like the one week rest since it makes the world lower magic without really affecting PCs during adventures). This makes attrition much nastier since you can't rest up in the field (usually) and makes it possible for PCs to get worn down over the course of long Tolkien-style journeys (something that D&D has always struggled a bit with). </p><p></p><p>-------------------</p><p></p><p>Response to Hassassin </p><p></p><p>Agreed that in 4ed (and 3ed thanks to CLW wands) it's too easy to get all resources back with 8 hours of rest, this could be a problem in earlier editions as well, but players didn't bounce back quite so hard with one night's rest in those editions. </p><p></p><p>As for the 15 Minute Adventuring Week, note that under my proposal you'd only be able to get a full rest in a safe place (not some random dungeon room) and I think that a week is long enough to wipe out food stores and the like while still letting players have adventures that take more than a day to complete.</p><p></p><p>I agree that the lines between encounters should be blurred, if they're too sharp it starts to feel artificial.</p><p></p><p>-------------------</p><p></p><p>Response to S'Mon:</p><p></p><p>"On 4e extended rests - I definitely think that for many campaigns it would be better if an ER took a week in a comfy locale, while an overnight rest restored perhaps 1 Healing Surge. This would allow for a much lower default threat level to still be exciting, while still allowing for occasional spike encounters. It would also greatly increase versimilitude; I have a big problem with the 0 Healing Surge, 1 hp from negative bloodied, 1 death save from death PC who receives no magical healing but is still back to 100% health 6 hours later."</p><p></p><p>My thoughts exactly, although I was thinking that an overnight rest would allow you to spend your healing surges more efficiently, not recover them.</p><p></p><p>------------------</p><p></p><p>Response to James Courage:</p><p></p><p>" The PCs have something at stake other than their lives, and how they deal with the encounter (and how it plays out) will determine exactly what influence the fight had on the character(s)."</p><p></p><p>Exactly my thoughts, having a variety of stakes is important to spicing up combat (the only thing that I think matters as much is interesting and varied terrain).</p><p></p><p>-------------------</p><p></p><p>Response to Mostlyjoe:</p><p></p><p>"That is not to say 4E didn't support some non-linear tactical thinking, it just didn't reward it as much."</p><p></p><p>It also made it harder for the DM to adjudicate it, since a lot of the information that DMs could use to adjudicate non-linear tactics don't exist in 4ed. For example 4ed doesn't tell you if putting wax in your ears will stop a Succubus from charming you, but 1ed does, there's a bunch of little things like that but they add up.</p><p></p><p>------------------</p><p></p><p>Response to Fanaelialae:</p><p></p><p>"I think the question you missed is why can't you have PC death on the line every combat? Shouldn't that be a significant point of combat?"</p><p></p><p>Because it either:</p><p>1. It makes the game very very deadly.</p><p>2. Requires a lot of resurrection magic.</p><p>3. Requires fights to be rare (not a bad thing, but something that runs counter to most D&D games).</p><p></p><p>"In 4e, I can go all out and be assured that although the players may feel hard pressed, I'm not going to make the death rate skyrocket."</p><p></p><p>But if you can go all-out and the players still don't die, then isn't it the case that for most combats things are skewed enough towards the PCs that death isn't really on the line in most of your fights?</p><p></p><p>Will get caught up on the rest when I have time.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Daztur, post: 5819000, member: 55680"] To get back to where I left off... Response to Tony Vargas: Encounter balance: nothing wrong with difficulty-gauging tools. Class balance: well even within 4ed itself you have classes like the Slayer without any dailies (right?) are they unbalanced compared to fighters with dailies. But you’re right; if you have some classes that can Nova and some that can’t you either yoke yourself to certain forms of pacing or throw balance off. I think that throwing balance off in that way is an unfortunate price worth paying. However it can be mitigated in certain ways, if every adventure has a bunch of stuff in it and all of that stuff wears down character resources and all classes have their resources worn down in different ways then balance can be maintained. For example, if the PCs are fresh and will have only one fight before getting an Extended Rest then the Wizard can throw caution to the wind and rain fire but the Fighter can also throw caution to the wind and switch to an all-out offensive combat stance and do massive damage at the cost of running out of HPs. Similarly make sure that out-of-combat stuff uses up Wizard spell slots as well (and that Fighters are better at skills than Wizards) so that you don’t NEED combat to wear down the Wizard dailies. CaW = Powergamer/munchkin: well that’s basically true. Under my definition CaS/CaW are both subsets of Gamism (to whatever extent that GNS makes sense) so they’re both about winning. For me playing to win is part of D&D, just not the only part. A CaW player who ONLY cared about that aspect of D&D would definitely be a powergamer, as would a CaS player. Encounter based design: I mean everything in 4ed (and late-3.5ed) that focuses mechanically on the encounter level. Expended rest: the basic idea is to only let players refresh their resources once per iteration of going back and forth from their home back to into the field, or the equivalent, the exact mechanism for doing that isn't important (I like the one week rest since it makes the world lower magic without really affecting PCs during adventures). This makes attrition much nastier since you can't rest up in the field (usually) and makes it possible for PCs to get worn down over the course of long Tolkien-style journeys (something that D&D has always struggled a bit with). ------------------- Response to Hassassin Agreed that in 4ed (and 3ed thanks to CLW wands) it's too easy to get all resources back with 8 hours of rest, this could be a problem in earlier editions as well, but players didn't bounce back quite so hard with one night's rest in those editions. As for the 15 Minute Adventuring Week, note that under my proposal you'd only be able to get a full rest in a safe place (not some random dungeon room) and I think that a week is long enough to wipe out food stores and the like while still letting players have adventures that take more than a day to complete. I agree that the lines between encounters should be blurred, if they're too sharp it starts to feel artificial. ------------------- Response to S'Mon: "On 4e extended rests - I definitely think that for many campaigns it would be better if an ER took a week in a comfy locale, while an overnight rest restored perhaps 1 Healing Surge. This would allow for a much lower default threat level to still be exciting, while still allowing for occasional spike encounters. It would also greatly increase versimilitude; I have a big problem with the 0 Healing Surge, 1 hp from negative bloodied, 1 death save from death PC who receives no magical healing but is still back to 100% health 6 hours later." My thoughts exactly, although I was thinking that an overnight rest would allow you to spend your healing surges more efficiently, not recover them. ------------------ Response to James Courage: " The PCs have something at stake other than their lives, and how they deal with the encounter (and how it plays out) will determine exactly what influence the fight had on the character(s)." Exactly my thoughts, having a variety of stakes is important to spicing up combat (the only thing that I think matters as much is interesting and varied terrain). ------------------- Response to Mostlyjoe: "That is not to say 4E didn't support some non-linear tactical thinking, it just didn't reward it as much." It also made it harder for the DM to adjudicate it, since a lot of the information that DMs could use to adjudicate non-linear tactics don't exist in 4ed. For example 4ed doesn't tell you if putting wax in your ears will stop a Succubus from charming you, but 1ed does, there's a bunch of little things like that but they add up. ------------------ Response to Fanaelialae: "I think the question you missed is why can't you have PC death on the line every combat? Shouldn't that be a significant point of combat?" Because it either: 1. It makes the game very very deadly. 2. Requires a lot of resurrection magic. 3. Requires fights to be rare (not a bad thing, but something that runs counter to most D&D games). "In 4e, I can go all out and be assured that although the players may feel hard pressed, I'm not going to make the death rate skyrocket." But if you can go all-out and the players still don't die, then isn't it the case that for most combats things are skewed enough towards the PCs that death isn't really on the line in most of your fights? Will get caught up on the rest when I have time. [/QUOTE]
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