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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 5030510" data-attributes="member: 18280">Scribble,I am not disagreeing with you about the changed pace of combat.When the designers first started talking, they admitted that combat needed to be speeded up, one would imagine based upon the regular complaints about how long a single fight took.  Of course, there were lots of complaints about how long a single round took as well.The designers then came up with a system (which we have in 4e) where the rounds were speeded up significantly, which speeded up combat overall.But since everyone had all of these "per-encounter" powers, fast combat makes the characters seem kinda hollow.  After all, if most of your "per encounters" didn't get used, what was the point of them?  Where was the attrition?  The edge-of-your-seat-iness?  So, they inflated the numbers to make combats last longer.This is a direct consequence of (1) moving to a per-encounter attrition model, and (2) moving to an all-combat-powers character model.  Really, put those two things in place, and there is little else that you can do.  Encounters must last long enough to allow for attrition to occur, and they must last long enough for all of those combat powers to come into play."Adventures" consisting "of going from one hour-long (or more) combat scenario to another" is a very good description of the result.  Even skill challenges, by the book, are means to allow you to move swiftly through anything that isn't a combat.  Things like traps should be played as though they were combats.  Simulation should in no way get in the way of combat powers -- find a way to narrate it so it makes sense, or don't worry about it making sense, but do not declare that a power doesn't work because its application defies your sense of realism.It is clear in 4e that combat is the "meat" of any adventure, while anything else is dressing, at best, to be moved through as quickly as possible so as to get back to the "meat".You don't have to play it that way, but that is the way it is designed.  It is, AFAICT, a direct consequence of the design parameters.RC</blockquote>

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