13th Age What should 4e steal from 13th Age?

[heretic888]

It wouldn't. It would give you an extended rest after every N encounters (or, for more precision, every N XP worth of encounters). The question is, what value of N should be settled on?

There are two relevant considerations that I can think of: what effect does variation in N have on intraparty balance/dynamics? And what effect does variation in N have on the dynamics of the party vs the challenge?

Thinking about what happens if you have an extended rest after each encounter (which is the smallest possible value of N) helps work out what the effects will be on intraparty balance. And my contention is that, unless you're using martial E-classes, the effect is "not much". That is, again unless you're using martial E-classes, you don't need to worry about intraparty dynamics when choosing a value of N.

That then leaves the other relevant consideration, of the dynamics of party vs challenge. 13th Age is built around N = 4. 3E was (I gather) built around N = 4. I think, at least at paragon and epic 4e, if you use N=4 you will find that challenges aren't very challenging. Hence my suggestion that you might try N = 5 or N = 6.

Just to clarify, in 13th Age N = whenever the GM says so. The suggestion is for (roughly) 4 battles or so, but this is in no way a hard and fast rule. Personally, I hand out full heal-ups based on accomplishing "story objectives" or minor/major quests, regardless of how many battles that takes or how difficult they were (thus rewarding "clever" play).

 

[hvg3akaek]

Wow, you wholesale gutted 4e!

I'd love to hear further updates on how it goes. Do you find combat to be faster?

We only play monthly, so updates will be slow in coming But the first night went well. Due to a short session, and the start-of-a-campaign RPing to set the scene, we only had one encounter, but that was a significant one - I think it was about level + 4? (so ~level 21 for a group of level ~17 characters).

It was three dragons (two artillery ones who weren't very involved, and one huge brute that tried to destroy the ship) and a bunch of dragonborn riders who leaped onto the deck. My aim was to have the dragons retreat when bloodied, but they locked the dragon down and ended up killing him before he could escape. Even though the encounter went longer than planned (4-5 rounds), we were still done in ~90 minutes, and that with high-paragon level characters, all but one of them which they hadn't played before. With unfamiliar characters, an epic-level encounter, and new rules to learn, I think it was significantly quicker than what other folks pin that level of game at.

But I think future games will be more telling, as the group learns the characters, and we have opportunity for multiple encounters per night.

 

[dammitbiscuit]

But I think future games will be more telling, as the group learns the characters, and we have opportunity for multiple encounters per night.

How did it go?