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<blockquote data-quote="shilsen" data-source="post: 3995956" data-attributes="member: 198"><p>At lower levels, however many resources the PCs may have, they're generally so fragile that gritty dungeon survival is easy to pull off even if the system's preferred playstyle is very different. In 3e you can threaten PCs up to about 5th lvl with orcs wielding sticks and rocks. Hell, I've threatened 10th lvl PCs with orcs wielding sticks and rocks, though admittedly the sticks and rocks had poo on them. They may be a little more resilient in 4e, but I seriously doubt that they're so resilient that you can't do gritty dungeon survival at low levels.</p><p></p><p>I've generally found that if you have a good grasp of the system, you can do all sorts of things that the system supposedly isn't designed for. My Eberron game, for example, breaks many of the boundaries that 3e is supposedly designed to work within. I don't do dungeon crawls at all. I don't award XP by the given formulae, and in fact don't award XP for anything done in-game. Instead of multiple encounters in a day which diminish PC resources by attrition, most of the time my PCs have 1 encounter a day and maybe 2, almost always against enemies that they are at least twice as strong as. The PCs are built with a point buy system more powerful than any in the DMG and have wealth well ahead of the amount recommended for their level. And I've basically taken death out of the game. </p><p></p><p>Yet with all of the above, we get together every session to have a damn enjoyable game and for the PCs to be constantly challenged and pushed all the way to the edge. If I can do that in 3e, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to do that in 4e too. Chances are you will be too, though since your aims and tastes are clearly very different from mine, you'll have to tweak different things than I will.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="shilsen, post: 3995956, member: 198"] At lower levels, however many resources the PCs may have, they're generally so fragile that gritty dungeon survival is easy to pull off even if the system's preferred playstyle is very different. In 3e you can threaten PCs up to about 5th lvl with orcs wielding sticks and rocks. Hell, I've threatened 10th lvl PCs with orcs wielding sticks and rocks, though admittedly the sticks and rocks had poo on them. They may be a little more resilient in 4e, but I seriously doubt that they're so resilient that you can't do gritty dungeon survival at low levels. I've generally found that if you have a good grasp of the system, you can do all sorts of things that the system supposedly isn't designed for. My Eberron game, for example, breaks many of the boundaries that 3e is supposedly designed to work within. I don't do dungeon crawls at all. I don't award XP by the given formulae, and in fact don't award XP for anything done in-game. Instead of multiple encounters in a day which diminish PC resources by attrition, most of the time my PCs have 1 encounter a day and maybe 2, almost always against enemies that they are at least twice as strong as. The PCs are built with a point buy system more powerful than any in the DMG and have wealth well ahead of the amount recommended for their level. And I've basically taken death out of the game. Yet with all of the above, we get together every session to have a damn enjoyable game and for the PCs to be constantly challenged and pushed all the way to the edge. If I can do that in 3e, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to do that in 4e too. Chances are you will be too, though since your aims and tastes are clearly very different from mine, you'll have to tweak different things than I will. [/QUOTE]
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