Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Why do we have bandit scenarios?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5714842" data-attributes="member: 2067"><p>Before the invention of CR and Monster Level, there was only XP. Which meant that if you encountered some enemies that didn't give you much XP (4 kobolds for a level 4 party or something), <em>those</em> were the quick 1-3 roll encounters. Things that the Fighter could handle pretty much independently. An encounter with 20 Orcs or something could get huge, but with low monster (and PC!) HP, and few effective choices of action, even those combats likely took less time on average than the 45 minutes we spend today on them.</p><p></p><p>It's still possible for a 3e or 4e party to encounter a handful of low-level critters, but the design emphasizes meeting critters of around your level. In 3e, those can still be swingy two-roll affairs (largely thanks to Save-or-Die at higher levels), but in 4e, they almost never are.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>In early D&D, the significance of these 1-3 roll encounters wasn't that they would kill you right then and there, but that they would kill you through slow attrition over time, or at least that they would drain your party's resources for when the major combat (or whatever) happened. These resources included HP that came back agonizingly slowly, carefully rationed spells, and even consumable magic items that one relied on luck (or a beneficent DM) to drop. By the time 3e rolled around, healing was functionally easier, invalidating a lot of this style of play (though preserving it in some instances, such as when a DM kept Wands of Cure Wounds away from the group). 4e invalidates it even further with the "extended rest takes care of everything" mechanic. </p><p></p><p>D&D has lost this "long-term resource management" aspect over time. Thus, encounters with a few bandits or a minor trap are seen as pointless speedbumps. Despite their legacy in the game, they have no reason to exist in a game with little or no long term resource management. If everything's OK after an extended rest, you must put all the challenge the party will face in the adventure between the extended rests. You can't stretch it out with minor 1-3 roll encounters, since the effects are largely pointless after a night's rest.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, that makes the combat quick, but that doesn't preserve the LTRM aspect. For THAT, you need to do something like <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/312893-healing-surges-nod-towards-simulation.html" target="_blank">reduce the rate at which healing surges come back</a>, or something similar. In that case, if the handful of bandits force the players to spend a few surges, it's weakening them for later.</p><p></p><p>Of course, the effect is slightly reduced when you can't even usually spend all your surges in a single combat, anyway, and so a reduction in healing surges isn't always felt in a given encounter the way less HP or fewer spells is felt. </p><p></p><p>And all of this is a symptom of a tight focus on the encounter -- to the exclusion of the focus on the broader adventure. Resources return quickly so that you can have more encounters, rather than being hard to recover so that you can have a more challenging adventure.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 5714842, member: 2067"] Before the invention of CR and Monster Level, there was only XP. Which meant that if you encountered some enemies that didn't give you much XP (4 kobolds for a level 4 party or something), [I]those[/I] were the quick 1-3 roll encounters. Things that the Fighter could handle pretty much independently. An encounter with 20 Orcs or something could get huge, but with low monster (and PC!) HP, and few effective choices of action, even those combats likely took less time on average than the 45 minutes we spend today on them. It's still possible for a 3e or 4e party to encounter a handful of low-level critters, but the design emphasizes meeting critters of around your level. In 3e, those can still be swingy two-roll affairs (largely thanks to Save-or-Die at higher levels), but in 4e, they almost never are. In early D&D, the significance of these 1-3 roll encounters wasn't that they would kill you right then and there, but that they would kill you through slow attrition over time, or at least that they would drain your party's resources for when the major combat (or whatever) happened. These resources included HP that came back agonizingly slowly, carefully rationed spells, and even consumable magic items that one relied on luck (or a beneficent DM) to drop. By the time 3e rolled around, healing was functionally easier, invalidating a lot of this style of play (though preserving it in some instances, such as when a DM kept Wands of Cure Wounds away from the group). 4e invalidates it even further with the "extended rest takes care of everything" mechanic. D&D has lost this "long-term resource management" aspect over time. Thus, encounters with a few bandits or a minor trap are seen as pointless speedbumps. Despite their legacy in the game, they have no reason to exist in a game with little or no long term resource management. If everything's OK after an extended rest, you must put all the challenge the party will face in the adventure between the extended rests. You can't stretch it out with minor 1-3 roll encounters, since the effects are largely pointless after a night's rest. Well, that makes the combat quick, but that doesn't preserve the LTRM aspect. For THAT, you need to do something like [URL="http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/312893-healing-surges-nod-towards-simulation.html"]reduce the rate at which healing surges come back[/URL], or something similar. In that case, if the handful of bandits force the players to spend a few surges, it's weakening them for later. Of course, the effect is slightly reduced when you can't even usually spend all your surges in a single combat, anyway, and so a reduction in healing surges isn't always felt in a given encounter the way less HP or fewer spells is felt. And all of this is a symptom of a tight focus on the encounter -- to the exclusion of the focus on the broader adventure. Resources return quickly so that you can have more encounters, rather than being hard to recover so that you can have a more challenging adventure. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Why do we have bandit scenarios?
Top