Why is it so important?

[Jackelope King]

I'm confused by the grammar of this statement. Furthermore, "attaching context to an encounter" may very well be manipulative and heavy-handed - I can't really see where you are refuting this other than in your tone.

For example, I design an adventure so that *whenever* the PCs walk through the door to the final encounter area, the BBEG has some villager strapped to an altar and is 10 seconds away from sacrificing him. PCs must battle their way through the mooks and save the villager.

This sort of thing is extremely heavy-handed IMO, but that's a matter of gaming style I guess. I'm more of a simulationist, perhaps, than the average DM. I would be uncomfortable with the natural reaction that my players would have to this scenario, which would be "hey, what are the chances that we would stumble upon the BBEG *just* as he's about to sacrifice the villager? We spent *days* slogging through the wilderness just to get here, and we've back-tracked twice in the dungeon. All of this wasted time and yet the moment is just right for the maximum amount of dramatic tension?"

Pardon the typo (and => any).

Your example is a strawman. I've never run an encounter where the BBEG is always 10 seconds away from sacrificing the villager, and the PCs just so happen to stumble in at just the right moment. Not once. I think it's absolutely essential, though, that there's a logical progression of events. A villager got kidnapped by the big bad evil guy. Why? What was the villager for? What's his plan? What's he going to do when the PCs try to come to the rescue.

Then I sit down and think. Once I know what the big bad evil guy wants the villager for ("he is the last descendent of the fallen kings of old, and only by his blood can I take the throne!"), I know how the BBEG will challenge the PCs. His goal is to drain the villager's blood with magic and take it for his own so he can claim the throne.

So the PCs go and storm his stronghold. If they go in loud, then the guards/guard monsters will be alerted and the BBEG might decide (if he's a megalomaniac) that he wants to flaunt his brilliance by performing the sacrifice right under the nose of the PCs (but honestly, that's pretty silly, and one I'd only use with the biggest egos).

More likely, the villain's ritual has a given timeframe that it must be performed in. So maybe the PCs have until the appex of the full moon to rescue the villager (which, if the PCs learn about the BBEG's devotion to that style of magic, they'll know is tonight!). If the PCs drag their feet then the BBEG will be successful. If they're smart and quick, they could get there with plenty of time to stop the ritual. I'd probably resolve how quick they are with a knowledge: arcana check after each encounter by the villain, with a bonus based on how long the PCs took to reach and overcome the encounter. Once he has X number of successes, the ritual is complete.

Or, it's quite possible that the ritual is something very simple. "Grab the villager, say the magic words, and slit his throat." If the PCs move quickly, they might catch the BBEG before he's even started the ritual, because he was maneuvering with some allies of his to make sure that he'd have legitimate noble families behind him when he claims the throne in a fortnight. But if the PCs are loud, then he'll perform the ritual and escape before they ever reach him.

Then the PCs, even though all they did was cut through a few squads of guards, will have some real consequences to deal with.

...

Long story short, there's meaning to these encounters once you apply them in context. Sure, the fight against a squad of weaker guards might be a blowout for the PCs, easily winning in just a few rounds, but the PCs care because every second the guards hold them is a second closer to the BBEG completing his plan (even if the PCs have no idea on the actual time frame they're dealing with). It's not "manipulative or heavy-handed" for the BBEG to put a plot in motion, or to react intelligently to the heroes' actions.

And further, this is one clear example where per-day resources really make it difficult to run such an adventure. The PCs have a limited time-frame in which to come to the rescue, and if they have to rest and recover, then they'll be defeated. And it certainly isn't the only such example.

Now that the grammar is cleared up this statement makes just as little sense to me. The two parts of the sentence seem unrelated. It *is* repetative and boring to slog through another dungeon (as the word choice "slog" would even lead one to conclude) so a logical reading of the sentence would indicate that you're demonstrating that attaching context is manipulative and heavy-handed. Which I'm pretty sure was not your intention. If you're going to ridicule dungeon-crawls it's probably best to do that in it's own context.

I wasn't attempting to ridicule anything. I was attempting to show that it's just as illogical to claim that people on either side are promoting "manipulative or heavy-handed" games as it is to claim they're promoting "repetitive dugeon crawls".

 

[Raven Crowking]

Your example is a strawman. I've never run an encounter where the BBEG is always 10 seconds away from sacrificing the villager, and the PCs just so happen to stumble in at just the right moment. Not once.

Crown of the Kobold King.

RC

 

[Jackelope King]

OK then. We can assume that the prudent player will be saving his Arcane Mark power for between encounters. I.e., while there may be a sufficient reason to both AM & teleport to that area during an encounter, this will be a rare bird indeed.

We are given three appropriate monster groupings:

Minion (used in group size three to four times the party size): 10-20 hp, Average Damage 5 per round

Average Monster (used in group size equal to party size): 60-100 hp, Average Damage 10 per round

"Boss" Monster (used alone, possible augmented by a few minions): 400+ hp, Average Damage 20 per round​

To examine our encounters fairly, we must first see, IMHO, how the PCs stack up against these monster groupings. Let us start with minions. We must look at minions both 3 X and 4 X party size, so we need to select a party size. Let us say that we have a party of 4.

That means that each party member must deal 10-20 hp of damage to 3-4 squares. Looking at my schedule of abilities, I see that I can use Attack 1/Encounter 1 to deal 15 points of damage in 4 squares, leaving me with a chance of having to face another round of attacks, or Attack 1/Day 1, which ensures that I will kill all of my targets this round.

If I use my per-encounter power, I take 5 hp damage, and have a reasonable chance of taking another 5 hp damage, for a total of 10 hp damage. If I use my per-day, I take 5 hp damage.

Because each ability tree silos, if I use even one at-will attack, I can't use any other attack.

Assuming no other factors, I should use my per-day encounter every time.

If we can agree thus far, we can examine what factors might change this approach in a Minion encounter.


RC

I'm not following how it's assumed that the minions are all clustered in the 4-square radius that the per-day attack requires.

 

[Jackelope King]

Crown of the Kobold King.

RC

I'm not familiar with that adventure.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'm not following how it's assumed that the minions are all clustered in the 4-square radius that the per-day attack requires.

If the minions are not clustered, as the PC abilities are written out, you need to instead use Utility 1/Day 2, as you have no way of winning this encounter.

 

[shilsen]

Some of these options already exist in the per-day scenario. Some of these options are too overly contrived to rely on. "Using a magic item you wanted for yourself" - must not be a per encounter resource, because then who cares if the enemy uses it?

That's the cool thing about the per-encounter resource, from what I've seen of it in play in 3.5e (via Bo9S and similar abilities). They exist along with per-day and one-use resources. So if the enemy has a one-use magic item you'd like to get and you fail to stop him using it, that's a consequence which is relevant, and it's still relevant in a system where PCs have per-encounter abilities.

Alerting other enemies? Who cares about that unless those other enemies can kill you in which case you're back to the original situation of kill-or-be-killed.

I see you skipped the bit I mentioned about the enemy surviving long enough to escape. An enemy escaping doesn't kill you, but in a lot of cases that can be a significantly negative consequence.

A spell that you are relying on is the one that was keeping you alive - again this is another case of a potentially deadly encounter. So death is on the line in two of these examples, although you stopped short of following the logic in that case to it's conclusion.

A spell you're relying on may be doing all sorts of things besides keeping you alive. It might be a Fly spell, without which you won't be able to reach location X. It might be an Arcane Sight, without which you won't be able to detect the magical portal the BBEG escaped through. And so on. As I mentioned before, death is only on the line if you're not thinking through the various possibilities, as you clearly aren't.

Ironic, considering that death was the possible repercussion in several of your above examples, so we all could stand to think about this, it seems.

Wrong. See above.

Furthermore there's a tiny window of time where any of the encounter choices has any significance. Go ahead and raise an alarm for example - if the help takes more than a minute to arrive the PCs are just going to have all of their powers back anyway and whatever they face is no difference than had they faced it on their own schedule.

Wrong again. It all depends on what the alarm would achieve. Would the alarm let the BBEG escape before you get to him? Then the significance can be long-term and campaign-changing. Does the alarm mean the city watch (who otherwise wouldn't do so) shows up to cart the PCs off to jail for breaking and entering? No death, but that's sure to be significant.

Finally, it's a matter of DMing style but I'm not so manipulative or heavy handed that I can guarrantee that some of these more "delicate" situations will survive contact with the PCs. The "ticking timebomb" scenario is an example of that - while it makes for an interesting hypothetical on a messageboard, a realistic situation in a world of over-land travel that's going to have an impact on a game of 6-second melee rounds and 1-minute recovery times is hard to imagine no matter how much you think I should think about it.

As noted above, a DM's failure to imagine beyond a limited area doesn't mean the system is to blame.

No one is going to raise an alarm if I take 10 more points of damage in a given encounter and fail to otherwise. So I don't see how your examples support your statement here. In fact, it's hard for me to see how many of these examples are the result of actual playing rather than a sort of quick arm-chair analysis. Are these examples really taken from your actual games?

Some of them, yes. My game actually literally has no death in it, since I allow PCs to use action pts and swashbuckling cards to survive attacks and effects that kill or take them to -10. And, as noted above, I only usually have 1 encounter a day. Both of which combined should mean (according to the arguments I've seen from RC and yourself) that combat is meaningless in my game. On the contrary, combat usually has a whole lot riding on it, simply because there are all kinds of repercussions to failure and a context within which they occur.

As noted by Jackelope King above, attaching context to a combat is hardly heavy-handed or manipulative. By definition, the attrition model is also attaching context to a combat by making it relevant in the context of the future combats that the PCs are supposed to have. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'm not familiar with that adventure.

The first of the Paizo Dungeon Mastery line.

 

[Jackelope King]

If the minions are not clustered, as the PC abilities are written out, you need to instead use Utility 1/Day 2, as you have no way of winning this encounter.

I'm definitely lost now. How do you have no way of winning if you cannot win in a single round? It appears to me that it would only take 1 round if the party used At Will Attack 1 to target the scattered minions.

The first of the Paizo Dungeon Mastery line.

I'm not sure how it's relevant to what I said, though.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Both of which combined should mean (according to the arguments I've seen from RC and yourself) that combat is meaningless in my game. On the contrary, combat usually has a whole lot riding on it, simply because there are all kinds of repercussions to failure and a context within which they occur.

Either I haven't explained my position well enough, or you haven't read it closely. I argue that combat is only meaningful when there is context and consequence.

The 15-minute adventuring day is obviously not a problem for you, because you only have one combat per day, and like it that way. You use a mix of per-encounter and per-day abilities, and it hasn't changed this for you. Wyatt's blog would seem to indicate that using this mix will make you have more encounters per day. It is this claim which I dispute.

I will also agree with you that resource attrition is manipulative. IMHO, every game has rules that attempt to manipulate its players into approaching the game a certain way. This is not only an important part of what causes the difference in "feel" between different editions, but it is inescapable. So long as actions have differing contexts and consequences, players will examine risks & rewards differently, and act accordingly. Studies have shown this to be true even where the consequences are completely random -- even where no system exists, players still attempt to determine what is happening inside the "system" and use it to their advantage.

The rules of soccer manipulate players into kicking the ball rather than picking it up. The rules of chess manipulate players into conserving pieces unless they can trade them for advantage. The rules of Twister provide for a more complex form of manipulation, because "win" conditions might mean more than winning the game (i.e., one might prefer to get entwined with that cute person over there and lose than to not get entwined and win), but there is still manipulation going on.

Solving a problem within a game often means (1) determining why the problem exists (i.e., what factors manipulate the players to act in the problematic manner) and then (2) changing those factors and/or adding new factors to alter what the players are being manipulated to do.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'm definitely lost now. How do you have no way of winning if you cannot win in a single round? It appears to me that it would only take 1 round if the party used At Will Attack 1 to target the scattered minions.

Attack, Defense, and Utility designate "silos". In each encounter, you may use only one ability per silo (and only use it once).

If your Attack doesn't do enough damage to kill your foe, you have no further attack.

I'm not sure how it's relevant to what I said, though.

You said that Gizmo33's example (where the BBEG is always 10 seconds away from sacrificing the villager) was a strawman; I demonstrated that it was not.