Why is it so important?

[hong]

Does salient mean the same thing as erratic? I guess I don't really have an opinion about how many fireballs Gandalf can cast. How's that for trying?

No, posting irrelevant nonsense is MY schtick. Try again.

"Little Women" isn't really within my sphere of knowledge.

Not that anyone was stating that it was.

I do find that the lack of substance gives your idea clarity though. I'm tempted to ask for some examples or development. Say, for example, an actual story and what you thought it showed about the entire field of fantasy literature and it's take on resources.

No, no. If you want to demonstrate that the 4-encounters-per-day paradigm has any relevance to what actually goes on in fantasy literature, you provide the evidence. Because I have already conspicuously failed to find such evidence, so perhaps you can do better than me.

Of course such a thing itself would be literature, and there would be a risk that it was self-referencing. Oh well. Play on.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

[hong]

The short form is that I feel that a game like M&M doesn't require the same type of versimilitude as a game emulating classic adventure fiction and fantasy.

Classic adventure fiction and fantasy... like Advanced Squad Leader?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I think I can sum up why I like the per-encounter paradigm much better than the per-day paradigm with the following [largely notional] charts.

These charts assume that you use your big guns as early as possible (hence the early spike), but that spike could just as easily be moved to later in the day.

[size=+1]Entirely Per-Day Resources[/size]

[size=+1]Some Per-Day but Largely Per-Encounter[/size]

 

[Mallus]

Classic adventure fiction and fantasy... like Advanced Squad Leader?

Beautiful...

Well, it's time for me to get eight hours of rest in dangerous place fraught with violence (I live in Philadelphia).

 

[pemerton]

Classic adventure fiction and fantasy... like Advanced Squad Leader?

Another person in agreement. This is a legitimate style of D&D play - read Lewis Pulsipher's old columns for one of the most developed expositions of this style of play - but not the only one, and not one that has much connection to the fiction I'm familiar with.

Per-encounter removes the principal mechanical feature that pushes D&D in this direction.

We know that some 1/day powers will remain. It is not clear what they will be. If Monte Cook's column is any guide, however, they may well not include straightforward attack and defence actions.

 

[Raven Crowking]

*We can suppose that other standards of significance are relevant to encounters besides the "mechanical threshold of significance", which you have defined to depend on resource depletion or acquisition.

Could have been done under the current system. For those who are comfortable with other thresholds of significance, this problem already doesn't exist. Therefore it is unlikely that this is going to prevent the problem.

*We can suppose that the threat of mechanical significance (in your sense of that phrase) is present in encounters.

Win/lose encounters are already part of my analysis. I predicted a rise in win/lose encounters beyond that which we have already seen in 3.X, to cover the exact same problem that 3.X introduced.

Win/lose encounters (in this case, those with the threat of mechanical significance, where anly loss of mechanical resources is perforce a significant one) make the problem worse, not better.

*We can suppose that not all players engage in prudent play (in your sense of that phrase).

For those who do not engage in prudent play, this problem already doesn't exist. Therefore, this is unlikely to prevent the problem.

So, yes, if you do not have this problem now because you use other thesholds of significance or because you have players who do not engage in prudent play, 4.0 might well allow you to carry on carrying on. If you have this problem now, per-encounter resources aren't going to solve it.

Exactly what I concluded........pages and pages ago.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Does salient mean the same thing as erratic?

Why are you even bothering with someone who clearly has no actual interest in the conversation, apart from threadcrapping?

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think I can sum up why I like the per-encounter paradigm much better than the per-day paradigm with the following [largely notional] charts.

Why do your chart lines slope after per-day resources are used up in the "Some Per-Day but Largely Per-Encounter" chart? Surely at this point they will be straight lines? Or is this supposed to indicate hit point attrition? If so, given that the cleric and wizard have fewer hit points than the fighter, wouldn't their lines slope more than the "everyone else" line?

 

[hong]

Why are you even bothering with someone who clearly has no actual interest in the conversation, apart from threadcrapping?

Tch, tch, tch.

 

[hong]

So, yes, if you do not have this problem now because you use other thesholds of significance or because you have players who do not engage in prudent play, 4.0 might well allow you to carry on carrying on. If you have this problem now, per-encounter resources aren't going to solve it.

Yes it will, because one fight per day will no longer break an explicit assumption of the combat model. Just as N fights per day will also no longer break that assumption.