Why is it so important?

[hong]

So...now you're making it into one of those boring fights you talked about earlier through metagame means? I feel like you are moving your logic and reasoning back and forth.

Since when has "reducing variability" meant "boring"? The fight is still risky, in that if the players are dumb, they can get their butts kicked. This is entirely compatible with saying that if the players are _unlucky_, they won't find themselves suddenly in a hole they can't get out of. Heck, APs are often touted as one of the ways to encourage people to do _more_ wild, heroic stunts than they would otherwise. (Personally I reckon they're better used as insurance, but that's another topic.)

No, when you plan the encounter...before play begins to make it "risky" would be to set it at a level where the use of per-day abilities would be a strong or even neccessary factor in achieving victory. Thus if the per-day abilities are expended before reaching that encounter then it is now a deadly encounter. Without a clear identifier(metagame or in-game to determine which is the "significant" encounter...you know like in star wars sith lord=significant encounter, stormtrooper=/=significant encounter) it's randomness, and randomness never favors the PC's.

Whereas this sounds like you're basically telegraphing to your players "this fight is unimportant except to wear you down".

 

[Raven Crowking]

Jog my memory a bit --this thread has gotten big-- are you saying that you think the loss, or at least deemphasis, of 'operational level resource management', as Celebrim called it, is a bad design choice for the, or simply bad with regard to your prefered style of play?

I believe that it is bad with regard for my preferred style of play, and that (moreover) I believe that it is bad for D&D.

I think that the play experience that has made D&D the leader in the industry will be damaged. I do not think D&D should play like Mutants and Masterminds (which is, however, a fine system for its genre). Time will tell on that one.

In addition, I think that this change will not appreciably affect the 9-9:15 adventuring day problem once players understand the new system.

So time to make with the new house rules...

More likely, time to stick with the old....

....or modify the old to take into account any bits of design I like.....


RC

 

[TwoSix]

C.) In a per-day abilities scenario I can make every encounter significant in the fact that it will affect later competency without making it life/death. I cannot accomplish this with a per-encounter abilities model and thus another problem arises, one of granularity. In the per-encounter model there is no granularity in my encounter design, it is either a live/die encounter where I have built it so that they're in-combat resources are all expected to be used or an insignificant encounter where only per-encounter and at-will abilities should be used.

Of course there can be. It's just the simple "wandering monster" scenario that doesn't work. Each encounter instead is planned to have a certain outcome that affects later situations based on the relative success of the encounter. Success isn't based on the resources you expend, it's based on your achievement of tactical and strategic objectives.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Of course there can be. It's just the simple "wandering monster" scenario that doesn't work.

So, we can at least agree that this model removes something that worked from previous editions. That's a start.

Each encounter instead is planned to have a certain outcome that affects later situations based on the relative success of the encounter. Success isn't based on the resources you expend, it's based on your achievement of tactical and strategic objectives.

If this was the case for the vast majority of DMs, then that could be done with 4 goblins vs. a 10th level party in 3.5, and the 9-9:15 adventuring day problem wouldn't exist. If the success of the edition is based upon the average DM framing each encounter in terms of conditions of relative success, I predict that there will be a problem.

RC

 

[hong]

So, we can at least agree that this model removes something that worked from previous editions.

For certain values of "worked" anyway.

If this was the case for the vast majority of DMs, then that could be done with 4 goblins vs. a 10th level party in 3.5, and the 9-9:15 adventuring day problem wouldn't exist.

... to be replaced with the 12-goblins-before-breakfast problem.

 

[Imaro]

This is like going in an endless circle...

 

[Grog]

I can only get through this a step at a time. Either it is or isn't true - then once there is consensus on that we can get down to what the significance is. No sense in being cagey about it. Being different or not different from 3E shouldn't prevent anyone from answering the question. Not wanting to reason through the consequences may perhaps, but that's not a really fair assessment of the situation anymore is it?

No one is being cagey - the question cannot be answered because the details of 4E are not known. But for the purposes of this discussion, I'm willing to grant for the moment that your assumption might be true, and there will be a significant chance of PC death in many 4E encounters.

Now, how is that any different from 3E?

By chance you mean .0001%?

The chance is considerably higher than .0001%, and you know it.

Again, this is equivocating - I've tried to point out "significant chance" although I continue to not hear anything about what folks would consider a reasonable chance of death for a given encounter. We know what the resource expenditure for an EL X encounter is - that's 25%, right?

25% is the expected resource expenditure. But I'm sure we also know that things can vary considerably from expectations. Indeed, this fact is incorporated into the design, and it's part of what makes the game fun.

A hill giant is a CR 7 creature which attacks twice per round for 2d8+10 damage. That is a lot of damage to a 7th level party. On average, it's probably over one-quarter of the fighter's hit points per hit, probably well over a third of the rogue's, and probably about half the wizard's (which means he's capable of dropping the wizard in one round). There is a significant chance of PC death in that encounter - the giant is fully capable of killing a PC with just a bit of luck on his part - and we're talking about a bog-standard 3E encounter here with the party going in at full strength and no special disadvantages for the PCs in the fight from the battlefield or the giant ambushing them, etc.

So I'm not seeing the difference between your proposed 4E scenario and the way 3E already is.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Your comments on 1a don't make sense. The base assumption, as stated by the designer's, is that characters will be at about 80% capability after every encounter. We cannot assume that characters will make the mistake of not buying enough amunition, as it is a variable that suggests non-competent players(I can't see a competent player playing an archer and not buying enough arrows to take down an army).

Second the realm of one-use magic items does not factor because all they do is bring the PC above 80% so by using the 80% or above baseline they are allready factored in.

I'm sorry that you don't follow my argument.

It is apparent that you probably work under different assumptions to me (the most excessive archer I ever gamed with only had about a hundred arrows... 40-60 was more common. Fighters who also used missile weapons normally only had a quiver of 20 arrows). I've not noticed the statement that you assert was made by designers that characters will be at about 80% capability after every encounter. In my experience of 3e the party might be about 80% capability, but that is unlikely to be evenly distributed amongst PCs. Some will be hurt more than others, for instance.

Nonetheless, RC wanted people to mention anything that was missing in his assessment back in that post. I believe that both the issues I mentioned were unaccounted for and render the conclusions at least partially invalid. Maybe RC doesn't agree, but that's fine. I don't have any axe to grind or need to persuade anyone!

Cheers

 

[Jackelope King]

I may be conflating threads, or I may be more concerned about the "side discussion" opened up by Gizmo33. It may be that we are talking at cross-purposes.





Sure.


RC

I'll open up that side-discussion later then, once I get back from lecture.

 

[Grog]

As I said, I pared it down as simply as I could to illustrate what I was trying to say. If you answer the questions honestly, we can proceed. Otherwise, I fail to see the point of endlessly repeating myself.

Of course everyone is going to answer that they prefer an adventure where they have a chance of failure, rather than a long string of guaranteed wins. But since no one anywhere has said that 4E's per-encounter system will lead to a long string of guaranteed wins for the PCs, your example has no relevance to anything being discussed.

And I resent the implication that my honesty is somehow in question, here.