Why is it so important?

[Raven Crowking]

BTW, was there ever a general consensus on whether fights in 1e or 3e are generally deadlier?

 

[gizmo33]

That's what happens when you don't listen to the arguments being made against you.

Is it that you believe there will be a higher chance of PC death in your assumed 4E system?

I'd be tempted to say, AGAIN, what I think on this issue but then I would be subjecting myself to the charge that I don't listen to the arguments against me, wouldn't I? Seriously - Your first statement above is rude, presumptuous, and (as is usually the case when the first two qualify) is not very relevant to the subject at hand. If you think you've been ignored on specific points it would be more informative just to say what those points are.

In the case of what I've said regarding the 4E death rate, it's not as simple as a "yes/no" answer to your question. But basically - given that the "per-encounter" resource system removes the significance of attrition encounters, then it resigns you to encounters whose only significance is in their chance of death. Then, it seems to me to be strongly a matter of logic that the "per-encounter" resource system is an inherently deadlier system than 3E, all other things being equal.

The one issue that might mitigate this is the potential deaths that arise from unfortunate resource management issues - for example camping out while you're weakened, and being ambushed. However, these circumstances are easily controlled by the DM and are part of the challenge level of the dungeon. Easier dungeons would have easier patrols to deal with in the area - it's the same basic technique that you use for encounter balancing currently.

 

[Mallus]

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.

The first part's hard to argue with, but the second I have to disagree with, mainly because I've been playing/running campaigns over the past several years that reduced the role of that kind of resource management without any ill effects. In fact, there have only been positive effects (what we've lost in operational planning, we've more than made in memorable cinematic wahaoo-use).

So color me skeptical about the overall deleterious effects of reducing the role of operational-level resource management. I just haven't seen them practice.

I think that the play experience that has made D&D the leader in the industry will be damaged.

Why? I know that a focus on resource management over time has traditionally been a part of the game, but so was restrictive multiclassing, and 3E got rid of that to much rejoicing (for the most part).

Don't you have to demonstrate that it 4E won't be able to offer a reasonable level of player challenge under a per-encounter model for you to assert that that the 'play experience' will be damaged. That, simply put, that model won't work? And seeing as it does work, well, in fact, under a modified d20 engine in the case of M&M, isn't that a little tough to demonstrate?

I do not think D&D should play like Mutants and Masterminds (which is, however, a fine system for its genre).

Why not, exactly? I've toyed with the idea of switching my 3.5e campaign to M&M2e, and the only reason I haven't is sheer laziness. I don't think M&M would do dungeon crawls very well, unless you limited most at-will abilities, but I don't use many dungeons, and more modeling the wider world of 'adventure stories', M&M seems to me like a fine choice.

 

[gizmo33]

BTW, was there ever a general consensus on whether fights in 1e or 3e are generally deadlier?

Great Caesar's Ghost! Do you really want to go there? On this thread? If you mix a 1e/3e edition war with this thread the ensuing chaos could destroy all civilization as we know it.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This isn't attrition, at least not in the sense of slowly degrading abilities that have longterm considerations

Not for long-term considerations. But is it really that important whether resource attrition is long-term or short-term? Okay, that might in fact be the point that we are discussing all the time and are having different ideas about.

No, that's what happens when the arguments being made "against you" don't actually speak to the points you have made.

Ex:

Person 1: "I don't think that this system will solve the problem that Wyatt says it will."

Person 2: "Sure it will. It will make wizards more fun to play."

Person 1: "The problem Wyatt identifies isn't that wizards are unfun."

Person 2: "Of course wizards are unfun now! This will help."

This might be a good point.

But I might add something: I don't know who of the designers said it, but I think it was one of the blogs.

The basic idea at the beginning of D&D was that
a) It takes 13 encounters with an EL equal to Party Level to gain a new level.
b) PL = EL is the standard encounter.
c) PL = EL means 25 % of the groups resource have been depleted, on average (and probably not accounting for full "rule mastery" and tactical genius, but also not bad luck and incompetency )
A lot of the design assumptions about balance seemed to be based on this fact.

But the actual usage of the system seems to be different:

1) Because encouners with PL = EL aren't challenging in and on themselves (once you reach rules mastery and tactical expeience), DMs and module writers introduced more encounters with a higher level. I know that several adventures I played in had ELs that were EL+4 _and_ higher. (And yes, we prevailed. We are that good at powergaming in tactics)
2) Not all adventures are a string of combat encounters over the course of a day. A investigation story, or a adventure based on city politics will have less combat encounters per day.

1 might come from the fact that such encounters are either quickly overcome with the use of the generous use of spell casting (therefore ruining any "thrill" the encounters might had), or because the spellcasters hold back a lot and their players seemed less interested in such encounters.

Anyway, this can very easily lead to the "15 minute" (I prefer to stay with the exaggerated time value ) syndrome, because you really can only beat this one encounter. It also leads to spellcasters easily overshadowing non-spellcasters in such an encounter, because they burn through all their daily resources - neither having a choice nor being interesting in doing something different.
2 has a different reason then 1, but it leads to the same problem. Spellcasters overshadow non-spellcasters since they can go "nova" in that encounter.


So, the quoted dialog might result because some people think they know the reason how the 15 minute adventure day came into being, and this being that playing a spell caster that holds back most of the time isn't fun, which leads to a different encounter dynamic.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

In the case of what I've said regarding the 4E death rate, it's not as simple as a "yes/no" answer to your question. But basically - given that the "per-encounter" resource system removes the significance of attrition encounters, then it resigns you to encounters whose only significance is in their chance of death. Then, it seems to me to be strongly a matter of logic that the "per-encounter" resource system is an inherently deadlier system than 3E, all other things being equal.

I've played systems that had, essentially, per-encounter resources and systems that had something more "operational". My anecdotal experience is that neither form has any substantial, direct affect on the inherent deadliness of the system. I have noticed that per-encounter resources make more people aware of whatever deadliness is being provided by the system--and moreover, the particular GM. This has an indirect effect on deadliness. That is, "per-encounter" is easier to run and play. Easier things have more obvious consequences, and people thus react more obviously.

 

[Raven Crowking]

The first part's hard to argue with, but the second I have to disagree with

Statement of opinion only, in this case, my friend. Plus, I believe Jackalope King is going to open a thread to discuss this issue.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Great Caesar's Ghost! Do you really want to go there? On this thread? If you mix a 1e/3e edition war with this thread the ensuing chaos could destroy all civilization as we know it.

So far as I know, I'm not trying to start an edition war. However, the 3e CR/EL System and its effects on the way encounters were handled are, IMHO, germaine to the issue of resource management and the granularity of encounters with respect to the same.

RC

 

[Grog]

Seriously, though, 3e made changes to the attrition model of earlier editions by changing the granularity of encounters. This means that there is a far narrower range of encounters that are both mechanically "challenging" and possible to defeat without extraordinary luck. One result of this is that it is more difficult to seed "small but significant" encounters that bridge the line between speed bump and TPK for a party that is low on resources.

In general, I agree with this assessment. I find that I get much better results if I ignore the CR system completely (or just use it as a loose guideline) and tailor fights against PC capabilities more directly. Sometimes the CRs for the monsters come down where they're supposed to, sometimes they don't.

At least we've gotten to the point where we agree on the factors that make the PCs rest so frequently in 3e (I think we have, anyway). Could you sum up, succinctly, why your first three fights aren't boring?

I don't know. I haven't sat down and analyzed why we often have fun with encounters that others think are boring. I guess it just comes down to different play styles. This isn't to say that CR-appropriate fights are never boring for us, it's just not common.

I will say that there's usually a risk of PC death in our combats, even the CR-appropriate ones. It's not an incredibly high risk, but it is there. And I think that's fairly common among most gamers.

How many guaranteed wins per adventure can there be before the adventure suffers?

I have no idea. But since no one has said that they expect or want to see guaranteed wins become commonplace in 4E, again, I'm not sure how this is relevant.

 

[Grog]

OK, we certainly agree on this.

In fact, this is crucial to the point I am trying to make.

So, it is fair to say that resting between those encounters, or after one encounter, doesn't matter. The problem is the same. Right?

If the problem is the short adventuring day, yes. But there is a difference - if the players have one CR-appropriate encounter and then rest, they're making the decision to rest when they could go on instead. But if they have a huge battle that depletes most of their resources, then they basically have no choice but to rest.

The first is a reflection of play style, the second is an artifact of the 3.X rules.