Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Starfox" data-source="post: 5024212" data-attributes="member: 2303">Loss of morale rules is a part of DnDs progression from a skirmish wargame to an arena-style dungeon encounter game.3E introduced the idea of the balanced encounter build. That does not go well with morale rules. In olden days the basic Orc encounter was with a LOT of orcs. The PCs would use bottleneck, hit-and-run, or shock and awe tactics to try and break enemy morale, because this was the only viable way for fighters to defeat a big group. But Fireball and 10' ceilings changed that (1 ed fireball was 132 5-ft squares of floor if the ceiling height was 10 ft). Suddenly all those orcs were merely fodder. By the time 3E came around, this way of thinking was so established that you could no longer use 1-st level orcs in an encounter for 10th level characters. AC now had an expected progression that a 1st level creature simply could not hit. Enter the balanced encounter, consisting mainly of critters just below the PCs in challenge rating. But suddenly, with fewer opponents, all the monsters could be brought to bear at once. You could no longer throw overwhelming force at the players because they would have too much Alpha-Strike capability. So numbers were reduced. Which means that by the time a morale roll would come into play, most of the monsters would be down, and the few runners could be chased down and killed. Making the morale roll pretty pointless.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Starfox, post: 5024212, member: 2303"] Loss of morale rules is a part of DnDs progression from a skirmish wargame to an arena-style dungeon encounter game. 3E introduced the idea of the balanced encounter build. That does not go well with morale rules. In olden days the basic Orc encounter was with a LOT of orcs. The PCs would use bottleneck, hit-and-run, or shock and awe tactics to try and break enemy morale, because this was the only viable way for fighters to defeat a big group. But Fireball and 10' ceilings changed that (1 ed fireball was 132 5-ft squares of floor if the ceiling height was 10 ft). Suddenly all those orcs were merely fodder. By the time 3E came around, this way of thinking was so established that you could no longer use 1-st level orcs in an encounter for 10th level characters. AC now had an expected progression that a 1st level creature simply could not hit. Enter the balanced encounter, consisting mainly of critters just below the PCs in challenge rating. But suddenly, with fewer opponents, all the monsters could be brought to bear at once. You could no longer throw overwhelming force at the players because they would have too much Alpha-Strike capability. So numbers were reduced. Which means that by the time a morale roll would come into play, most of the monsters would be down, and the few runners could be chased down and killed. Making the morale roll pretty pointless. [/QUOTE]

Verification