Random thought about 4E

[digitalpoetry]

I was thinking about our D&D 4E game last night, and something occurred to me. I've been frustrated with how long it takes to resolve combat, especially when you're talking about the 3 or 4 minor encounters in a row that no one's really that invested in between major, interesting set pieces. I think those encounters need to be there to help keep

Comments

[rob_donoghue]

I'm pretty sure this is how Bruce Baugh is running his online game, at least form his descriptions.

From my own perspective, it's entirely doable, but the trick of it is that Skill Challenges need a more thorough treatment than the one in the DMG (which I do not fault - it's great for what it is). The idea is bigger and more flexible than the presentation in the book.

I might go a step further and suggest such an approach will eventually become something of a norm for one simple reason - 4e is really fun and satisfying for big fights where there's a lot going on than it is for sequential room clearing. Unfortunately, the XP rewards are better for room clearing. You can probably get severeal +0 level fights out of the way in the time you get through one well constructed level+3 fight and while the +3 fight may be a better use of the time, the little fights will pay out more.

All of which suggests that things are fine for megadungeon games, since the smaller encounters may be more satisfying to a lot of players. But for a non-trivial group of players who enjoy the big fight scene because a lot is going on (both tactically and narratively), there's going to need to be a new way to structure adventures and to make sure the reward continues to come in at an appropriate clip. You can see the ghostly form of this in the quests and milestones and skill challenges, but it hasn't really coalesced yet.

[rob_donoghue]

I should add that this led to more thoughts.