Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;262122It would count as having passed a milestone, and they were get a new AP, a new use of a magic item daily power, and possibly various other bonuses from items or abilities.

The point that I am making is that it still may not be enough if the group were matched up with a random encounter of equal power level to the group when the group is seriously depleted of their powers above the at-will powers.

Quote from: Drohem;262128The point that I am making is that it still may not be enough if the group were matched up with a random encounter of equal power level to the group when the group is seriously depleted of their powers above the at-will powers.

It's too contingent to call. They might blow dailies sooner than they would otherwise, but especially once they've hit paragon and start having magic items like rings, any sort of milestone can be a boon for them. While lacking encounter powers is an obvious deficit that would make any fight more challenging, I don't think it would be an unfairly difficult encounter. It could potentially be boring though, unless the PCs and enemy make interesting use of terrain or possess the gear and powers to make good use of the additional AP, magic item daily powers etc.

As I mentioned earlier in regard to short rests, I would also expect a DM who is going to ram encounter upon encounter on the PCs without short rests on a regular basis to give the PCs an in-game way to recharge their powers, either by using second wind or by coming up with an event the PCs could provoke during the fight that would recharge their powers (at least partially) or some sort of terrain feature they could interact with to recharge their powers. For example, a magic circle that recharges the arcane encounter powers 1/encounter of anyone who steps into its zone, whether PC or foe, might work.

Clever DMing here can quite simply prevent most of this from being a problem.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;262126If you will recall our conversations right after 4e came out: As I said I hoped would happen, we are seeing a very vibrant "culture of play" emerge in 4e. The only people who seem to be hanging off of Mearls' every word are people who are not playing the game (Stormbringer, for example, appears to read Mearls' blog frequently; I, who play 4e weekly, don't pay attention to it in the slightest).

Nice to see you falling back on the play/don't play dichotomy.  The surest sign that your argument is utterly without merit.

I read Mearls' blog precisely when, and only when, someone points it out to me, like most blogs.  From what little I have read, his opinion of the history and evolution of D&D is only slightly less uninformed than yours.

Aside from being one of the most self-indulgent phrases I have heard in a number of years, this 'culture of play' you refer to has existed for about 30yrs.  Sad that it has to 'emerge' from 4e, when it should have been extant to begin with.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;262131As I mentioned earlier in regard to short rests, I would also expect a DM who is going to ram encounter upon encounter on the PCs without short rests on a regular basis to give the PCs an in-game way to recharge their powers, either by using second wind or by coming up with an event the PCs could provoke during the fight that would recharge their powers (at least partially) or some sort of terrain feature they could interact with to recharge their powers. For example, a magic circle that recharges the arcane encounter powers 1/encounter of anyone who steps into its zone, whether PC or foe, might work.

Clever DMing here can quite simply prevent most of this from being a problem.

In other words, once it actually becomes challenging, the DM needs to frantically break the rules to make up ways for it not to be particularly challenging anymore.

Quote from: StormBringer;262155Aside from being one of the most self-indulgent phrases I have heard in a number of years...

No, we have 'The Tyranny of Fun' for that.

Quotethis 'culture of play' you refer to has existed for about 30yrs.  Sad that it has to 'emerge' from 4e, when it should have been extant to begin with.

He's talking about a cultures of play specific to the games they emerge from. The 4E culture of play will differ from those of 3E, 2E, Vampire: the Masquerade and Tunnels & Trolls.

Quote from: Spinachcat;262112If you camp in the dungeon, the monsters may interrupt your nap.

If you are hunting down an assassin who learns that you are hunting him, he may strike at you after your night of drunken carousing.

I do not run encounters.  I run an adventure.   Adventures mean drama and drama means risky situations with high tension.

But it doesn't necessarily mean you deny the players their ability to interact with the game as defined in the mechanics.

In other words, since everyone has spell-like powers that only refresh in a certain manner, you aren't just handicapping the Magic User for the day if they don't get a rest.  Now the Warlord and the Cleric also are missing their daily/encounter powers, many of which involve healing.

See what I mean by carelessly tossing around spanners in the moving parts?

QuoteI played the RPGA event Weekend in the Realms last week and we had two solid encounters back to back with no rest.   It was brutal and we were down to blowing dailies and unleashing dailies in our magic items in the hope we could win.   It was awesome fun.

If players work as a team, they can handle two full encounters back to back.

So, what do you suppose would have happened if the dice went south, and you had another encounter?  And another immediately after that?

Precisely because of the way powers are refreshed for all classes now, interruptions to that refresh period is paramount to limiting the players ability to actually play the game.  It's rather like the banker arbitrarily denying players from collecting the $200 for passing Go several times.  The exact complaint people level against older editions, i.e., 'my fighter is just swing-hit-swing-miss', is exactly what makes random encounters viable.  Keep the Magic User in the back to watch for re-inforcements/sneak attacks while the characters that don't need six hours rest to recharge their ability to swing their swords in a certain, more damaging way take care of the pack of orcs.

This is almost exactly like the skill challenges gig.  Everyone was praising skill challenges up and down when the previews came out, then when the books hit, no one could heap enough praise on them.  Well, until Stalker0 over on ENWorld showed that the skill challenges worked in almost exactly the opposite manner than the rules stated.  At which point,  WotC quickly amended them to 'three strikes and you're out'.  The lead up to all this was WotC promising thorough play-testing and a mathemetician type on-staff.

So, you are certainly free to swallow the whole load, if you want, but when a designer who admits to not quite understanding what wandering monsters were for - and in fact seems to think there were "all these stories" about gods and demon lords randomly encountered at first level - suddenly decides they are a good idea again, I am going to remain highly skeptical.  Especially when his proposal includes meeting Orcus at 1st level, but using the dubious skill challenge mechanics to resolve it.

Quote from: Drew;262158He's talking about a cultures of play specific to the games they emerge from. The 4E culture of play will differ from those of 3E, 2E, Vampire: the Masquerade and Tunnels & Trolls.

Which is going to end up being some ridiculously convoluted attempt to describe what is starting to sound like an import from the vast reservoir of Forge double-speak and obfuscation.

Which you have started out in grand style by re-stating rather than explaining.

Quote from: StormBringer;262156In other words, once it actually becomes challenging, the DM needs to frantically break the rules to make up ways for it not to be particularly challenging anymore.

Psuedo's soloution is simple and easily implemented. There's nothing "frantic" about altering an abstract period between encounters, the length of which has no real bearing on anything other than letting the players know how much time in the game world has elapsed.

It's also a demonstration of the play culture Pseudo describes. When talking to a gamer who was dissatisfied with lengthy encounters, one of the designers instantly advised him to "halve the monsters hit points." That such a practical and easy-going approach to solving perceived problems is so enthusiastically supported by Wizards goes a long way to undermine the online scare stories about how the hobby is being choked to death by one-true-wayism. There's plenty of scope for odd suggestions, backed by a willingness to try stuff that may or may not work. The system can take an awful lot of manipulation before it even shows signs of buckling. Hence Mike Mearls blog.

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;261887Say wha? There was a big flameout on ENWorld about how powerful monsters like Pit Fiends were SO MUCH BETTER now that they have nice trim little stat blocks that never make you crack open the PHB, and those simulation fans and "there's more to D&D than combat" mantra-speakers were poo-pooed for suggesting there was anything wrong with that. And yet NOW we have some concern about how players might face such creatures in non-combat situations?

My apologies to my esteemed colleague from Limbo, this point was rather missed in the initial level one Orcus and Tiamat confusion.  I touched on this a bit two posts up, hopefully that will spark some conversation, as I think this point is the equal of the first raised by Caesar Slaad in the original post.

QuoteI don't get it. Either Mearls isn't as influential in the 4e design as I imagined, or he's having a bit of regret in hindsight that there just might have been some healthy tissue in the mound of game-flesh they hewed away during their steadfast vivisection of the game.

My mind keeps running through the first pilot of Star Trek, The Cage.  Vina is poorly put back together after the horrible mutilation of the crash landing, then given the permanent illusion of being a healthy, beautiful young woman again.  

Quote from: StormBringer;262162Which is going to end up being some ridiculously convoluted attempt to describe what is starting to sound like an import from the vast reservoir of Forge double-speak and obfuscation.

Which you have started out in grand style by re-stating rather than explaining.

Yet you're quite willing to accept a a thirty-year-old ur-culture of gaming yourself.

It is kind of funny, though, watching you swirl around the plughole like this. Yell "FORGE" and hope the opposition go away? Please.

Quote from: Drew;262163It's also a demonstration of the play culture Pseudo describes. When talking to a gamer who was dissatisfied with lengthy encounters, one of the designers instantly advised him to "halve the monsters hit points." That such a practical and easy-going approach to solving perceived problems is so enthusiastically supported by Wizards goes a long way to undermine the online scare stories about how the hobby is being choked to death by one-true-wayism. There's plenty of scope for odd suggestions, backed by a willingness to try stuff that may or may not work. The system can take an awful lot of manipulation before it even shows signs of buckling. Hence Mike Mearls blog.

Wow, I wish we would have had that kind of thing back when I was playing.

Quote from: Drew;262165Yet you're quite willing to accept a a thirty-year-old ur-culture of gaming yourself.

In other words, you want eight months of 'culture' to be given the same measure as three decades worth.  A 'culture' that specifically and pointedly eschewed the previous thirty years, then lauds its own cleverness for inventing this new-fangled "wheel".

QuoteIt is kind of funny, though, watching you swirl around the plughole like this. Yell "FORGE" and hope the opposition go away? Please.

Good Lord, no.  I want you to keep posting these gems.

Quote from: StormBringer;262166Wow, I wish we would have had that kind of thing back when I was playing.

So now you're saying that nothing has really changed? That you were getting your knickers in a twist over fuck all? Cool!

Quote from: StormBringer;262168In other words, you want eight months of 'culture' to be given the same measure as three decades worth.  A 'culture' that specifically and pointedly eschewed the previous thirty years, then lauds its own cleverness for inventing this new-fangled "wheel".

Good lord, you change tactics more often than Koltar does avatars. The basic picture remains though. You mischarcterise. Then, when challenged, you denounce. Then, when your denunciations are ignored you make a call to history, and by doing so directly contradict your original mischaracterisation. All that's left is ad hominen, which I expect we'll be seeing anytime now.    

QuoteGood Lord, no.  I want you to keep posting these gems.

Then please, keep denouncing people as "Forgist" the moment you run out of argument.

Quote from: Drew;262169So now you're saying that nothing has really changed? That you were getting your knickers in a twist over fuck all? Cool!

Well, except for the whole ossification of the rules to the point that people have to be reminded that they can do stuff outside of what is written in the books.

Oh, yeah, I guess I was saying that for those with some historical perspective - ie, those whose first version was prior to 3.5 - this really isn't anything new, no matter how breathlessly folks like Spinachcat pretend it is.

Again, Mearls and 4e didn't introduce the wheel.