Scale and facing in 4e? > maxminis.com- D&D minis, 4th edition D&D

Subject: Scale and facing in 4e?

You are not authorized to post a reply.

Page 2 of 2

Author

Messages

Master of the
Awesome Sauce
Teflon Jeff
Warlord
Warlord

7146 Posts

Idaho. Yes, we have Gamers in Idaho.

08/28/2007 9:30 PM
Posted By Skyscraper on 08/28/2007 3:42 PM I don't think i understand what you mean by "if they coincide, they change based on that reaction". Care to expand? well, to give a basic example, guard a and guard b are on patrol. If nothin happens, the patrol goes on as expected. If they run into something out of the ordinary, then their actions change. Same with Cook A or Chambermaid D.

Official Delegate, Wizards of the Coast Against The Giants Called Shot: Huge Green Dragon Icons Called Shot: Gargantuan Prismatic Dragon "Rejoice, for bad things are about to happen."

portermj
Warrior
Warrior

326 Posts

08/28/2007 11:43 PM
Posted By Skyscraper on 08/28/2007 11:32 AM However, the article appears to bring in the "news" that dungeons should now be run on the basis of encounters that span a few adjacent rooms instead of running encounters room-by-room. This, for me, is a given and i've been doing that for quite some time. I hope and think that most DMs do. And i also hope and think that most DMs would think about the CR or EL of the entire dugneon area before setting the PCs to pit against the enemies therein. In other words, what Mearls appears to claim as a novelty in 4E design, as far as i understand his contention, is pure obviousness to me. I didn't infer from the article that the designer thought that it was a novelty. I think it was more along the lines of "encounters are going to be bigger so here is one way to take advantage of that." I think the writer started off giving hints about how 4e will work but went off on his own tangent about how he would set up encounters. Your type of dugeon makes complete sense in any edition. However for it to be "balanced" according to 3rd Edition it would have to be at a smaller scale. For example an adventure taking PCs to an Orc Outpost would have to be limited to eight 1st level orc warriors if it is meant to be cleared in one day. In theory multiday excursions could be explained as guerrilla tactics but then at what point would the orcs bail? (Actually, an adventure where the PCs have to pursure a retreat force through a hostile environment might be a cool adventure). Honestly though, I wouldn't be surprised if the multiple avenues of attack portion of the article was food for thought for some people. A lot of times I'll see an article about playing that in retrospect should seem obvious but I had never thought of. I wouldn't be surprised if there were DMs out there that set up hordes of 1 HD creatures into a single file conga line of death against their PCs.

Do you like games John? Absolutely!

Skyscraper
Sergeant

659 Posts

Montreal

08/29/2007 8:27 AM
Conga lines? Cool The thing with balance is that it musn't be accomplished to the detriment of realism in my opinion. Preparing dungeon encounters that span a limited number of rooms (single or multiple rooms) assumes that creatures from the other encounters (i.e. other adjacent rooms) won't come against the PCs. I find that approach very optimistic to the point where it breaks down in the face of realism as far as i interpret it. Combat in an enclosed, stone-worked area such as a dungeon or a castle with the type of echo that you have in those places, considering the sound that metal on metal and people dying in agony do, should alert just about anyone in the entire floor, if not more. For example, during the winter we play interior soccer every week, 6 vs 6 - alike the numbers of two opposing D&D parties. There is no combat going on, but people screaming instructions, and the ball hitting the wall or the net, and the occasional injury which is likely to be vocalized with intensity: very noisy business. I believe it is very difficult to remain stealthy duirng combat. It's possible of course, especially with the help of magic. The same D&D group i talked about in an earlier post managed a very efficient incursion in an orc underground complex, taking out half the troups (about 20) before the alarm was raised. They managed to take out the other half afterwards in a memorable combat. Anyway, my point is i guess that i understand that ELs or the equivalent encounter strength evaluation has to be made; and i understand that Mearls wanted to highlight the fact that an encounter with proper EL need not be confined in a single room. However i dislike the fact that the example given is a 3-room portion part of a classic multi-room dungeon with corridors leading directly to multiple other rooms: in such a situation, it appears obvious to me that denizens of other rooms should be alterted if combat ensues in the 3 previously-mentioned rooms. To Mearl's post, there is no or little "hey, that kind of limited encounter makes no sense" reaction, mostly a "hmm, it's fun that the designers propose a 3-room encounter" reaction and that what's surprises me. I think the designers need to crank up the logic on encounters another notch, because the explanations in Mearl's post for me is basic information; it gets complicated when you want to have a balanced dungeon-wide adventure when you know that an alarm is likely to be raised early on and that creatures from all the other rooms will be alterted to the PCs' presence. Sky

The wise man doubts often. The ignorant, sometimes. The fool, never.

zenthrus
Commander

4836 Posts

SLC, UT

08/29/2007 9:44 AM
Regarding realistic dungeon encounters, I always loved how the orcs interacted in The Forge of Fury. PCs could conceivably sneak into the fortress, but most of the time the orcs would always get the upper hand (logical patrols, dungeon rooms laid out defensively--much like a dwarven fortress should be laid out, and orders/warnings would be relayed via runners after certain PC action triggers). With a run of bad luck, an EL 4 situation could rapidly turn into an EL 10 situation as more orcs came flooding out of nearby rooms to reinforce the sentries. Regarding the original topic, according to Shoe, scale and facing in 4e aren't changing. Medium-sized miniatures will still be on 25mm bases with an average "medium" height of 32mm (just over 6'). Sure makes for an awfully tall batch of medium minis (which is what we've been getting in Unhallowed/Night Below), but they are technically on the same 25mm-base scale.

Knight Warlord a.k.a. Commander (#32) in only 6 months. Where's my pie? Champion of Dwarven Thunderlashers Knight of the Large Dire Chicken Have/Want List Trade References