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Worlds of Design: A Worthy End?
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<blockquote data-quote="Stormonu" data-source="post: 9230492" data-attributes="member: 52734"><p>I will argue that old D&D rules most DEFINITELY dissuaded combat. If you look at old modules, fighting for your life was a punishment for failing to correctly solve a puzzle or encounter. Most XP came from treasure, not defeating enemies - which encouraged avoiding enemies to get at that precious wealth. Wandering monsters are the ultimate expression of this - "if you don't hurry up, we're going to get overrun and our resources unnecessarily depleted." </p><p></p><p>If you wanted to survive in older editions, you did what you could to avoid or mitigate any combats as they were usually stacked against you. More often than not, charging straight into a combat would get you chewed up. Adventures were built around discovering paths, objects or clues that allowed you to avoid fighting or turned an overwhelming encounter into a fair or easier combat. If you look at the old random tables for building dungeons or the random encounters you invariably find that a not insignificant number of encounters are explicitly over the characters abilities to beat in a straight up fight (I think it's somewhere around 1 in 6 or so?).</p><p></p><p>Late 3E and into 4E changed that paradigm in that the fight was anticipated to be faced and overcome. Avoidance became unnecessary and the PCs could be expected to just plow their way through by fighting.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Stormonu, post: 9230492, member: 52734"] I will argue that old D&D rules most DEFINITELY dissuaded combat. If you look at old modules, fighting for your life was a punishment for failing to correctly solve a puzzle or encounter. Most XP came from treasure, not defeating enemies - which encouraged avoiding enemies to get at that precious wealth. Wandering monsters are the ultimate expression of this - "if you don't hurry up, we're going to get overrun and our resources unnecessarily depleted." If you wanted to survive in older editions, you did what you could to avoid or mitigate any combats as they were usually stacked against you. More often than not, charging straight into a combat would get you chewed up. Adventures were built around discovering paths, objects or clues that allowed you to avoid fighting or turned an overwhelming encounter into a fair or easier combat. If you look at the old random tables for building dungeons or the random encounters you invariably find that a not insignificant number of encounters are explicitly over the characters abilities to beat in a straight up fight (I think it's somewhere around 1 in 6 or so?). Late 3E and into 4E changed that paradigm in that the fight was anticipated to be faced and overcome. Avoidance became unnecessary and the PCs could be expected to just plow their way through by fighting. [/QUOTE]
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