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This is perhaps the only point of yours where I am not in total agreement. As long as you stay far far away from solo soldiers, it is not an issue I believe, although solo controllers can cause the same issues at times.
The ability to stay far, far away from a monster is a lot to take for granted. Dungeons can be small, monsters can move, and many classes simply have no worthwhile ranged capabilities so playing keep away means doing nothing (and doing nothing leads right into grind).
The ability to stay far, far away from a monster is a lot to take for granted. Dungeons can be small, monsters can move, and many classes simply have no worthwhile ranged capabilities so playing keep away means doing nothing (and doing nothing leads right into grind).
I don't think it was a literal "far, far away" in the distance and game sense. I believe it was in the "don't use them" sense.
The ability to stay far, far away from a monster is a lot to take for granted. Dungeons can be small, monsters can move, and many classes simply have no worthwhile ranged capabilities so playing keep away means doing nothing (and doing nothing leads right into grind).
Quote:
Originally Posted by MadLordOfMilk
I don't think it was a literal "far, far away" in the distance and game sense. I believe it was in the "don't use them" sense.
Indeed.
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[b][size="4"]I hope the guide was of use, good luck in your games!
I think you did a fine job. A couple of thing I wnat to comment on:
1) Brutes vs. Soldiers: The guide mentions that soldiers have high defenses and brutes have low defenses. I think it's more like soldiers have high AC's while brutes have low AC's, with their non-AC defenses staying more or less in line with creatures of that type and level.
2) Minions: Man, the only thing to love about minions is the free XP shower. There is an overproliferation of multi-target auto-damaging attacks (rain of steel, armor of agathys, flaming sphere, consecrated ground, etc.) that will auto-kill minions while simultaneously damaging other threats that accompany (typically, brutes, soldiers, and some skirmishers fall into the same front lines as the minions). So, the minion doesn't even cost the player the action it took to kill it--and ithat's supposedly the entire point of minions, to divert actions. As a result, they don't seem to affect grind one way or the other.
There is an overproliferation of multi-target auto-damaging attacks (rain of steel, armor of agathys, flaming sphere, consecrated ground, etc.) that will auto-kill minions while simultaneously damaging other threats that accompany (typically, brutes, soldiers, and some skirmishers fall into the same front lines as the minions). So, the minion doesn't even cost the player the action it took to kill it--and ithat's supposedly the entire point of minions, to divert actions. As a result, they don't seem to affect grind one way or the other.
The effects you mention are all Daily powers. So yeah, if Daily powers are free, so are dead minions.
Minions eat resources. Actions or Daily powers.
Cheers, -- N
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The effects you mention are all Daily powers. So yeah, if Daily powers are free, so are dead minions.
Minions eat resources. Actions or Daily powers.
Everything eats resources. You don't take down many monsters just using at-wills, but you have an easier time doing so with four minions than one standard monster. And more to the point, you can kill the minions with the same attack you're using to damage other creatures, so the minions don't accomplish anything in terms of consuming actions or resources.
It doesn't have to be dailies by any means. My group's radiant servant blows up with Solar Wrath. He hits everything in a 17x17" area, targeting Will (not a minion's strongest suit). The party barbarian unleashes Blade Sweep. He kills the odd minion that got missed by the cleric, and damages some other critter in the process. In such a scenario, the minions were just gravy, and that's using encounter powers.
Great guide thanks, I have been lopping off 15% of HP ('cos I am running modules) and am going to try minions are 2 hit kills tonight (1 to bloodied then dead) cos minions have been less than effective against my party... but I like the aid another idea. Never even thought of it d'oh
Excellent article -- I've been thinking along some of the same lines, but of course you've said it better.
I think an important part of the sensation of grind is a lack of mobility. It feels like grinding when the combatants are just standing toe to toe and trading blows.
So, I would suggest a stronger emphasis on the non-monster elements of a combat to help reduce the sensation of grind in combat. It has been my experience that interesting, dangerous, and tactically usable terrain goes a long way to help make combat interesting. If there is an area of high ground, a few holes you can drop enemies into, magic circles or other environmental effects that add combat potency -- those all help give the players an additional thing to concentrate on other that trading blows. You've mentioned it, of course, but it has been my experience that the worst encounters I've written either had nothing at all to make the battlefield interesting, or had terrain and environmental effects designed to eliminate the PCs ability to maneuver.
For instance, I had a battle take place on the deck of a ship in a storm -- because of the rain and heaving ship, every square was difficult terrain. This one environmental effect turned the entire battle into a grind, because no one could move. Instead of swashbuckling, they were wading in mud.
am going to try minions are 2 hit kills tonight (1 to bloodied then dead)
I actually just did this in my game last week. There was an encounter that needed lots of enemies that would swarm the PCs. Since there were so many monsters, the PCs pretty much assumed they were minions and weren't very scared of them. Until they didn't go down with one hit, that was! Suddenly they changed their mind and ran!
I call them Elite Minions. Two hits to kill unless a single attack does more than X damage (in this case I put X at 25 points of damage, for Level 10 Elite Minions).
Again, it's not something I plan on using very often, but it really fit the encounter.
Great article, thanks Stalker! Could I put this together into a nice looking pdf for you? I think with a little editing you should submit this to Dragon!
A couple questions...
Are you suggesting doing away with encounters of higher level than the PCs entirely? For example, the "average adventure" according to the DMG is made up of 8 encounters (L-1, L, L, L, L+1, L+1, L+1, L+3). How would you suggest increasing an encounter's difficulty, more terrain or something else?
I have no problems with pdfs for my work, feel free!
In general, I do not recommend encounters more than 1 level than the party based on monsters alone (I've done 2 at the outside for big fights), and the vast majority of mine are right at the party's level. However, I will often use terrain and other factors to bump up the challenge. With terrain, once the monsters are defeated, normally the fight is over. You get added effects with no hitpoints to grind through.
Now that doesn't mean I never use high level monsters vs my players, but I only do it one monster at a time and I factor in that it will be tough for my party to beat. For example, one time I threw my 10th level party against a 14th level kuo-tua as a test (that's high level and a solider, two sins against my guide!).
However, to compensate for the big challenge, I gave him some 8th level sahuagin priests as slaves. The kuo-tua was a tough cookie, but the second they beat him the sahuagin ran (their slaves after all, no reason to defend a dead master). So for the party's perspective, the fight was 5 on 1, with some huge bonus damage from the slaves.
That fight actually ended pretty quickly, but the party felt epic and great at defeating such a monster, with no experience of grind. But if I had put 2 of them in their, it would have likely been a different story as the party ran out of resources very quickly beating the first one.
Its the same with elites, I would never recommend a high level elite or solo against the party, the magnification of more defenses and lots more hitpoints just ramps up the grind meter.
This one environmental effect turned the entire battle into a grind, because no one could move. Instead of swashbuckling, they were wading in mud.
I made the same mistake by having my group fight in knee-deep water against a swamp monster. The DMG even cautions against it, and I won't be making that mistake again.
Interestingly, I routinely craft fights 2-3 levels higher than my PCs, and there's no grind. That's because they're striker-heavy, with 3 strikers in a 5 man group. With no leaders they're screwed against foes that impose status conditions, but they've gotten good at fast takedowns to help compensate. Even fighting solos is a fast, fun joy.
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