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Did an experiment last night with an 'easy' encounter.
Well, was planning on two experiments last night...one using Sly Flourish's 4e Hard Mode suggestions from his blog (Sly Flourish» Blog Archive » Dungeons and Dragons 4e: Hard Mode). The other was to see how a combat of a lower level would go against the PCs...who are 15th level. They went up against a 13th level encounter (but with 12th level monsters).
The combats still took quite awhile, even though the players were able to hit pretty much at will, and the players weren't challenged at all either (although admittedly I rolled to hit poorly, and the PCs work well together...especially coordinating the controller abilities).
Anyone else have any experience with 'easy' encounters? I was hoping to use them for flavour but to be over quickly. Didn't happen.
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"And what would a 'Realms changing disaster' look like in Dark Sun anyway? The Sorcerer Kings lay down sod? A Halfling population explosion? Elves invent running shoes? " -- Andor
monster HP scales up and down slowly and player damage scales slower still. Even a couple of levels down will drop foes hit rates, but those foes will still have plenty of HP to grind through.
Personally I think "easy" encounters should be done narrativly, or wrapped up fast. The outcome is rather obvious, because they're easy. So why go through the entire procedure?
I will say that an "easier" encounter consisting of more lower level enemies could be fun. Just pour on the lower level monsters until it reaches the PC's level +1, and see how that works. Although I imagine it would take time to whittle their HP down.
Well I've run some lvl 24 fights for experiments and they actually went pretty fast even when using at level combats. Perhaps it goes faster if everyone knows their characters well? As you get higher up and more options open up it can take awhile if people aren't used ot their characters' abilities. I have to assume if you were running an experiment then the characters used in the experiemtn probably weren' ones that were very famaliar and thus took awhile longer to figure out how best to work.
__________________ Whatever you read in my post, I actually do like 4e
All my questions are for 4e unless otherwise stated.
"A true slacker needs no excuse to slack" - Evan G.
In the past my PCs have destroyed any minions pretty fast to the point where I almost don't even want to award any xp for them. I'm wondering what if I put my group up against enough minions that by the end of the fight they would all gain of level's worth of xp. I mean a HORDE of minions just to see how that would turn out. At what point would they run, or could they win? Obviously a group geared towards lots of AE would destroy them but my group is not, so i think this would be really interesting.
__________________ Whatever you read in my post, I actually do like 4e
All my questions are for 4e unless otherwise stated.
"A true slacker needs no excuse to slack" - Evan G.
monster HP scales up and down slowly and player damage scales slower still. Even a couple of levels down will drop foes hit rates, but those foes will still have plenty of HP to grind through.
That's a good point. It seems that defenses and to-hit rolls scale quickly over a small range of levels...but hp and damage do not.
Probably what makes higher level than the party monsters annoying is that they are hard to hit...not so much that when you hit you have to plug through a ton of hp.
Hmmmm...perhaps 'grind' solutions should focus more on defenses rather than hp...but still focus on damage instead of hit rolls for offense. (ie the 75% hp, + 1/2 per level damage solution which I use).
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"And what would a 'Realms changing disaster' look like in Dark Sun anyway? The Sorcerer Kings lay down sod? A Halfling population explosion? Elves invent running shoes? " -- Andor
Personally I think "easy" encounters should be done narrativly, or wrapped up fast. The outcome is rather obvious, because they're easy. So why go through the entire procedure?
I will say that an "easier" encounter consisting of more lower level enemies could be fun. Just pour on the lower level monsters until it reaches the PC's level +1, and see how that works. Although I imagine it would take time to whittle their HP down.
I think that's the problem...the hp. There were eight monsters (vs 6 PCs) in that encounter, and even though they were 3 levels lower than the PCs, and were hit pretty much at will (hits on 3s in a couple of cases), the PCs still had to slog through those hp.
I rolled so crappily that the fact that the monsters were effectively -3 to hit didn't really matter. :-)
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"And what would a 'Realms changing disaster' look like in Dark Sun anyway? The Sorcerer Kings lay down sod? A Halfling population explosion? Elves invent running shoes? " -- Andor
Well I've run some lvl 24 fights for experiments and they actually went pretty fast even when using at level combats. Perhaps it goes faster if everyone knows their characters well? As you get higher up and more options open up it can take awhile if people aren't used ot their characters' abilities. I have to assume if you were running an experiment then the characters used in the experiemtn probably weren' ones that were very famaliar and thus took awhile longer to figure out how best to work.
This is true and it certainly came into it. 3 of the players are using new characters (for the last 3 sessions).
One thing that has become apparent to me (and I started pushing the 'roll your damage at the same time as the attack), is that 4e has one problem in that there is a lot of situational damage modifiers.
For instance, the Warlock had cast Fireswarm, and had sustained it. On the next turn he did 4d10 damage + 2d6 fire damage for his paragon path +2d6 damage for something else...and if he'd critted it would be +3d6 for that...plus...plus...
In earlier editions while there may be modifiers on the hit roll, there usually weren't many situational ones...and there rarely were modifiers on the damage roll.
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"And what would a 'Realms changing disaster' look like in Dark Sun anyway? The Sorcerer Kings lay down sod? A Halfling population explosion? Elves invent running shoes? " -- Andor
In the past my PCs have destroyed any minions pretty fast to the point where I almost don't even want to award any xp for them. I'm wondering what if I put my group up against enough minions that by the end of the fight they would all gain of level's worth of xp. I mean a HORDE of minions just to see how that would turn out. At what point would they run, or could they win? Obviously a group geared towards lots of AE would destroy them but my group is not, so i think this would be really interesting.
I would think they'd really kick ass until they started running out of encounters and dailys. Then the hordes would really start to come into play. Especially with flanking and such.
Could be fun as a change of pace though (and I did do a 24 zombie encounter once).
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"And what would a 'Realms changing disaster' look like in Dark Sun anyway? The Sorcerer Kings lay down sod? A Halfling population explosion? Elves invent running shoes? " -- Andor
If you want it to be over fast and still have a chance of doing enough damage to be worth playing out, do a level-3 encounter with monsters that have half normal hp but double damage dice (so a 2d8+5 damage attack would do 4d8+5 instead).
This is a fun, fast & furious variant that I mix in with regular monsters, especially on solo and elite creatures.
When I run easy encounters, I like to add the potential for them to become significantly more challenging. For instance, the first combat of my new 9th level campaign involved a group of goblins protecting a barricade in their fortress. The floor at the entrance to the chamber was a trapdoor, which could be dropped with a pulled lever. The trapdoor would deposit anyone on it in a pit with an owlbear, forcing the party to decide whether to go save their friend(s) or finish off the goblins.
Unfortunately for my encounter, the PCs managed to get in a surprise round, and then won the initiative. Two rounds worth of attacks on the lever puller killed him before he could act. But the threat made the encounter worth running.
__________________ 4th Ed Chars Fallen:
Spoiler:
Gavin Ward - Male Human Warlord 1 - The party started a bar fight. The fellow who escaped brought his bandit buddies back and they killed Gavin (and nearly three other party members). He bled out while lying on the floor.
4th Ed Kills:
Spoiler:
Cornell Butterworth - Male Human Wizard 1 - Knocked unconscious by a kobold dragonshield the fighter ignored, then done in by the kobold wyrmpriest's acid breath.
Lithia - Female Elven Ranger 11 - Contracted mummy rot, which eventually did her in.
Brendan Stetlan - Male Human Fighter 4 - Knocked unconscious in combat, then thrown to the wolves.
Vindicator Mindartis Valenae - Eladrin Paladin 5 - Dropped by a githzerai monk (L6 elite), and killed when the rogue threw him off the balcony to try and get his body to safety.
Vongar - Male Dwarf Paladin 1 - Fell in battle after defeating Irontooth, but not his bodyguard.
Straef - Male Elf Ranger 1 - Fell in battle to Irontooth's Wyrmpriest.
well at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I will bring up troll huant warrens (P1)
an early encounter (one repated later mind you) is 5 Trolls (lv 9 Bruts) and an Oger Magi (lv 10 elite lurker) Now I had 6 level 11 PCs, a Fighter (dreadnuagth), a Swordmage (wandering swordmage), a Warlord (battle captain), a Ranger (battlefield archer), a Wizard (wiz of spiral tower), and a rouge (I have no idea)... It is listed as a Encounter Level 11 (XP 3,000) I call it D&D on easy...
first lurkers have the least hp, second Brutes have both Low Def and Low attack...
The trolls where taken out in 2 rounds, the Magi hadn't even gone when the first troll was dead...
then the worst one yet
Encounte Level 11 (3,000 XP)
Gloomfang, adult black dragon (lv 11 solo lurker) the party was level 12 for this one... The dragon went 1 time, dazed and unable to use action points...
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Remathilis
Planescape
It should be given special award to Die Vecna, Die: a module that manages to trash no less than THREE different settings (Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Planescape) in the course of one module.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Remathilis
Those of you who fretted that monsters have too many hp and fights take too long: meet the barbarian. The ULTIMATE "Lets speed this combat up, I need to whiz" class!
Well, was planning on two experiments last night...one using Sly Flourish's 4e Hard Mode suggestions from his blog (Sly Flourish» Blog Archive » Dungeons and Dragons 4e: Hard Mode). The other was to see how a combat of a lower level would go against the PCs...who are 15th level. They went up against a 13th level encounter (but with 12th level monsters).
The combats still took quite awhile, even though the players were able to hit pretty much at will, and the players weren't challenged at all either (although admittedly I rolled to hit poorly, and the PCs work well together...especially coordinating the controller abilities).
Anyone else have any experience with 'easy' encounters? I was hoping to use them for flavour but to be over quickly. Didn't happen.
First question.
How many rounds are we talking here?
For my group for example, a normal level encounter is taking 3-5 rounds (depending on type) and a easy encounter is usually 2-3 rounds.
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