There's certainly a fine line between caution and paranoia, and it's the DM's job to provide clue to the players, through actual play, of where that line is and how fuzzy it may be.
11 Reasons Why I Prefer D&D 4E
- Thread starter Jürgen Hubert
- Start date
There's certainly a fine line between caution and paranoia, and it's the DM's job to provide clue to the players, through actual play, of where that line is and how fuzzy it may be.
Hussar
Legend
Unless your party is using Clairvoyance at EVERY door, they are going to enter combats without knowing the enemies sometimes. I've seen this argument on these boards more than a few times and I never really understand it.
Unless your players know the makeup of every encounter every time, they are going to fight "blind" sometimes. It's not about stumbling, it's about not having perfect information. I've yet to see a group have perfect information in any adventure and, quite frankly, I hope I never do. Sounds intensely boring.
"Oh there's fifteen orcs in the room to the left and seven in the room to the right. Down the hall there's this and that. What do you want to do first?"
I highly, highly doubt that this happens in any game.
So, eventually, your party is going to go into encounters blind. I'd hazard a guess that they go into encounters blind more often than not actually.
As far as running away goes, well, considering how slow most PC's are, any small PC is moving 20, anyone in heavy armor is moving 20, and the vast majority of monsters move 40+. Running really isn't an option.
Jürgen Hubert
First Post
My guideline for DMs springing nasty surprises on the PCs is:
You want to induce terror in the PCs for your own entertainment. If you just kill them off, their terror - and thus, your entertainment - is over too quickly, so you want them bloody, but alive.
This has been my experience as well. When 1st level combats take as long as two hours, and one of the goals of the game was faster combats, somone has really messed up somewhere. Monsters have absurdly high hitpoints and defenses, except for minions (an overly gamist concept) which I have yet to encounter.
Obryn
Hero
For the first 2 or 3 sessions, this was my group's experience. (Though never 2 hours at a stretch... that's completely outside my experience for 4e, though it happened several times in my mid-high level 3e game.)
After a few sessions, encounters fly.
-O
BryonD
Hero
Start with "5 at the absolute most..." this statement is simply not remotely accurate. I run combats with large numbers of monsters all the time. And yes, some specific attacks are minimally effective against certain PCs. But the overall effect can be quite real.
I certainly agree that the default system assumes small numbers. But "absolute" and "cannot" are flat wrong.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
I'll have to check the precise numbers, but we ran through an amazing number of encounters last saturday. I can't remember any 4e or 3e game where it went so fast. I don't know if it is the level range (level 3-4) or if it was us that made this possible.
My campaign is the only 4e campaign that started at 1st level (the other 3 all were conversions from existing campaigns, 2 starting at level 6 and one at level 15), and maybe the fact that the players played these characters "up" from level 1 figured into it. On the other hand, one player had to run two characters, as one of our players can't come as often as he used to be, but we really don't want to reduce character numbers further. This usually tends to slow down game-play, since you have to get into the mind- and skillset of the second character.
Hussar
Legend
Bryond - As soon as you go to 6 opponents, assuming you're playing by the book and not fudging, you are so far down the EL/CR scale that it's not even funny.
Look at an EL 10 encounter with 6 opponents: 6xCR 5 opponents. Now, assuming for a second that we're going to go EL par, so this should be a standard fight. Not too easy, but, no one should die either.
6 CR 5's. Let's see, that gives us a choice of: basilisks (with the lovely save or die mechanics involved - 6 saves per PC per round=instant TPK, from an encounter that should be non-lethal), but, let's use manticores. One of my favorite critters.
Let's see, we've got two claws at +10 and a bite at +8 or spikes at +8. 10th level PC's are going to be running in mid-twenties AC, very easily. The melee types are likely hitting 30 with a buff or two. Even the rogue is well into the twenties. So, our critters have about a 25% chance of hitting. At best. Likely, it's closer to 10%, particularly if the party has, in Reynard's view, ample warning of what's coming.
Best option here is 36 tail spikes. About 3 hit doing 3d8+6 damage total.
The wizard isn't even feeling that.
Can it be done? Oh probably. I'm sure most things can be done if you massage the numbers enough. Can it be done easily? Not a chance. I watched far too many combats go this way - lots of baddies, the PC's basically ignore them as they mow their way through. The baddies just can't hit, and, even when they do, don't do enough damage.
Note, that's with 6 baddies. Pump the numbers up to 10+ and watch what happens.
About the only way large groups work is if they have special attacks, like our basilisks above. If they are straight up melee monsters? Not a chance.
What blows my mind is that people still remain convinced that 3.5 did this well. Look at pretty much every module out there. You will see almost no encounters with more than 5 baddies. There's the odd one, usually when the baddies have some sort of mount, but, by and large, 5's the max. The math just fails beyond that. It fails because the power increase per level is not flat, it's exponential. Going from 2nd to 3rd level is NOT the same amount of relative power increase as going from 10th to 11th. Maybe for the non-casters, but, the casters? They are getting new levels of spells, plus gaining more slots of their existing levels. Plus the rapid increase in PC wealth. Plus the feat synergies. Plus, plus plus.
Are the absolutes wrong? Maybe. Fine. I'll concede that. But, at the end of the day, pretty much every D&D designer backs me up on this. Module after module reflects this understanding. Whether it's Goodman Games, Paizo, WOTC or Bleeding Edge - they all follow the same paradigm. 5 or less.
Look at an EL 10 encounter with 6 opponents: 6xCR 5 opponents. Now, assuming for a second that we're going to go EL par, so this should be a standard fight. Not too easy, but, no one should die either.
6 CR 5's. Let's see, that gives us a choice of: basilisks (with the lovely save or die mechanics involved - 6 saves per PC per round=instant TPK, from an encounter that should be non-lethal), but, let's use manticores. One of my favorite critters.
Let's see, we've got two claws at +10 and a bite at +8 or spikes at +8. 10th level PC's are going to be running in mid-twenties AC, very easily. The melee types are likely hitting 30 with a buff or two. Even the rogue is well into the twenties. So, our critters have about a 25% chance of hitting. At best. Likely, it's closer to 10%, particularly if the party has, in Reynard's view, ample warning of what's coming.
Best option here is 36 tail spikes. About 3 hit doing 3d8+6 damage total.
The wizard isn't even feeling that.
Can it be done? Oh probably. I'm sure most things can be done if you massage the numbers enough. Can it be done easily? Not a chance. I watched far too many combats go this way - lots of baddies, the PC's basically ignore them as they mow their way through. The baddies just can't hit, and, even when they do, don't do enough damage.
Note, that's with 6 baddies. Pump the numbers up to 10+ and watch what happens.
About the only way large groups work is if they have special attacks, like our basilisks above. If they are straight up melee monsters? Not a chance.
What blows my mind is that people still remain convinced that 3.5 did this well. Look at pretty much every module out there. You will see almost no encounters with more than 5 baddies. There's the odd one, usually when the baddies have some sort of mount, but, by and large, 5's the max. The math just fails beyond that. It fails because the power increase per level is not flat, it's exponential. Going from 2nd to 3rd level is NOT the same amount of relative power increase as going from 10th to 11th. Maybe for the non-casters, but, the casters? They are getting new levels of spells, plus gaining more slots of their existing levels. Plus the rapid increase in PC wealth. Plus the feat synergies. Plus, plus plus.
Are the absolutes wrong? Maybe. Fine. I'll concede that. But, at the end of the day, pretty much every D&D designer backs me up on this. Module after module reflects this understanding. Whether it's Goodman Games, Paizo, WOTC or Bleeding Edge - they all follow the same paradigm. 5 or less.
Hussar
Legend
Bryond - As soon as you go to 6 opponents, assuming you're playing by the book and not fudging, you are so far down the EL/CR scale that it's not even funny.
Look at an EL 10 encounter with 6 opponents: 6xCR 5 opponents. Now, assuming for a second that we're going to go EL par, so this should be a standard fight. Not too easy, but, no one should die either.
6 CR 5's. Let's see, that gives us a choice of: basilisks (with the lovely save or die mechanics involved - 6 saves per PC per round=instant TPK, from an encounter that should be non-lethal), but, let's use manticores. One of my favorite critters.
Let's see, we've got two claws at +10 and a bite at +8 or spikes at +8. 10th level PC's are going to be running in mid-twenties AC, very easily. The melee types are likely hitting 30 with a buff or two. Even the rogue is well into the twenties. So, our critters have about a 25% chance of hitting. At best. Likely, it's closer to 10%, particularly if the party has, in Reynard's view, ample warning of what's coming.
Best option here is 36 tail spikes. About 3 hit doing 3d8+6 damage total.
The wizard isn't even feeling that.
Can it be done? Oh probably. I'm sure most things can be done if you massage the numbers enough. Can it be done easily? Not a chance. I watched far too many combats go this way - lots of baddies, the PC's basically ignore them as they mow their way through. The baddies just can't hit, and, even when they do, don't do enough damage.
Note, that's with 6 baddies. Pump the numbers up to 10+ and watch what happens.
About the only way large groups work is if they have special attacks, like our basilisks above. If they are straight up melee monsters? Not a chance.
What blows my mind is that people still remain convinced that 3.5 did this well. Look at pretty much every module out there. You will see almost no encounters with more than 5 baddies. There's the odd one, usually when the baddies have some sort of mount, but, by and large, 5's the max. The math just fails beyond that. It fails because the power increase per level is not flat, it's exponential. Going from 2nd to 3rd level is NOT the same amount of relative power increase as going from 10th to 11th. Maybe for the non-casters, but, the casters? They are getting new levels of spells, plus gaining more slots of their existing levels. Plus the rapid increase in PC wealth. Plus the feat synergies. Plus, plus plus.
Are the absolutes wrong? Maybe. Fine. I'll concede that. But, at the end of the day, pretty much every D&D designer backs me up on this. Module after module reflects this understanding. Whether it's Goodman Games, Paizo, WOTC or Bleeding Edge - they all follow the same paradigm. 5 or less.
Look at an EL 10 encounter with 6 opponents: 6xCR 5 opponents. Now, assuming for a second that we're going to go EL par, so this should be a standard fight. Not too easy, but, no one should die either.
6 CR 5's. Let's see, that gives us a choice of: basilisks (with the lovely save or die mechanics involved - 6 saves per PC per round=instant TPK, from an encounter that should be non-lethal), but, let's use manticores. One of my favorite critters.
Let's see, we've got two claws at +10 and a bite at +8 or spikes at +8. 10th level PC's are going to be running in mid-twenties AC, very easily. The melee types are likely hitting 30 with a buff or two. Even the rogue is well into the twenties. So, our critters have about a 25% chance of hitting. At best. Likely, it's closer to 10%, particularly if the party has, in Reynard's view, ample warning of what's coming.
Best option here is 36 tail spikes. About 3 hit doing 3d8+6 damage total.
The wizard isn't even feeling that.
Can it be done? Oh probably. I'm sure most things can be done if you massage the numbers enough. Can it be done easily? Not a chance. I watched far too many combats go this way - lots of baddies, the PC's basically ignore them as they mow their way through. The baddies just can't hit, and, even when they do, don't do enough damage.
Note, that's with 6 baddies. Pump the numbers up to 10+ and watch what happens.
About the only way large groups work is if they have special attacks, like our basilisks above. If they are straight up melee monsters? Not a chance.
What blows my mind is that people still remain convinced that 3.5 did this well. Look at pretty much every module out there. You will see almost no encounters with more than 5 baddies. There's the odd one, usually when the baddies have some sort of mount, but, by and large, 5's the max. The math just fails beyond that. It fails because the power increase per level is not flat, it's exponential. Going from 2nd to 3rd level is NOT the same amount of relative power increase as going from 10th to 11th. Maybe for the non-casters, but, the casters? They are getting new levels of spells, plus gaining more slots of their existing levels. Plus the rapid increase in PC wealth. Plus the feat synergies. Plus, plus plus.
Are the absolutes wrong? Maybe. Fine. I'll concede that. But, at the end of the day, pretty much every D&D designer backs me up on this. Module after module reflects this understanding. Whether it's Goodman Games, Paizo, WOTC or Bleeding Edge - they all follow the same paradigm. 5 or less.
BryonD
Hero
I've never been one to let the CR/EL rules control me.
This is one of the places I was looking forward to more freedom when 4E was first announced.
I run encounters with 20+ foes. Not every session. Not even every other session. But it has happened many times in the past 8+ years.
I can easily run these fights in ways that are good and fun challenges for the party.
(I have also been known to throw the rare cakewalk through the horde of mooks fight at the party just to let them flex their awesomeness. But that is a different matter)
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