RyvenCedrylle
First Post
Forked from: 4e One-trick ponies: Why is it the DM's fault about combat grind?
There’s a lot of talk on these boards using average damage calculations to determine the speed of a fight. That is, the assumption is made that if your average damage is higher, the fight ends faster. This, as far as I can tell, is not entirely true.
The basic reason for is that damage can be wasted. If I hit a monster that has 3 HP left for 15 HP damage, that 12 HP doesn’t go anywhere else. It simply disappears into the void. In terms of speed of killing multiple monsters, I only did 3 HP worth of elimination, not 15. Why does this matter? It matters because the average damage calculations are exactly that. Averages.
Example:
There are two opponents, A and B. A has 2 HP, B has 20. I hit each one in consecutive rounds for 1d8 damage each. If I hit A for 7 points and B for 2, I have averaged the 4.5 HP assumed by the damage calculations. However, only 4 of it counts towards the total HP pool of the enemy forces. This does not have the same in-game effect as if I hit A for 2 and B for 7. Here, I did the full 9 HP of elimination to the opposing forces AND averaged my 4.5 HP to boot.
In short, if your high damage rolls hit opponents with low remaining HP totals, the fight takes longer to actually perform than the mathematics should indicate. With solo monsters, you don’t have this problem as there is no opportunity for wasted damage. This, I believe, is the reason D&D 3E fights seemed to grind less despite the fact that the same powers were spammed more often. You fought fewer enemies at a time and thus had a lesser chance to throw away your good damage rolls.
What can be done about it? Minions seem to be a key answer intuitively but in fact exacerbate the problem as you continue to ‘waste damage’ or at least actions on 1 HP monsters. They speed up play only if they replace a normal monster 1:1 not 4:1. AoE can help this, but only if the little buggers are closed in well.
A better idea – and one that’s been thrown around in weeks past – is damage flattening. Your 1d8 sword always deals 5 damage. (Or 4, or 4 one round then 5 the next. Whatever) There’s still some wasted damage, but it’s significantly reduced. Now your actual results match the statistical model used by both system designers and back-engineers. If you don’t want to do this by math, the players should act so that strikers always hit high-HP targets and then move on once their opponent is about dead, letting the lower damage folks clean up the stragglers.
Rechan said:
There’s a lot of talk on these boards using average damage calculations to determine the speed of a fight. That is, the assumption is made that if your average damage is higher, the fight ends faster. This, as far as I can tell, is not entirely true.
The basic reason for is that damage can be wasted. If I hit a monster that has 3 HP left for 15 HP damage, that 12 HP doesn’t go anywhere else. It simply disappears into the void. In terms of speed of killing multiple monsters, I only did 3 HP worth of elimination, not 15. Why does this matter? It matters because the average damage calculations are exactly that. Averages.
Example:
There are two opponents, A and B. A has 2 HP, B has 20. I hit each one in consecutive rounds for 1d8 damage each. If I hit A for 7 points and B for 2, I have averaged the 4.5 HP assumed by the damage calculations. However, only 4 of it counts towards the total HP pool of the enemy forces. This does not have the same in-game effect as if I hit A for 2 and B for 7. Here, I did the full 9 HP of elimination to the opposing forces AND averaged my 4.5 HP to boot.
In short, if your high damage rolls hit opponents with low remaining HP totals, the fight takes longer to actually perform than the mathematics should indicate. With solo monsters, you don’t have this problem as there is no opportunity for wasted damage. This, I believe, is the reason D&D 3E fights seemed to grind less despite the fact that the same powers were spammed more often. You fought fewer enemies at a time and thus had a lesser chance to throw away your good damage rolls.
What can be done about it? Minions seem to be a key answer intuitively but in fact exacerbate the problem as you continue to ‘waste damage’ or at least actions on 1 HP monsters. They speed up play only if they replace a normal monster 1:1 not 4:1. AoE can help this, but only if the little buggers are closed in well.
A better idea – and one that’s been thrown around in weeks past – is damage flattening. Your 1d8 sword always deals 5 damage. (Or 4, or 4 one round then 5 the next. Whatever) There’s still some wasted damage, but it’s significantly reduced. Now your actual results match the statistical model used by both system designers and back-engineers. If you don’t want to do this by math, the players should act so that strikers always hit high-HP targets and then move on once their opponent is about dead, letting the lower damage folks clean up the stragglers.
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