D&D 4E 4e Encounter Design... Why does it or doesn't it work for you?

the Jester said:

4e encounter design is great, but leads to a certain sameness to encounters.

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But it's terrible for building an encounter that will surprise you (the dm).

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That's not my experience at all. I'm constantly surprised by the things my players have their PCs do (both in and out of combat).

I could link to any number of actual play examples I've posted, but one that comes to mind at the moment is when the PCs were in a town square, in combat with a cultist who was blasting them through a window overlooking the square. The PC wizard used Arcane Gate (or something like that) to teleport up into the room with the cultist, and then proceeded to use Thunderwave to blast the wall off the house (taking the wizard with it).

That surprised me. And it was easier to achieve in 4e then any other system I've GMed, mostly because the ease of adjudication in 4e (due to standard damage expressions and standard DCs).

Starfox said:

Monster hp are such that its almost impossible to take put a patrol silently (unless it is all minions

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I think this could have been cured with better minion rules, rules that made minions more dangerous (and thus priority targets) and less vulnerable to auto-hit powers.

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My own approach to this sort of situation is have a successful skill check (with skill depending on context) trigger "minionisation" of the enemy. Thus, on a success, the PC can cut down the NPC with a single blow/magic missile/whatever; on a failure, the PC is now in combat with a full-hp enemy and has to deal with the consequences (mostly, that the enemy has a chance to escape and get friends).

TerraDave said:

4E has the "set piece" problem in a big way.

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The DM will need to make an effort to pace things and inject some variety to avoid the game from being one big fight after another.

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I think the second line I've quoted is true for any RPG - the GM needs to keep an eye on pacing and variety. Modules like the G-series, for example, don't produce that on their own!

I also agree that 4e favoures "set pieces", but I don't see that as a problem - I want the events in my game to be exciting and memorable!

Stormonu said:

In the context of an isolated encounter, 4E's design is pretty good. For overarcing adventures/stories, it's a tad too limiting due to its self-contained nature.

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Stormonu said:

it's very difficult to carry consequences from one encounter to another and I've not seen where 4E makes use of the outcome of one encounter to affect other encounters

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You seem to be thinking of "consequences" here mostly in terms of attrition of resources for the players (PCs?), and attrition of the enemy (which is attrition of the GM's resources).

4e does have attrition (healing surges, daily powers) but I don't think that's the most interesting part of the game - at least in my game, these mostly play the role of shaping the tactical context and the stakes of any given encounter, rather than as ends in themselves.

But there can be many consequences other than attrition consequences - as in, enduring and significant changes in the fiction. Nothing at all in 4e precludes events having downstream consequences, and in fact skill challenges are about the only example in the history of D&D of a non-combat mechanic intended to play the same role as combat mechanics do in generating enduring and significant changes in the fiction independently of free roleplaying.

Stormonu said:

I don't see 4E's encounter design handling this sort of tactic very well, and would probably try and model it as a Skill challenge. I'd somewhat feel for the DM whose players did this spontaneously; I'd imagine many DMs would chafe at the party "destroying" the planned encounter in the goblin room.

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(1) A skill challenge is an encounter, at least as 4e uses that word.

(2) Nothing in the 4e DMGs encourages the sort of railroading you're describing here (of GMs chafing at players destroying their planned encounters), and [MENTION=6690267]Dragoslav[/MENTION] gives an example that shows how 4e is very easy to run without railroading, because it supports rapid generation of mechanically robust content.

Mengu said:

One reason for my love of 4e is because I find 4e encounter design to be very cinematic, plot oriented, and goal oriented. I've never felt a previous edition was able to capture this

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I can incorporate much more freedom to the PC's choices, without cornering them onto a railroad to make sure the encounters I designed don't go to waste. Also when they do something unexpected, I don't have to squirm in my seat because I didn't prepare a contingency for their plan, I just make it happen on the spot.

I've pushed the envelope in every aspect of encounter design. I feel the freedom to imagine up any situation the PC's can get themselves into, and can come up with a set of mechanics to resolve the conflict.

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Flexibility of 4e encounter design is limitless once you understand action economy, damage expressions and hit points, and PC resources.

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This very much captures my own experience - can't XP it at this time, sorry!

I totally forgot about the cinematic element, and the "Exception based design". This is me, hearting that.

Looking at some of the posts there seems to be a few mutually exclusive positions existing at once:

1) The ability for PCs, or a group, to effectively (meaning to assassinate) take out scouts or sentinels (during surprise round) is non-existent.

2) The potential issue of Encounter Attack Powers allows 1 to be too easily performed and thus compartmentalizes a dungeon into separate Encounter Attack Power Nova surprise rounds on scouts or sentinels.

Obviously these two cannot exist simultaneously. I would say the reality is in the excluded middle and the in-game logic and meta-game tools of monster design for the DM and the PCs build tools for their PCs/party makes the establishment of playstyle quite simple.

Is the table's playstyle preference such that there is a want to have PCs that have scout/sentinel skulking assassination capability?

1) If the DM wants a situation to be fully "assassination capable" then he should not make the sentinel/scout situation too punitive. The Scouts/Sentinels shouldn't be higher level than the PCs (perhaps even one level lower) and they shouldn't be greater in number than 2. The Perception capacity of the Scouts/Sentinels should be somewhere between easy and moderate DCs for the PCs. If the DM wants it to be even more assured, they can make Scouts/Sentinels minions.

2) PCs build for stealth proficiency and surprise damage. I have 3 PCs in my group. All 3 of them are nigh undetectable. The Rogue can front-load damage in a surprise round such that he can almost always take out a level - 1 Skirmisher reliably. The other two PCs can easily finish off the other one in the surprise round.

3) Finally, if I want to make it almost impossible for them to pull off a successful stealth assassination of Scouts/Sentinels, what do I do? Add a 3rd! They can reliably take out 2 but they better have a plan for the 3rd or his buddies playing cards or rolling bones in the next room will be ready to go in a moment. Add, a contingency Alarm Trap. Are Encounter Powers too potent in this equation? Add a 3rd scout/sentinel, or a hazard that must be navigated, or a contingency alarm trap that must be defeated, or up the Perception check by the scouts/sentinels!

In all, 4e allows PCs, and full PC groups, the sufficient build tools to focus on skulking and successful, reliable scout/sentry assassination (minion or not) if that is their wish. It allows DMs the meta-game tools to (i) facilitate this playstyle, (ii) to make it more difficult or (iii) outright nullify it and force the PCs to approach the situation differently.

For me, it works in two ways.

First, it's got a narrative arc. The monsters start off powerful, but the PC's rally through healing and come out ahead. That's done over and over again.

Second, it's well-balanced. Within that time-frame, the expected contributions of different party members are well calculated.

However, it suffers two big problems that make it ultimately impossible for me to appreciate as a core game element.

First, it's difficult to zoom out from the encounter level, because everything is balanced on the encounter metric. Traps, for instance, have this problem where what they do in 4e (and in 3e, which had some of the same ideas), is pointless. "Oh no, I took some damage, gotta sleep and get it back!" Because there aren't concrete resources outside of the encounter, it makes it difficult to do anything outside of the encounter framework, and PC's also lack meaningful and variegated contributions outside of an encounter.

Second, it marginalizes alternative encounter resolutions. Because the game is focused on that rising-action narrative arc, and every PC ability is focused on that as well, it encourages you do solve every encounter via the metric of damage and healing.

Those are tendencies -- there's exceptions to them, always -- but they're hard-coded into the system in a way that makes them difficult to entangle if you want to leave anything else intact.

I like the encounter guidelines because a 5th-level encounter is pretty much a 5th-level encounter. Makes it easy for the players to judge risk and reward, though you have to tell them the level. (At least I do.)

Kamikaze Midget said:

First, it's difficult to zoom out from the encounter level, because everything is balanced on the encounter metric.

Second, it marginalizes alternative encounter resolutions.

Those are tendencies -- there's exceptions to them, always -- but they're hard-coded into the system in a way that makes them difficult to entangle if you want to leave anything else intact.

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I agree and disagree. I think that the way 4E is written it points in this direction but there really aren't any problems if you stray off the path.

I am reminded of this hex from my current game:

[sblock]
In the game the PCs were tasked with the goal of recovering the bridle by a nearby green dragon. He told them of the displacer beast pack lord. I told the players it was an 11th-level hex.

The PCs hunted for large game in a nearby hex and caught two deer. Then they watched for the displacer beasts and a good roll indicated they were spotted leaving their lair within the city. They also spotted the beasts eating the fungus.

The PCs tracked the beasts down in the woods outside of the rad zone and offered the deer. This was a skill challenge. After a few checks one of the PCs used a one-shot magic item that allowed him to tame a beast, and he ended up riding the pack lord back to their lair where they kept the bridle.

Then the PCs spent a few hours (risking a wandering monster check) searching for some junk. (Only after they made a tea from the fungus.) Most of it was humorous, but one found a sound dampening field generator, or something like that. No power for it, though.[/sblock]

Imaro said:

Was thinking on this recently and was wondering about it mostly from the perspective of the 4e fans who claim that the encounter guidelines "work" in 4e. What does this mean? What is the criteria being used to determine this? Is a challenging encounter usually "challenging"? If so how do you relate this descriptor to what actually happens in an encounter? Same for easy and hard as well.

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It's not rocket surgery. When you use the 4e guidelines to put together a standard encounter, the PCs can handle the encounter. They might get a little more beat up than you expected, or panic and blow some dailies or something - players will always surprise you - but they're not going to get TPK'd by it. You give them a hard encounter, they're not going to just roll over it. It's fairly consistent. 3.x CR, OTOH, a same-level monster might eat the whole party, a Level+5 one might be a pushover.

Manbearcat said:

Is the table's playstyle preference such that there is a want to have PCs that have scout/sentinel skulking assassination capability?

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The 'skulk past scouts/sentinels' scenario is one best handled, in 4e, as a skill challenge. With a partial failure, you can pull it out of the fire by ganking them fast enough - and they should likely be minions or just a single standard, because the SC counts as some 'standard monsters.' With complete success they never see you. With complete failure they get off the alarm before you can even attack them, and complications ensue.

Stormonu said:

What 4E would have trouble with is:

There are two goblin sentries outsie; the party knows there's four more in the next room.

Party takes out the two. Rather than advancing, they wait for the next set of guards to come on duty and bushwhack 'em. Having now done a fight with two, then two more, they rush the last two.

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What is the trouble with that? It's, as you said, a perfectly valid tactic. You can reward it in two ways:

- PCs get the full XP of the six goblins, even though they spent little in the way of resources;

or

- You turn the whole bunch of goblins into minions, even if they weren't minions before. This effectively means that the PCs' strategy can alter a monster's stats. What you prepared as an open brawl with capable enemies becomes a stealth mission against one-shot/one-kill targets.

4e encounter design is like playing with Lego. Once you know what pieces you have, you can build pretty much everything.

pemerton said:

I think the second line I've quoted is true for any RPG - the GM needs to keep an eye on pacing and variety. Modules like the G-series, for example, don't produce that on their own!

I also agree that 4e favoures "set pieces", but I don't see that as a problem - I want the events in my game to be exciting and memorable!

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I actually had typed but then deleted "like every RPG". Pacing and variety are cross cutting issues...the specifics are, well, quite specific to 4E.

One pacing issue is that not every fight (or scene) can be the ultimate one. Not all will be equally memorable. Or I should remembered in the same way--I have many RPG memories with little link to the underlying mechanics or how tactically interesting a fight was. And what seems cool once in a while, done over and over, will stop being so.