Encounter balance help

AbdulAlhazred · Mar 29, 2017

S'mon said:
Given that surprise is just a standard action I wouldn't make Surprise as hard to achieve as
Manbearcat indicates, though. I think I would run it much as the OP's initial idea.

I don't think he's saying it necessarily has to be HARD to achieve, just that giving it out by fiat is disenfranchising the players to the extent that they may have invested in character traits for the very reason of NOT being surprised (WIS, Perception, Insight, possibly feats, items, fictional positioning, etc). Its the "no matter what choices you have made, you ARE surprised" which he is objecting to. Its a valid point. Still, the designer of the scenario is free to simply set a bar for not being surprised that is fairly high, yet it probably would be good to set it such that a character with say an 18 WIS or a 16 WIS and trained in Perception manages to avoid the surprise round.

darkbard · Mar 29, 2017

AbdulAlhazred said:
Honestly, you could now run this as an SC, though you'd need a little more work to cast it all in success/failure terms so it works. That might in fact be the best plan overall.

Y'know, the idea had certainly occured to me. But I really want to keep this a combat scene that allows the player to understand each character's combat capabilties/tactics and the potential of dynamically laid out 4E combat. And, I intend to follow this scene up with the SC possibilities you folks have been so kind in helping me craft recently.

darkbard · Mar 29, 2017

AbdulAlhazred said:
I don't think he's saying it necessarily has to be HARD to achieve, just that giving it out by fiat is disenfranchising the players to the extent that they may have invested in character traits for the very reason of NOT being surprised (WIS, Perception, Insight, possibly feats, items, fictional positioning, etc). Its the "no matter what choices you have made, you ARE surprised" which he is objecting to.

Right. Which is, of course, exactly what I was doing by granting the Druid PC (passive Insight/Perception scores of 19) an action in the surprise round but denying actions to the Fighter and Rogue. (I have the character sheets and neither has trained skills here or WIS scores above 14.)

That said, I really like [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s reframing of the scene as it does give more agency to all the PCs.

S'mon · Mar 29, 2017

AbdulAlhazred said:
it probably would be good to set it such that a character with say an 18 WIS or a 16 WIS and trained in Perception manages to avoid the surprise round.

My understanding is that was the OP's approach.

S'mon · Mar 29, 2017

darkbard said:
I've seen lots of people mentioning this (or variations thereof) over the years, including a discussion buried in a current thread in this forum somewhere. How have you seen it work out in play?

I've run 3 sessions so far with minions having 1/4 standard hp (so typically 0.25xCON+2+2/level), in practice that has meant 7-11 hp.
It generally has worked very well, killing minions with hp is *much* more satisfying than fake-feeling 1 hp minions. I gave the Dragonborn an extra d6 on his breath weapon attack (so 2d6) and even then it feels a bit underpowered, whereas static damage effects can still easily/reliably take out these low level minions en masse. It works well both for big epic fights with hordes of minions backing up BBEGs, and
more importantly for fast "trash mob" fights well under EL budget. The latter is something I'm enjoying most in my new game, having 20-30 minute fights that still drain some resources. Changing healing surge recovery to 1/4 max per night (1/3 in inn/castle/temple) has also helped hugely to improve the perceived dynamic. There is much less point in seeking out a 15 minute adventuring day when the players know they will only get back a couple healing surges overnight, and might have to deal with additional wandering monsters.

S'mon · Mar 29, 2017

darkbard said:
Right. Which is, of course, exactly what I was doing by granting the Druid PC (passive Insight/Perception scores of 19) an action in the surprise round but denying actions to the Fighter and Rogue. (I have the character sheets and neither has trained skills here or WIS scores above 14.)

That said, I really like [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s reframing of the scene as it does give more agency to all the PCs.

Well personally I like your original approach better: it shows the rules working as written, it demonstrates the toughness of the gladiator (& of higher level NPCs), it has an uncertain outcome. And it should not take too long to play out.

In general I think 4e battles with a few Standards plus a bunch of Minions are the best 4e battles, though giving the minions some hp improves player immersion by making them seem more real. Whenever I kill 1 hp minions as a player I'm reminded 'this is a game' in a way that doesn't happen when creatures have plausible hp tallies.

Tony Vargas · Apr 4, 2017

S'mon said:
. Whenever I kill 1 hp minions as a player I'm reminded 'this is a game' in a way that doesn't happen when creatures have plausible hp tallies.

1hp isn't a plausible hp total, it's the plausible hp total.

AbdulAlhazred · Apr 6, 2017

Tony Vargas said:
1hp isn't a plausible hp total, it's the plausible hp total.

1hp isn't a hit point total. Minions don't use hit points. I mean they have a 'hit point', notionally but they simply use a different set of rules because they serve a different dramatic function in the game. The World is not Numbers.

Its perfectly plausible, narratively for an attack to kill someone. Sword blows are dangerous, so presumably are deadly magic spells and whatnot. 'Death' can represent other forms of defeat, etc. If something isn't NARRATIVELY PLAUSIBLE, when its perfectly POSSIBLE on the face of it, then something is wrong with the telling of the narrative, not with the mechanics.

Minions simply represent something close to ordinary folks. People or creatures which lack the ties to fate and destiny which make worthy opponents, or powerful allies, out of someone. Its really that simple. There shouldn't be an issue. IMHO the issue is an expectation created by other versions of D&D that it must work a certain way and that everyone has to have some certain number of hit dice just because of some detail, like they're an 'orc' or an 'ogre', as if they're chopped out on some cookie cutter.

ChaosOS · Apr 6, 2017

I personally tend to flavor minions that are humanoid flunkies as getting disarmed, knocked out of the fight, or otherwise bowing out without the full dismemberment I grant full monsters that the party kills.

Tony Vargas · Apr 8, 2017

AbdulAlhazred said:
The World is not Numbers.

Its perfectly plausible, narratively for an attack to kill someone. Sword blows are dangerous, so presumably are deadly magic spells and whatnot. 'Death' can represent other forms of defeat, etc.

I guess I was trying to say that hps are, themselves, implausible, in the first place.

Encounter balance help

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