D&D 4E Streamlined 4e combat

RangerWickett said:

I dunno. The appeal of 4e was the tactical combats with all their fiddliness. Everything is tuned around giving the players enough rounds of combat that they actually need to make meaningful decisions on what powers to use and when. If you shorten combats (e.g., have fewer rounds), tactical decisions become less meaningful, and you're taking away arguably the best element of 4e.

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I would disagree that tactical combat was the best element of 4e or that its fiddliness added to the appeal.

Arguably the best element of 4e was that it delivered a game where the characters were actually the main protagonists and they were capable adventurers from the get-go rather than bench warm up chumps, IMO. Class parity across all classes, and the fact that classes from the original Player's Handbook stayed competitive even against the last books on the game line, added to this delivery. No longer was there entire classes that became obsolete as other classes gained levels. In addition, everyone had something interesting to offer during most aspects of the game. A conscious attempt was made to make "equal time on screen" for each class into something important, and the time between your turns was still engaging because your class might have ways to be effective even during that phase. Some of the perceived fiddliness is an attempt to keep players engaged even when it is not their turn - a problem that other editions had and the designers were trying to address.

The issue with long combats has to do with a shifting paradigm across editions. The designers went with the assumption that combat is something that players find cool and fun. Therefore it is supposed to be interesting. A long combat that is actually interesting and keeps everyone engaged never feels like a waste of time. However, the opposite is also true. A long combat that is not interesting/meaningful becomes a wasteful drag. Therefore, combats that are not meant to be interesting should not be used as time fillers. Random encounters to eat up resources clearly fall into this category. The problem is that the designers never really took a lot of time to directly address this with DMs. So DMs that were used to a lot of filler combats in other editions went back to their tried and true techniques and found out the hard way that they were not as effective anymore, and even boring.

Action Pacing is the sole determining factor on whether a combat remains exciting.



The chart above shows what an exciting combat should look like as the action develops. A build up phase, then a sustain phase, then a climax, followed by a rapid clean up phase.

13th age, for example, uses the escalation die to increase accuracy of attacks as the build up is happening. You don't want to Nova on the first rounds because you might miss, you save your good techniques for when they are more likely to land a hit.

One of the beauties of 4e is that the DM can control a lot of this from his side of the screen without really having to change much from the player side. A few tweaks can get you a long way, but there are some severe tweaks also if you can stomach them. As a DM I always prefer when the system teaches "how to fish" instead of "giving me a fish." In that way the DM that understands the underlying framework is better equipped to tweak to taste and improvise for unforeseen circumstances.

If you examine the things that can make combat boring you start to see a correlation between them, and can start to address the actual issues. I'll list some of them here for reference:

• When characters miss a lot with their attacks their "cool" things are ineffective - boring.

• When combatants are under "action denial effects" they "lose their turn to act" - boring.

• When the expectation is "something dangerous" but there is not a sense of danger - boring.

• When the result of an engagement is a foregone conclusion but it just keeps going - boring.

• When combat is supposed to be exciting but is used for the sole purpose of depleting resources - boring.

• Every single lever of interactive modification that takes additional time makes things drag - boring.

As you start to hone on those aspects that lengthen combat in boring ways you start to see that there are several controls that the DM can use to keep the pace going and keep combats within what I'll call the "golden mean". Which I'll define as a combat that always feels exciting, and ends exactly at the right time without the ending feeling forced.

Taking each of those issues and addressing them in a set of Generalized DM Guidelines gives you a much better chance of getting exciting combats by keeping an exciting pace. I have an extensive set of "rules changes" I have made to address some issues but the most significant changes have been in what I prepare for the game, and how I run combats.

Characters Miss a Lot/Do Too Little Damage
Pay attention to the guidelines in the DMG for encounter design.
Design your combats so that within your encounter budget the opposition are within Level-3 to Level+1. Any Unique Monster that would effectively be 4 levels below the character level is a Mook* of same Level.
Whenever possible don't use monsters with the Soldier Role, unless they are lower than PC level (e.g., Level 4 PC against Level 2 Soldier).
Whenever possible try to maintain action parity at 1:1 ratio. If there are 4 players use 4 monsters. If there are 3 players or less no encounter should have more than 4 total monsters.
Pay attention to numbers of swarms against character without blast, burst or area attacks.
Use the Weakened condition sparingly.
*Mook is a 2 hit minion. First hit takes it to bloodied, second hit eliminates it.

Combatants are under "Action Denial Effect"
Any combatant can choose to take damage equal to their Healing Surge Value during the Start of their own Turn Phase to remove the Dazed condition. Removing the Stun Condition in this manner changes it to Dazed.

Dangerous should be Dangerous
Upgrade all damage to MM3 damage or better.
Multiple Minions attacking the same character should put the fear of dying on PCs.
Use the environment to heighten the sense of danger. Make it actually dangerous. Include terrain, obstacles and hazards that can be used by anyone to make the encounter more exciting (e.g. Fiery Braziers, Pools of Acid, Toppled Bookshelves, Cave-Ins, etc.)

Ending Encounters - Encounter Length
Don't use Monsters more than 2 levels above PC level. If you MUST increase monster HP, decrease all their defenses by 2. In general, Monster Hit Points eventually outstrip the damage per round per PC.
Every encounter should have multiple ways of ending that do not require whittling down the opposition to 0 hit points. Think about several ways an encounter can end. See below for some examples and keep expanding the list.

1. Opposition surrenders
2. Opposition runs away. Following them leads to a Skill Challenge, not a square by square chase.
3. Something in the environment forces a stop to the action (e.g. fissure in ground separates the 2 parties)
4. The encounter objective has been achieved, no need to continue fighting (e.g. PCs press the "Shiny Red Button", The Ring of Power has been tossed over the side, etc.)

IMO, the worst ending to a combat is for the DM to say, "we'll just call this one." That is the exact opposite of exciting, and it's usually being used to end an encounter that has gone too long, but the players cannot lose. Get more creative than that.

Filler Combats
Just say NO! Don't use them.
If you must absolutely do these filler encounters they should be with mooks, and minions or take your random encounter table and create setpiece combats with the same monster type using creatures with 1/2 of the normal hit points (e.g., normal goblin has X hit points, random encounter goblin has X/2 hit points)

Combat Fiddliness
Completely Stop Pixel Bitching.
Counting squares is a pain, recounting squares because you are one square short is worse. Recounting 4 times to see if you can avoid triggering an OA is just bad form. State where you want to go and DM assume that PC is taking care so as not to trigger an OA for movement. The simplicity of the grid is there, use it - K.I.S.S!
Does it matter if the bonus was +1 or +2? Nobody really gives a crap! If someone has already missed, then don't retroactively start counting to get a hit. You missed! Get over it and move on.
Roll attacks and damage dice together.

The combat fiddliness area is where I have done the most house ruling tweaks, which I'm not putting here because of length. It still feels distinctly like 4e because fiddly math is not what characterizes 4e. On the other hand tight math definitely keeps it a good 4e option. Most of my house rules are geared towards removing fiddly math options that add nothing to the game, while keeping the flavor options that add so much to the game.

The most significant "tweak" if you want to call it that is how I run combats. It helps to keep things moving. If as a DM you are not pushing forward each round of initiative and the game is going at a meandering pace you need to get on the ball and push. Players taking forever to make decisions is a time killer. Keep that pace where if they players are indecisive, the action moves on.

4e was designed so that when combat is joined everyone is supposed to have something meaningful to do. Entire classes of monsters don't negate class defining abilities, for example. Working as a team is more beneficial and important than going lone-wolf. Immediate actions add some serious level of fiddliness to some games. So you can consider changing immediate actions altogether, but that is something that should be evaluated carefully because immediate actions are part of the "keeping players engaged" ethos of the game.

Combat's real-time length typically is irrelevant (except in extreme) cases. It is the *perceived* length and *pacing* that makes it sometimes feel like a slog.

And, the majority of what controls combat pacing is edition agnostic: it's the players and some of the rules which I will cheerfully throw out.

So: what takes time at the table?
* Rolling dice.
* Doing math.
* Thinking.
* Blathering.

Let's take the easy ones first: blather and thinking.

Don't blather. Yes, the game is a social event, but keep a lid on it. Every group is going to have their own tolerance thresholds for this; the best I can say is, talk about it.

Don't think *too* much. Yes, 4e tends to change the battlefield every turn, and part of the game's appeal is the crazy combinations you can pull off with the other characters. But, pick something, and do it. Use an egg timer if you have to.

Now the harder ones.

Math. PCs should have everything pre-calculated. The character builder does a lot of this for you, but where it doesn't, do the math yourself *outside* the game (or at least, outside the combat).

Players need to get good at arithmetic. You're going to be adding one- and two-digit numbers together, a lot. If you need to grab a calculator (your phone has one) do that; otherwise practice with flashcards (yes, I'm serious) until you can add your +17 attack bonus to the 14 you rolled on the d20 and get 31, instantly; and similarly with damage rolls.

Rolling dice takes time, so roll them all together: d20(s) + all your damage dice. If the d20 comes up 1 or very low, you miss; move on. If it's very high, you hit; start calculating damage. If it's in the middle, tell the DM the defense number and if it's a hit, you start calculating damage. Oh and if you rolled a 20, that's a crit, which you should already have written down the damage for (you might be rolling extra crit dice but you have the base crit damage written down) so tell the DM because this often kills the monster anyway.

For the DM: don't roll dice except when necessary, and don't do any math. I only use d20s and d6s (for Recharge powers) as a DM. The d20s are for attack rolls. I don't roll damage; I just use the average.

As a DM, I don't do difficult math on monster HP either. Incoming damage (from the PCs) get rounded to the nearest 5 (Heroic tier) or 10 (Paragon / Epic) and that makes tracking monster HP *much* easier. I also not-so-secretly ignore any packets of damage that would be rounded to 0. (Paragon tier and you dinked something (non-minion) for 3 damage as some kind of weird splash effect from a power? This rounds down to 0, so I don't care. This is literally not worth the time to track.)

Finally: don't roll initiative. It's a huge time suck. Just go around the table clockwise in one combat, counter-clockwise in the next. Intersperse monsters in between the PCs. Boss or "fast" monsters can sometimes go first (before the first PC). If a player really cares about going at the top of the round, he can sit to my left or right.

I don't allow delay nor ready actions either. The occasional ability to pull off a crazy PC turn is not worth the vast majority of situations in which it makes no difference other than wasting everyone's time.

Nevvur said:

Good to hear an actual play report. Did you find monsters needed redesign on an individual level? Encounter design? This is what tempered my excitement when Tony linked the 4.5e guide. Did the math generally work out without additional adjustment? For instance, if I were to run a 4e module, would the group have an approximately equal chance of success as a table who didn't implement the changes?

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Well, I'm using my own 'hack' of 4e, which I call "Heroes of Myth and Legend" (because why not imagine yourself a game designer/publisher, so you need a name for your special flower game, right?). It IS in some ways a lot like the '4.5e' that has been featured here. I have more consistently ramped up damage, done away with most misc bonuses/penalties, and simplified a few other things (there are OAs/Interrupts, but on a pretty strict one-per-round basis for instance). It DOES make things go fast. Because I chose to rework leveling to a 1-20 scheme you do have to change the numbers on monsters a bit (also AC is now a DR system, so all attacks hit one of the 3 defenses that 4e people call 'NADs'). However, you can do a pretty straight conversion of any monster, powers really haven't changed, the turn structure is basically the same, etc. Anyway, monsters are always a bit 'looser' in terms of what you can allow than PCs, since the GM will handle them and they're mostly one-offs.

An aside, the source of my nostalgia is the fine class balance present in 4e. As I contemplate the sort of game I want to run, I have considered 4e + combat streamlining, 5e + class overhauls, and designing my own system from the ground up. I've already put a lot of work into the last option and will continue to do so. However, it's been a couple months since my last campaign ended and I'm getting itchy to resume DMing, while my own system is still a long ways off from being ready.

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Yeah, I enjoy 4e's regularity of class structure, so I have kept that. I did end up with some variations in terms of what powers are available. There are 'classified' powers, which allocate on a level chart (IE you have A/E/D of say 2/2/1 at some specific level and you have to choose which powers you will have available from all that you could pick). There are also 'unclassified' powers, which are ones that you simply HAVE based on something. Some of these are 'basic' powers, anyone can try them, they're just sort of like the misc actions of 4e, except I technically call them 'powers' to make rules interactions smoother.

Raith5 said:

Good luck! At this point is may be easier to add 4e elements (a tactical module if you will) to 5e than the other way around.

I think aside from adv/disadv, another element I would borrow from 5e is rewording minor action as bonus actions, ie you only get a minor action if you have a power and make quarrying/marking free actions. I found fishing around for minor actions in 4e to be anything but a minor inconvenience in terms of flow and time.

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Well, in HoML I don't have 'minor action' as an action type. I have 'Standard' and 'Move' and 'Free', but only a few things are free, and none of them are standard power type things, just some trivial basic actions like drop and talk. Potentially you can make Free action boon powers to do something in someone else's turn and not eat an Opportunity Action, but its pretty rare. OAs and whatnot all take your Opportunity Action.

Only played in one 4Ed campaign, but it lasted more than a year. Our group’s personal observation was, perhaps, counterintuitive: combats slowed down because of all the tiny, ephemeral bonuses players had to track. It was most pronounced with the relatively inexperienced gamers in our group, but everyone noticed it at some point.

While 3.X style bonuses that were bigger and longer lasting contributed to “power bloat” and the “Christmas tree effect”, their accumulation and loss was on a smoother curve.

Said bonuses usually only sourced from your own personal gear or feats, the buffs from casters, or occasionally, from combat maneuvers. In 4th, it was rare for a PC notto have one or more powers that granted bonuses to allies. Combined, those factors meant it was rarer in 3.X to have a bonus that lasted a single round or a single target than in 4th.

TL, DR: find a way to minimize the number of temporary/conditional modifiers players need to track.

For DMs

Consider using Masterplan to run your combats. It keeps track of hit points, bonuses, penalties, and conditions. Also, if you're the DM, it does the dice rolling for attacks and damage for you as well.

Build your own stat blocks. At this point in 4E's life, chances are you're much better than the WotC designers were at designing monsters (especially if you're talking about the lead designer of the 4E Monster Manual...). You know what works and what doesn't work, and what is fun for your group. Grab Masterplan and design away!

Don't use solo monsters unless you really know what you're doing.

For Players

Get to know your character sheet: Not everything is the DM's job. Use the character builder (you can still find the offline version). Manage your character(s): Not everything is the DM's job. Have a simple script for your actions so you know what you're going to do most of the time - yes, for the pedants, most of the time. Pay attention, of course, because you will need to go off-script but be prepared: Not everything is the DM's job.

Again: Not everything is the DM's job.

Imho, if you're interested in a 4e-like RPG with a somewhat less involved combat system, you should have a look at 13th Age.

The link's to the SRD. Here's a transcript of the key features:

What makes 13th Age different?

13th Age makes use of many game mechanics and features that are intended to develop characters and story as the game is played. For example:

Icons – Icons are powerful factions that exert their will on the realm in some way or another.
Relationships – A quantitative measurement of how much influence a given Icon exerts on a character.
Backgrounds – Instead of advancing individual skills, a character assigns points to jobs or positions they have held, which can help them with actions in-game.
One Unique Thing – Every player character has one unique thing about them that separates them from every other individual in the campaign’s universe. This defines both the character and the universe by exclusion.

13th Age also eschews grid- and numerical-distance-based mechanics in favor of simplified range mechanics. Two characters are either:

“Engaged” – In direct melee combat
“Nearby” – Within one move away
“Far-away” – More than one move away

Mundane combat equipment is based only on the class of weapon and the class of character using it. For instance, a basic attack with a dagger in the hands of a rogue does the same damage as a basic attack with a longsword in the hands of a fighter.

Speaking of fighters, martial classes gain some variety in their combat. Fighters, for instance, have features that allow their attacks to proc certain advantages depending on the roll of the die and if the attack hit or not. Rogues build momentum as they attack. Barbarians rage.

Critical hits are as simple as rolling in the crit range once.

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D'karr said:

I would disagree that tactical combat was the best element of 4e or that its fiddliness added to the appeal.

Arguably the best element of 4e was that it delivered a game where the characters were actually the main protagonists and they were capable adventurers from the get-go rather than bench warm up chumps, IMO. Class parity across all classes, and the fact that classes from the original Player's Handbook stayed competitive even against the last books on the game line, added to this delivery. No longer was there entire classes that became obsolete as other classes gained levels. In addition, everyone had something interesting to offer during most aspects of the game. A conscious attempt was made to make "equal time on screen" for each class into something important, and the time between your turns was still engaging because your class might have ways to be effective even during that phase. Some of the perceived fiddliness is an attempt to keep players engaged even when it is not their turn - a problem that other editions had and the designers were trying to address.

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Spot on...

Nevvur said:

Thanks for the input, everyone.

[MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION], that 4.5e guide was basically the sort of thing I hoped to find, but reading it, I realized the flaw in my quest. My memory of the uncomfortably long combats in 4e was more about the numerous and cumulative bonuses/penalties to every action than anything else. Magic weapon, flanking, racial feat, class feat, concealment penalty, and so on. I was hoping to find a 4e revision that addressed this specific issue, but as I revisit the core books and skim over that guide, I'm reminded how essential all those circumstantial modifiers are in delivering the tight tactical experience I otherwise loved.

In short, mine may have been a fool's errand. Still, I'll stick around and read whatever others have to say on the matter.

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With the Bounded Accuracy rules I have in the 4.5 Edition the "To-Hit" issue you have when facing tougher challenges in 4th Edition somewhat disappears. The cumulative bonuses and penalties do not become as important to hit. Damage and Hit Points becomes more important and allow you to use a wider level range of monsters. However, if you still find it an issues, you could consider adopting the advantage concept from 5th Edition which is more straight forward I would say.

Jhaelen said:

Imho, if you're interested in a 4e-like RPG with a somewhat less involved combat system, you should have a look at 13th Age.

The link's to the SRD. Here's a transcript of the key features:

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13a has some fun ideas. I don't honestly think it perpetuated some of the stuff I like about 4e though. Certainly combat in 13a isn't in any sense 'tactical' (I'm sure there are tactics in some sense, but it isn't built around concepts of maneuver and tactical principles). I never liked the way it eschews a common power system either, I thought that was a great strength of 4e, and the 13a classes come across as rather incoherent designs. Its a good game, but it ain't 4e, not even close.