4e One-trick ponies: Why is it the DM's fault about combat grind?

[fanboy2000]

Interesting, you and I are having the same experience (combat takes the same amount of time IRL, but a higher number of rounds) but we evaluate that experience very differently. I love it, it's one of the reasons I like 4e so much. That said, here are my suggestions:

1. I'm going to echo Cadfan here: rewards in the middle of combat.
I use an approximate 1:1 ration of monsters to PCs. The more bad guys the PC drops during combat, the better everyone feels. This is an aspect of the system I like: it's easy to design a combat with multiple opponents.

2. Tactical maneuvering.
The bad guys should move around so that they can flank or force the PCs into moving in unadvantiougous (sp?) ways. My personal favorite is something my friends called "The conga line of death." where PCs would flank a monster who was flanking a PC. Tactical movement keeps the players engaged in what is going on and makes their turns more interesting.

3. Narration
I like styling my narration after scenes in Kill Bill personally. Your millage may vary.

4. Encourage players to move through a round quickly by planning a head. I know what kind of information I need to determine the outcome of an action and will ask for it if I'm not given it quickly. My side of the a combat turn sounds a lot like this: "What do you do?" "vs AC?" "Roll the attack." "Hit (or miss)" "Roll damage." [Narrate outcome] I'm like a conductor, I control the tempo and who's playing at that time.

As always, your millage may vary.

 

[Jhaelen]

So, I've been told to suck it up as a DM and ONLY throw encounters at the PC's that coddle this system-encouraged, one-trick behavior. "Minions, lots of minions" has been the answer to everything. I dunno about the rest of you, but as a DM, I find these blame-the-DM for the foreverness of non-coddled encounter comments kind of offensive.

I think you are to blame but for a different reason - see below.

If I'm running a scenario, is it the DM's fault if the combats grind on and on and on and on because of the players fell for being pigeonholed into a smaller-than-life role for their 4e character.

In my experience running scenarios exactly as written tends to be boring, regardless of edition. Also, if you aren't excited about the scenario/combats you present, how should the players get excited about them?

I'm also not quite sure about something: Do combats feel grindy only to you or to your players, as well? If your players think combats grind endlessly, why are they still interested in continuing to play 4E?

Wouldn't just a little diversity of skills help this out or is it just "something about the 4e system?"

No.

Is having to "just end the combat early" maybe just a crappy way of saying that we need a houserule to bandage a 4e bug?

Yes.

I'm not saying this stuff to pick a fight, because like most, I'm stuck with 4e. It's what my players want to play..but I've just got a couple annoying 4e bugs that I'd like to squash without having to resort to just throwing tons of Mortal Combat minions at the PC's.

And here's the reason you are to blame:
It's quite obvious you don't enjoy DMing 4E. So it's no wonder that the game seems to suck. To you every combat feel grindy because you don't like 4E combat.

And here's the reason you aren't to blame:
Since you don't enjoy DMing the game, it would be a bit much to expect you to invest a lot of effort into making the game fun for everyone. The DM is entitled to have fun, too!

My advice: Stop DMing 4E. 4E is an excellent game but it's not for everyone and it's obviously not for you. Admit it to yourself and your players and save yourself and them a lot of grief.

[edit: does encouraging PC multiclassing help?]

No.

 

[Hella_Tellah]

I'm playing in a 4e game, and I came up with a trick that keeps the combats from grinding for me. I make a personal rule that I can only use each of my two at-wills once per encounter: all other actions must be off-the-cuff stunts. This means that I never do the same thing twice in a combat.

PCs and NPCs still have twice as many hit points as they should, but at least I'm less bored.

 

[Rechan]

I personally don't buy the "grind". The only time there is "grind" is when the PCs roll crap. This is especially true when their encounter/dailies miss. Recently, a player said "You know, the death of my character bothers me less than missing with my encounter/daily powers." When the powers have been used (and likely missed), and it becomes At-Will attrition, then it gets a bit boring.

In my experience, monsters die fast, so fast they don't get to use all their abilities. The only time this is not true is when I'm using an Elite, or when the monsters are very high level compared to the PCs (9th level monster vs. 4th level PCs), thus having high defenses, thus causing lots of misses.

Another circumstance is if the monster has fairly boring or slows-play powers. Take the Orc Bloodrager. All he does is use a basic attack. He can hit someone each round that hits him, he can heal himself, he gains HP/does more damage when bloodied, but each of those things revolves around his basic attack. The Carrion Crawler has one general attack, the tentacle, and it can quickly become "Aw crap, I'm paralyzed and can't do anything. Whee." The Vine-Horror has one encounter power, and then it's basic-attack time. These monsters have nothing that shake things up round by round.

But if player A chooses to always use a certain at-will repeatedly and ignore all other powers and/or tactical options/etc then it's not anywhere near being the DM's fault.

And if Player A does that, it's not the system's fault. It's the 3e equivalent of a spellcaster only choosing to cast his 1st level/Cantrip powers rather than use his upper level spells.

 

[Emirikol]

Thanks for the tips guys. BTW, I've got a game coming up. Which encounter types would be "most satisfying" for a group consisting of:
Ranger (bow)
Barbarian
Cleric (non-battle)
Rogue
Warlock
Swordmage

We're playing in the Warhammer world and are currently in the city of Nuln (scenario skeleton is Forges of Nuln if it matters to any of you).

Thanks,

Jay H

 

[Beginning of the End]

At first, I thought this was simply due to higher hit points and lower damage amounts, however I'm starting to lean towards a flaw in the system itself: 4e is inherently a one-trick pony system. It encourages the striker, defender, etc. roles maybe a little too much.

Another contributing factor is the narrower focus of the monsters.

Late in the 3rd Edition design cycle, the design team at WotC decided that monsters had too many abilities. Their logic was basically:

(a) A typical monster only survives for 5 rounds in combat.
(b) Therefore, a monster only does 5 things and then it's dead.
(c) Therefore, a monster only needs to be able to do 5 things. At most.

Even in 3rd Edition their logic was pretty badly flawed, since it ignored things like:

(1) You might encounter groups with more than one monster in them.
(2) You might encounter the same type of monster again at some later date.
(3) The tactics of the players or the circumstances of the encounter might have an effect on what the monster can do, thus making additional options valuable.
(4) You might encounter the monster in a non-combat scenario.

In 4th Edition, all of these problem areas remain. But then they increased the duration of combat by bumping up hit point totals.

So now you have longer combats in which the opponents have fewer things to do. More time, less variety. That's practically the definition of grind.

 

[FourthBear]

At first, I thought this was simply due to higher hit points and lower damage amounts, however I'm starting to lean towards a flaw in the system itself: 4e is inherently a one-trick pony system. It encourages the striker, defender, etc. roles maybe a little too much.

While possible, if this problem is one that you have experienced as more prevalent in 4e than in previous editions of D&D, it seems unlikely to be one-trick pony related. After all, in previous editions, the martial classes and low level spellcasters had fairly limited options per round in combat, but you didn't see this problem.

Your first impulse may indeed be correct for your group: the opponent hit points and defenses are too high if the group feels it takes too long to resolve a combat encounter. As previously suggested, increasing attack bonuses and increasing damage overall might be just what's needed to speed up combat.

 

[Rechan]

Ranger (bow)
Barbarian
Rogue
Warlock
Cleric (non-battle)
Swordmage

You have 4 strikers in your group. I honestly do not understand why monsters aren't dieing in droves.

 

[Pbartender]

Another tip, Emirikol, that I've found helps a lot, but doesn't require any changes to the rules...

Most enemies, excepting the most mindless and the most fanatical, begin to retreat is their hit points dip below bloodied. In the case of minions, they'll typically begin to retreat when all other non-minions go down or retreat.

Not only does it make for more believable combats (How often do creatures or people ever actually fight to the death, if they don't have to?), but it cuts most combats in half, time-wise.

Plus, it makes for a tide turning event that normally ends combat in just a few more rounds.


Plus, plus, be careful which creatures you choose in which combinations. I've notice a lot of grind comes simply from a handful of poorly designed creatures in the MM. These are creatures that are higher level, have higher defenses and hit points, but have few (or just not very interesting) attack options. The Roc is a classic example.

Creatures that have several interesting and varied power (the Bulette for example), or a group of creatures that collectively have powers that work well in concert with each other make the combat much, much more interesting. You have variety in the creatures' actions, and powerful teamwork combos that the PCs themselves have to work together to disrupt.

 

[Rechan]

For the sake of providing Tips:

Building 4e Encounters

Objective-based Encounters.