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

[AbdulAlhazred]

ah - so, you were also supposed to add dailies to the bad guys after level 5?

'supposed' to? No, not especially, but remember the XP value of 4e monsters doesn't factor in powers. You CAN add an encounter power to a monster, it won't change the numbers, though it may in practice make the fight harder. There's always some slack in any point system.

The point Krusty makes is that difficulty increase isn't linearly incremental. It is more like a ratio. If you add a level to a level 1 monster you increase its toughness by something like 25%. If you add a level to a level 25 monster you increased its toughness by maybe 5% (probably less). This is just an inevitable consequence of linearly incrementing numbers starting at a baseline non-zero. In fact the XP values of monsters DO linearize things per point of XP (level 1 goes from 100 XP to 125 XP at level 2, but level 25 is about a 5% bump). Up to a certain point then the level +1 to level +5 scale works, but it delivers less and less challenge increase. This is why Krusty said to add 1 level per 5 levels, that means a level 25 party faces a level 30 encounter as a standard encounter, and a level 35 encounter as a true struggle. In reality making this work correctly would require making hit points, defenses, and attack bonuses slightly non-linear, but it is probably just not worth the added complexity. It is worth noting that things like the expertise feats actually do move things slightly in that direction.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I wasn't necessarily looking for quick and deadly. I was looking for more options than tossing my at-will power at the PCs round after round after round 2 or 3 of the combat and hoping to get my recharge power recharged every third round or so. Maybe I should have added an extra daily and/or encounter per tier to Solos and made the recharges easier, and then maybe added an extra encounter and made the recharges easier for elites?

However, I also didn't need 100+ options like my lich archmage that I had mentioned above in 3.5E (50-60 spells, plus feats, lich abilities, prestige class abilities, magic item bonuses, skill bonuses, synergies, etc)

Some sort of happy medium, I guess.

The lich-archmage battle took a long time at the table in 3.5E, but that lich had Gated in a Balor to soften the party up, cast Time Stop & then two Force Cages to trap & delay some of the party, then used some Quickened Dispel Magics to dispel PC buffs (level 6 instead of 7 due to some reason, if I recall, maybe being an archmage?) or counter PC spells, threw a Horrid Wilting in there, and I'm sure a Finger of Death as well. Not to mention having buffed itself up to the max while the PCs were being softened up by the Balor (some from scrolls, though). The lich's contingency then went off when the PCs damaged it badly - it retreated and healed up for 2 rounds, and then it went back into battle and threw a Wave of Exhaustion at the PCs, and probably a few more level 5/6 damage spells, before I was finally out of Quickened or Maximized spells and was basically down to deciding between casting Confusion and hoping a couple of them miss their saves, or seeing if I could line up at least 2-3 of them for a Lightning Bolt. Oh, I also tossed a Maze spell at the party's Goliath barbarian, and she failed her save, of course. But, then with her 10 INT, she managed to roll a natural 20 to get out of the maze in the first round.

But, I knew at the end of the day, I had tossed everything I could at them. Every slot from level 5-9 was used. Of course, I spent many hours putting that lich together, looking up just the right spells and buffs in the Compendium (there is one Buff that made one immune to all metals, including magical ones... basically making all swords useless against it until the spell was dispelled. Though, the party's elf paladin did have a special glass sword that worked just fine...and the lich Mazed the goliath because she carried a huge stone club)

Yeah, the later MM3 type solos are a good place to start. A dragon for instance has an extra standard action at INIT+10, giving them a lot more flexibility, and they can use that to throw off conditions instead of taking an action, plus they also get some other condition shedding. That means conditions CAN be useful against them, but not crippling. The Green Dragon I was using the other week had only basically claw, bite, breath, a reaction, a flyby shoot-n-scoot, and that's about it. Still, the dragons never lacked something tactically interesting to do.

There are of course other tricks you can use. Terrain powers are a good one. I had one battle in a mine where the enemy golem could be attacked and it would go berzerk and smash the supports holding up the roof. That would cause rock falls and eventually the whole place caves in. That was amusing as the bad guys would use it to drop rocks on the good guys, and then the good guys would try to force move the thing so that tactic wouldn't work (or even trigger it on the bad guys). If you can set up some sort of dynamic like that then usually the fight will stay interesting (and you can intensify fights this way so they go faster too if you want). Now and then one will turn into a 'dud' but of course nothing is perfect and that's usually when I just throw out the book and fix it.

I feel like 4e with its larger hit point totals and more different tactical rules is often easier to pull of this stuff with. I do think it is valuable to not worry about setting aside or slightly rewriting some rules for specific situations though. Often a 4e power or something is very cool and its mechanics work great in one set of situations, but they can fail to give the right result in some really different situation. Seems better to just adjust and call it 'exception based design' than to suffer with some weird rule interaction that the designer never intended.

 

[Rechan]

@Pour @AbdulAlhazred You guys sound awesome!

 

[NewJeffCT]

I've found modification of monsters to be one of the most pleasing highlights of DMing 4e. It's truly liberating to have a solid framework to build on, and complete independence to make it work without worrying about knock-on effects.

That was the primary advantage I found in 4E - I was so anal about making every bad guy in my 3.5E campaign different than the previous bad guys the players fought that I spent many hours researching prestige classes, templates, different races or variant races, etc, that I couldn't devote as much time to story and NPC development.

However, if I started doing the same with 4E, I know I'd go through dozens of different powers to find just the right one, and I'd be back to where I started in terms of prep time.

 

[Quickleaf]

That was the primary advantage I found in 4E - I was so anal about making every bad guy in my 3.5E campaign different than the previous bad guys the players fought that I spent many hours researching prestige classes, templates, different races or variant races, etc, that I couldn't devote as much time to story and NPC development.

However, if I started doing the same with 4E, I know I'd go through dozens of different powers to find just the right one, and I'd be back to where I started in terms of prep time.

I think for many monsters all you really need is a cheat sheet from SlyFlourish or my own...once you have a feel for power riders appropriate to the level you don't need much else (for minions this is especially true). I'd say the one exception , as [MENTION=59411]Pour[/MENTION] points out, are solos. IMO those do benefit from quite a bit of advanced prep, and probably merit stat blocks 2-3x as long as the ones provided in the various MM//MVs (whether you divide those into bloodied/unbloodied, three stages, various body parts, or something else is up you as the DM).

The one place I'm not wholly happy with 4e monster design is with NPCs. The official way to design them is to select powers from the corresponding class, and I find that can be too time-consuming using multiple books/DDi and too limited sticking to just one or two books. A few extra pages in a DMG devoted to a quick NPC stat/power creation chart would do much to resolve this issue.

 

[Rechan]

I think for many monsters all you really need is a cheat sheet from SlyFlourish or my own..

I would like to see this.

 

[Quickleaf]

I would like to see this.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-pathfinder/307923-4e-dm-cheat-sheet.html#post5605080

It's in PDF format. Cheers!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That was the primary advantage I found in 4E - I was so anal about making every bad guy in my 3.5E campaign different than the previous bad guys the players fought that I spent many hours researching prestige classes, templates, different races or variant races, etc, that I couldn't devote as much time to story and NPC development.

However, if I started doing the same with 4E, I know I'd go through dozens of different powers to find just the right one, and I'd be back to where I started in terms of prep time.

I had that problem at first too. I think I may have gone too far the other way. For instance last year I ran a campaign with 4th level PCs and was just feeling lazy. Finally it got to where they had to take on the BBEG and I never had bothered to stat him up. He was a nasty lycanthrope type guy, so I just finally got tired of trying to think about it, took a young White Dragon, leveled it up 2 levels or so, called it "Vulthar" described it as a big huge wolf-guy and reskinned his powers. Of course it worked great, lol. I could have thought up all sorts of stuff, but truthfully the dragon was a really good solid existing design.

Nowadays I rarely make all new monsters. I might have kinda gotten a bit TOO lazy, but usually changing one power and reskinning something is all it takes, and usually I just pick out or invent a monster theme and that takes care of that part if there's going to be ongoing interactions.

As I say, I don't know if this is always a good thing. Some of the best monsters I ever did were total builds from scratch. There are times when that just gives you an idea or a chance to hit something just right by luck. It is more work though obviously.

 

[Rechan]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-pathfinder/307923-4e-dm-cheat-sheet.html#post5605080

It's in PDF format. Cheers!

Oh, I already have those. I didn't think the terrain power breakdown translates to monster power breakdown tho.

 

[Quickleaf]

Oh, I already have those. I didn't think the terrain power breakdown translates to monster power breakdown tho.

Hmm. It doesn't? I'll take a closer look when we game this Friday. Perhaps I can whip something together to break down conditions/effects by level and add it to the sheet.