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.
Here's some options other than minions:
- Give out more action points: more actions = more potential damage.
- Give out more bonuses to hit: more bonuses to hit = more likely to hit with Dailies/Encounters. If your players aren't very tactically-minded, they are missing opportunities to get Combat Advantage (and that's the PLAYERs' fault). If you are stingy about situational modifiers, same deal (and that's YOUR fault, if you need to assign fault for this stuff). This isn't coddling; rather this is part of the system. I give my PCs a +1 bonus to hit for height advantage, such as when they jump up on a table or low wall and fight from there, by way of example.
- Make non-minion enemies have morale. Not every enemy needs to be fighting to the death.
- Make all enemies more "brash." Don't worry about Opportunity Attacks and such. This might seem like coddling, but think about it: some monsters can TAKE all those OAs and still last, so have that monster charge through the Defenders and Strikers and start chomping on the Controller. One dead Controller means you are not coddling anymore!
Wouldn't just a little diversity of skills help this out or is it just "something about the 4e system?"
- One out-of-game skill you may want to build on is encounter building. Not balance or monster mix, per se, but adding dynamic environments. Interactive environments. This shakes up what Powers are being used, what they are being used for, etc.
My favorite example: the white dragon fight in Kobold Hall, back of the DMG.
I expanded the room a little, and added several features the PCs could interact with (and the white dragon could, too). Here are some of those features:
- Pools of water: flash freeze if the square is subjected to a Cold attack. Anyone in that square was immobilized for 1 round.
- Icy Stalactites: an attack that did 6 points of damage to the stalactite would cause it to drop. Anyone in the square below would be attacked at +6 to attack, and take 1d10+3 damage and be immobilized.
- Icy Pillars: the two pillars in the room were made of ice, and could be exploded by dealing 15 damage to them. This would cause an area blast into the adjacent squares on the opposite side of where the attack that broke the pillar originated from, dealing something like 3d8+something damage.
I also added a lip around the outer edge of the room about 15' up that PCs could get to in order to snipe the dragon...but the dragon could tail swipe it and bring it smashing down (in 10' sections).
Most of this came from a post by Mike Mearls. Anyway, it took about 15 minutes to write up and expand the area, and the number of new tactical choices made the fight fun fun fun! I also wrote up a card with all of this info, and the Warlord in the group got to make a Perception roll at the start of combat. If he made the roll, I gave him the card. He'd have to get this info to the players...but he had to do it In Character. So it added some roleplaying depth as well as tons of new options.
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?
There are other options, above, and suggested by others. 4e's only "bug" in this regard is that it demands encounters to be thought about as more than just hack-fests, but as something more tactical and interactive. Adding difficult terrain, traps, furniture/dungeon dressing that can be used to change up the battle...all of this takes up pages and pages of the DMG for a reason.
I always felt 3e's "stand still, full attack" was much more boring, but that's just me. However, going from 3e to 4e DOES require much more thought about the environment of the fight, rather than just the monsters. You want to make 4e fights more interesting, and the tools are there; you just have to use them.
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.
Minions are useful, but like I said, not the only answer. Another option with minions, though -- just to throw it out there -- is minions that are a little tougher. Bloodied at hit #1, dead at hit #2. Keeps players from being too metagamey if you mix up the two options of minions. "Oh snap, I thought it was a minion, but I hit it and it's still up!!"
[edit: does encouraging PC multiclassing help?]
Depends on your group's makeup. Yes, 4e does encourage strikers and defenders (I wouldn't say moreso than the other roles, just that the roles in general require somewhat different thinking than 3e equivalents), so multiclassing into one of those roles can't hurt if you find combats are grinding.
Also, a final thought: make sure you are using the enemies' Powers in interesting ways. I gave tons of options for location-based maneuvers, so feel free to use that for the badguys, too. Look at the trap design in some of the 4e adventures (Kobold Hall again has some neat ideas) and how the badguys use those things to make the fight more than just several monsters with their own powers; they also have the ability to use the environment.
An example from my game:
PCs are in a swampy area, but come across dry land. They walk towards a hill, when at the top, they see two zombies pushing a boulder down at them. As the boulder starts rolling, a kobold pops out from behind the hill and hits the boulder -- which is slicked with oil -- with a fire attack, igniting it! Now, a flaming boulder is rolling at the PCs!
They easily dodge it, but it hits several trees, bursting them into flame. Now, as the PCs are fighting several goblins that pop out of the marsh around the dry land, the PCs have to navigate past several burning trees (which I gave an aura effect of fire damage, to simulate the intense heat of the burning oil). Then the zombies up on the hill charge in, while the kobold spellcaster fights from afar.
Most of these monsters were minions, true, but the point was that the fight was harrowing despite the "weakness" of the enemies. The PCs were taking damage from the fire, had to alter their route into the marsh (difficult terrain) to circumvent the flames and charging zombies, and had to deal with getting sniped round after round by the one non-minion (the kobold spellcaster). It took forever to get to that kobold, and no PCs went down, but many were close...and the "forever" was really just round after round of harrowing near-deaths, constant damage from the spells, and pitched battles between fiery death and slowing, marshy terrain.
I do hope some of this helps!!
