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4e One-trick ponies: Why is it the DM's fault about combat grind?
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4643949" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I don't really have a bone in this fight. However, if this is really the problem, why aren't the monsters giving up and running away? Isn't it time for a 'morale check'? Shouldn't smart monsters cut their loses and run?</p><p></p><p>Maybe it would wreck havoc with carefully balanced encounters for the monsters to not think of themselves as XP and treasure for violent adventurers, but that would be one of the first steps I'd try.</p><p></p><p>At the very least, turning the fight into a chase would add some variaty.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Very true. I think the system was _designed_ to grind. It was designed to be predictable. It was designed along the lines of 'Each round, each character will reliably inflict X damage and sustain Y damage, where X and Y are functions of level and role'. The system was designed to make everything standardized, programmatic, and algorithmic. It was a design highly influenced by what WotC had learned from years of producing collectible card games, and in particular collectible card games like MtG that had to be translated into an electronic format. As far as the designers were concerned, 'grind' was a feature not a bug.</p><p></p><p>I think the basic problem is this - there is no substitute for good encounter design. When 4e made combat the focus of the game, it made designing encounters far less forgiving. At least for me, in earlier editions you could expect a mundane combat to be over very quickly, and so if a given encounter wasn't particularly imaginative or interesting well at least you could move on in a hurry. That's not going to be true of 4e, so you are going to have to work harder to design interesting encounters. Grabbing 6 orcs and throwing them in a room no longer cuts it. You are going to have to play out combats in your mind, thinking about what they are going to be like on turn 3 or 5 and whether you'll still have tricks in your DM bag to keep the fight interesting.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 4643949, member: 4937"] I don't really have a bone in this fight. However, if this is really the problem, why aren't the monsters giving up and running away? Isn't it time for a 'morale check'? Shouldn't smart monsters cut their loses and run? Maybe it would wreck havoc with carefully balanced encounters for the monsters to not think of themselves as XP and treasure for violent adventurers, but that would be one of the first steps I'd try. At the very least, turning the fight into a chase would add some variaty. Very true. I think the system was _designed_ to grind. It was designed to be predictable. It was designed along the lines of 'Each round, each character will reliably inflict X damage and sustain Y damage, where X and Y are functions of level and role'. The system was designed to make everything standardized, programmatic, and algorithmic. It was a design highly influenced by what WotC had learned from years of producing collectible card games, and in particular collectible card games like MtG that had to be translated into an electronic format. As far as the designers were concerned, 'grind' was a feature not a bug. I think the basic problem is this - there is no substitute for good encounter design. When 4e made combat the focus of the game, it made designing encounters far less forgiving. At least for me, in earlier editions you could expect a mundane combat to be over very quickly, and so if a given encounter wasn't particularly imaginative or interesting well at least you could move on in a hurry. That's not going to be true of 4e, so you are going to have to work harder to design interesting encounters. Grabbing 6 orcs and throwing them in a room no longer cuts it. You are going to have to play out combats in your mind, thinking about what they are going to be like on turn 3 or 5 and whether you'll still have tricks in your DM bag to keep the fight interesting. [/QUOTE]
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4e One-trick ponies: Why is it the DM's fault about combat grind?
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