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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="Truename" data-source="post: 4644132" data-attributes="member: 78255"><p>Just had my game tonight, and it was a biggie. Climactic lvl+3 encounter (the "Chamber of Works" encounter in SoW 2, Bordrin's Watch). It took 2.5 hours. I had expected it to be long, but unfortunately, it was bit of a grind. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite3" alt=":(" title="Frown :(" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":(" /></p><p></p><p>In fairness, I think as DM I'm more sensitive to grindiness than the players. I asked the players afterwards what they thought, and they mentioned that the middle was a bit slow but overall it was good, although not one of the best. They were okay with the length of the encounter.</p><p></p><p>Here's what I think went wrong.</p><p></p><p>Mild spoilers ahead for Siege of Bordrin's Watch.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>So first, this encounter was a meat grinder. As written, it has a level 6 elite soldier, 2 level 4 brutes, 6 level 4 minions, and 1 level 5 controller/leader. My group is one level higher than expected, so I added a level 3 soldier/leader and 2 level 1 artillery to compensate. Nearly all of the enemies are orcs.</p><p></p><p>The shape of the encounter area is a large cave with a long, narrow one-square entrance tunnel. There's a 6x6 fire at the end of the cave that will attack adjacent squares and spread into them, some difficult terrain, and some dwarven forges that hurt adjacent characters. Also, there's a dying ally that needs to be rescued. All in all, I was looking forward to this one. I thought it had a lot of interesting elements we could use.</p><p></p><p>The basic shape of the encounter was as follows:</p><p>1- PCs worrying about the number of monsters, failing a stealth roll, and a stand-off at the entrance tunnel. PCs don't want to go out, orcs don't want to get stuck in choke point. Everyone readied actions (including orcs) until finally the dwarf fighter charged in, got pig-piled by the orcs' readied actions, and everybody else came out to help.</p><p></p><p>2- This was the grindy part. Orcs all pounded on the dwarf fighter while the PCs tried to pound on the elite. It had an AC of 24. People were rolling ones on attacks and damage. Agonizingly lots of bad rolls and grind grind grind. Dwarf takes a beating, gets bloodied, healed, bloodied, healed, bloodied, healed, ad nauseum. Never goes down, though. Strikers take out some orcs and pick off the minions and pick off some of the orcs. (PC #6, the wizard, was absent today.) But it's grinding and the three remaining orcs still have nearly all their hit points.</p><p></p><p>3- I get fed up, have the dying NPC ally blurt out some important information, and the elite charges back to kill him. Bam--suddenly the combat is interesting again. Everybody runs to protect the NPC. People take opportunity attacks to get ahead of the elite and interpose themselves, they drop slow and immobilize effects on the elite, and then they toss him into a fire and immobilize him there. The starting/ongoing damage burns him to a crispy critter. I have everyone roll to hit the remaining orc simultaneously and hand-wave. "Barrage of missiles hits him, bam bam bam bam bam. He's a pincushion." Treasure and XP, congrats all around.</p><p></p><p>So, what went wrong...</p><p></p><p>1- bad rolls.</p><p>2- orcs are boring. They mindlessly charge, which makes for boring tactics. Also, their common power is to regain hit points, which makes the grind worse.</p><p>3- lvl+2 elite soldier. AC 24, Fort 23, Ref 19, Will 16. 144 hit points. Nobody could hit him.</p><p>4- lvl+2 elite soldier</p><p>5- lvl+2 elite soldier</p><p>6- The choke point. Although it made for a nice opening act to the encounter (with the cautious behavior and stand-off), people got stuck at the entrance to the cave. All the interesting terrain was at the back, so it didn't come into play until the very end.</p><p>7- None of the players speak Giant (orcish), so they couldn't understand the orcs' tactical conversations. Maybe I was being too "realistic" by obscuring what they were saying, but I want there to be a benefit to knowing a language. But it contributed to the "orcs are boring" effect.</p><p>8- Huge variety of monsters for me to think about, which meant I had less time to think about how to recover from the grind.</p><p></p><p>To fix the problem, I ignored the orc's "recover hit points" powers. I completely forgot about the elite's action point. Then eventually I had the elite attack the NPC, which was the big turning point in fun.</p><p></p><p>What I will do next time...</p><p></p><p>1- No choke point at the entrance to my encounters. There's got to be a way for the enemies to circle around and get behind the PCs.</p><p>2- Prep more ideas about how to keep the battlefield dynamic in the middle act. Give the monsters an objective other than "kill the PCs," have them talk about it and strive for it.</p><p>3- Less variety of monsters. Give each monster more interesting options.</p><p>4- When I'm feeling like it's getting boring, I'll try to come up with a way to change the objective again. Having everybody try to protect the NPC ally completely changed the tone of the encounter and made it fun again.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Truename, post: 4644132, member: 78255"] Just had my game tonight, and it was a biggie. Climactic lvl+3 encounter (the "Chamber of Works" encounter in SoW 2, Bordrin's Watch). It took 2.5 hours. I had expected it to be long, but unfortunately, it was bit of a grind. :( In fairness, I think as DM I'm more sensitive to grindiness than the players. I asked the players afterwards what they thought, and they mentioned that the middle was a bit slow but overall it was good, although not one of the best. They were okay with the length of the encounter. Here's what I think went wrong. Mild spoilers ahead for Siege of Bordrin's Watch. So first, this encounter was a meat grinder. As written, it has a level 6 elite soldier, 2 level 4 brutes, 6 level 4 minions, and 1 level 5 controller/leader. My group is one level higher than expected, so I added a level 3 soldier/leader and 2 level 1 artillery to compensate. Nearly all of the enemies are orcs. The shape of the encounter area is a large cave with a long, narrow one-square entrance tunnel. There's a 6x6 fire at the end of the cave that will attack adjacent squares and spread into them, some difficult terrain, and some dwarven forges that hurt adjacent characters. Also, there's a dying ally that needs to be rescued. All in all, I was looking forward to this one. I thought it had a lot of interesting elements we could use. The basic shape of the encounter was as follows: 1- PCs worrying about the number of monsters, failing a stealth roll, and a stand-off at the entrance tunnel. PCs don't want to go out, orcs don't want to get stuck in choke point. Everyone readied actions (including orcs) until finally the dwarf fighter charged in, got pig-piled by the orcs' readied actions, and everybody else came out to help. 2- This was the grindy part. Orcs all pounded on the dwarf fighter while the PCs tried to pound on the elite. It had an AC of 24. People were rolling ones on attacks and damage. Agonizingly lots of bad rolls and grind grind grind. Dwarf takes a beating, gets bloodied, healed, bloodied, healed, bloodied, healed, ad nauseum. Never goes down, though. Strikers take out some orcs and pick off the minions and pick off some of the orcs. (PC #6, the wizard, was absent today.) But it's grinding and the three remaining orcs still have nearly all their hit points. 3- I get fed up, have the dying NPC ally blurt out some important information, and the elite charges back to kill him. Bam--suddenly the combat is interesting again. Everybody runs to protect the NPC. People take opportunity attacks to get ahead of the elite and interpose themselves, they drop slow and immobilize effects on the elite, and then they toss him into a fire and immobilize him there. The starting/ongoing damage burns him to a crispy critter. I have everyone roll to hit the remaining orc simultaneously and hand-wave. "Barrage of missiles hits him, bam bam bam bam bam. He's a pincushion." Treasure and XP, congrats all around. So, what went wrong... 1- bad rolls. 2- orcs are boring. They mindlessly charge, which makes for boring tactics. Also, their common power is to regain hit points, which makes the grind worse. 3- lvl+2 elite soldier. AC 24, Fort 23, Ref 19, Will 16. 144 hit points. Nobody could hit him. 4- lvl+2 elite soldier 5- lvl+2 elite soldier 6- The choke point. Although it made for a nice opening act to the encounter (with the cautious behavior and stand-off), people got stuck at the entrance to the cave. All the interesting terrain was at the back, so it didn't come into play until the very end. 7- None of the players speak Giant (orcish), so they couldn't understand the orcs' tactical conversations. Maybe I was being too "realistic" by obscuring what they were saying, but I want there to be a benefit to knowing a language. But it contributed to the "orcs are boring" effect. 8- Huge variety of monsters for me to think about, which meant I had less time to think about how to recover from the grind. To fix the problem, I ignored the orc's "recover hit points" powers. I completely forgot about the elite's action point. Then eventually I had the elite attack the NPC, which was the big turning point in fun. What I will do next time... 1- No choke point at the entrance to my encounters. There's got to be a way for the enemies to circle around and get behind the PCs. 2- Prep more ideas about how to keep the battlefield dynamic in the middle act. Give the monsters an objective other than "kill the PCs," have them talk about it and strive for it. 3- Less variety of monsters. Give each monster more interesting options. 4- When I'm feeling like it's getting boring, I'll try to come up with a way to change the objective again. Having everybody try to protect the NPC ally completely changed the tone of the encounter and made it fun again. [/QUOTE]
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