Do powers reduce combat originality?

[RangerWickett]

I play music during combat, because one of my friends ran a Conan game, and showed us the power of the Conan soundtrack. Without the soundtrack, we would swing swords and stab people. With the soundtrack we'd ready to pounce onto the snout of the two-headed tyrannosaur and plunge our blades into its eyes, or swing under a rope bridge, cling to its underside with our mightily-thewn arms, and crawl under our foes in order to grab their ankles through the floor of the bridge and rip them through the bottom to hurl them into the lava below.

So I came to like combat soundtracks, and I noticed that whenever the really cool parts of certain tracks were about to come on, people would hurry to explain something awesome, and we'd get cool combat scenes.

Now I've started my fourth edition game, and on Sunday I had what should have been an epic combat (I think). A waterfall-carved cave with multiple side tunnels, infested with dog-sized carnivorous beetles, all controlled by a huge stone elemental in the shape of a praying mantis (basically it had the stats of an umber hulk).

I'd made sure to figure out how I'd handle it when the PCs decided to climb the thing's back to get away from its claws, and how they could briefly cripple it by targeting its legs, and I made sure the terrain provided lots of ways to get above the monster and jump down on it without actually letting the PCs stay out of its reach and snipe. But when the combat actually occurred, every player paused on his round, shuffled through his power cards, pondered, and said, 'I'll use this X to do Y, and you get 3 temporary hit points' or stuff like that.

No jumping, no climbing, no dropping stalactites on its head or ducking between its legs so it couldn't use its gaze attack on you.

Has anyone else noticed powers getting in the way of originality and heroic moments in 4th edition? Do you have any suggestions for how to encourage players to think like an action star, instead of a video game player with a move list?

(To be fair, in a different combat the same session, the eladrin warlord did chase after a flying angel that had grabbed an NPC, then teleported next to the angel and in mid-air used some warlord power that let him trade places with the enemy on a hit, causing the angel to lose its grip on the NPC. I thought that was cool.)

 

[Jack99]

Quite the opposite - We are having more "special moves" or oddball ideas now, than we ever had in 3e. But I totally see how 4e could have the opposite effect, since the powers might feel "locked" in their description.

 

[darkbard]

Quite the opposite, actually. My 3X combats often deteriorated into "I swing and hit for 5 damage" description, but 4E provides at least a modicum of description built into each power--and it's not particularly difficult to expand upon that in high action moments.

I can see how a lack of familiarity with rules effects that a new edition brings would lead to your described situation, however.

 

[Storminator]

When I built my first big combat scene, I put in all kinds of varied terrain and light sources and innocent bystanders and various types of villains.

And then my players essentially moved up and full round attacked in static little blocks vs the villains. Extremely disappointing.

I think the key early on is to communicate that you've designed these terrain elements and explicitly state that they're there to be used. Frex, did your players know they could climb the back of the statue? After a few sessions of using the terrain you won't have to point it out, but I'm going to be very upfront next time.

PS

 

[Gothmog]

Nope, we haven't had this happen with 4e at all- this was a problem in 3e for us though. Fights in 3e often had combatants standing toe-to-toe and slugging it out until one dropped, because this was the best thing to do under the rules.

Our 4e combats have been MUCH more dynamic and fun, and the players really get into describing exactly how they are using their powers and moving around/outwitting their enemies. Conversely, I've noticed I'm using more flavorful descriptions of what the enemies are doing, and often hear "oh s#!t, we're screwed!" from players as I describe something particularly unexpected or nasty. When we first started playing 4e, I ran KotS with pregen PCs to get the players familiar with the rules, then we made our own PCs and started my homebrew game. During the KotS adventure, there was some of the dry "I use Tide of Iron" thing happening, but within 3 sessions, the players quit doing that and were describing how they used their powers.

 

[wedgeski]

I have to say, quite the opposite as well. The flavour text seems to make players want to think about what they're doing a little more... and who am I kidding, me too.

 

[ImperialParadox]

I'm experiencing something similar in the 4th ed game I'm running. I think on some level having a clutch of powers so mechanically and visually well-defined makes the players feel that they aren't 'allowed' to perform actions that aren't on their 'move list.'

Reading the DMG gives rules for making up combat maneuvers on the fly, but unfortunately their guidelines are too brief, and this information doesn't appear in the PH so some players may not even be aware of it unless you point it out to them.

I've been really open to the idea of my players getting creative in combat, but so far the only thing I've seen done besides actual power usage was bull-rushing an enemy into a pit.

I considered making up special move cards tied to the scene detailing how the players could use the terrain to make other attacks, but in the end I felt that would reinforce the 'move list' problem.

And contrary to the other posters, I found my 3rd edition games to have more dynamic combats, my 4th ed games fall more into the move up and start unloading powers, starting at encounter and working down to at will, with a daily thrown in for big battles. In a lot of ways 4th edition combat has seemed (for me) more predictable than 3rd ed combat.

I'm hoping this changes as the players gain more experience with the ruleset.

 

[vazanar]

We initially had the problem as well. Our 3.5 combats tended to have some intresting and oddball special moves. Could be the terrain or the types of characters played. One reason we werent in a rush to go to 4e. With 4e a number of the powers replaced those. However, with some time playing and use of the dm damage chart, and things are coming back.

My favorite so far actually was a misunderstanding. We were playing KoTS (getting used to the rules) and I said the wyrmpriest was shooting from in the trees. Players thought he was up in the trees and the dwarf decided to use his daily mega hit on the tree. Quite a fun flight for the priest.

People will still do the wierd dynamic things once they get the system underhand. Also to encourage moves I would favor the players on the standrad damage chart in the dmg.

 

[Remathilis]

Sorry, but I saw the opposite as well.

Before, I saw a lot of this.

1.) Fighter moves up, then proceeds to full-attack something to death.
2.) Wizard hides a country-mile back, nuking from orbit.
3.) Rogue does flank/SA if the foes were relatively weak, otherwise goes all bow-archer on large/scary foes.
4.) Cleric stands near fighter, casting a cure spell a round (occasionally attacking when the fighter's foe missed)
5.) The bard stayed back at the tavern, singing and granting his allies a +2 to hit while simultaneously hitting on the busty bar wenches.

Now?

The fighter Tide of Irons his foe toward the rogue, who uses his attack to get CA then shift away. The wizards still hanging back, but he's tied up a couple foes with sleep and ray of frost. The cleric is boosting the fighters or rogues to hit while also engaging a foe. PCs are moving to get into position. They are paying attention to terrain, using choke points to slow the wave of minions swarming and pushing foes into pits because it removes them from the fight faster than a basic attack would.

In essence, they are moving, acting, looking for advantages, and helping each other out. They have more choices to make (do I use my second wind? Are we losing enough to use my daily?) and since I encourage Page 42-style actions (by setting reasonable DCs for cool moves, but hard DCs for ones that are trying to juke the system) PCs are much more willing to wing it and try something NOT on their sheets rather than "look up combat manuever X" in the PHB.

 

[Grimstaff]

Lackluster combat?

See 4E DMG p.42