D&D 4E Forked: "Math and Grind" or "Why Rechan is Right" (From: "4e One-trick ponies")

[Quickleaf]

Indeed. I'm looking at the rogue powers and they're just - move and attack, or attack in a burst/knock them down, or you slow the target, or something. Yawn.

Ranger ones are worse, because they're essentially Uber Twinstrike (but then, several of the Encounter powers are just Super Twinstrike).

I actually think that this sort of simplicity is a good thing.

IME player decision-making is harder in 4e because:

• Everyone essentially operates like a spellcaster in 3e; the palate of choices is vast.
• Reactions/Interrupts are widely available and cause rapid changes in game states, often throwing off what players had planned to do.
• Tracking conditions takes up brain space and are easily forgotten (even with markers).

These three factors make the 4e game environment different from any previous edition, and are, I believe, the primary culprits of grind. IOW it's not the math, it's the class design and to a lesser extent monster design.

 

[amerigoV]

I actually think that this sort of simplicity is a good thing.

IME player decision-making is harder in 4e because:

• Everyone essentially operates like a spellcaster in 3e; the palate of choices is vast.
• Reactions/Interrupts are widely available and cause rapid changes in game states, often throwing off what players had planned to do.
• Tracking conditions takes up brain space and are easily forgotten (even with markers).

These three factors make the 4e game environment different from any previous edition, and are, I believe, the primary culprits of grind. IOW it's not the math, it's the class design and to a lesser extent monster design.

I think your reply is a bit Hasty there Quickleaf. Only 4.75 years since the prior post, why Ents never move that fast!


(sorry, I am rereading LotR and could not resist).

 

[Quickleaf]

I think your reply is a bit Hasty there Quickleaf. Only 4.75 years since the prior post, why Ents never move that fast!


(sorry, I am rereading LotR and could not resist).

I like to change it up It's never too late to be quick!

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

4E could benefit from a fresh style of character sheet much closer to the post-MMIII or so stat block.

In short, powers need to be called out by action and by frequency because, yes, players have a lot of choices.

 

[Argyle King]

I never noticed that the amount of choice was a problem. For the most part, I also highly enjoyed immediate actions and interrupts. I liked that there were times when I could actually respond to what was going on around me. It was the closest I've ever been to having active defenses instead of passive ones in D&D, so that was great for me.

The grind I noticed most often was a lot of time spent doing things in-game when everyone at the table already knew the result. This wasn't only a combat issue either. Sure, there were times when we kept hacking at a dragon even when we (the party) knew we had pretty much won after the second round, but the worst grind for me came during skill challenges. There were many times when it was virtually impossible for someone to fail the skill rolls during a skill challenge, but we still needed to roll X amount of rolls anyway.

 

[Phototoxin]

I did an encounter where there were several shadowy ghost assasin things and 2 controlling clerics. Basically the 8 ghosts had 160hp between them/ 20 hp each. so for every full 20 hp taken one died. Harder to calculate with blasts and such so you have to think on the fly, but so long as you use the main combined pool it works out fine. Also makes for a more cinematic battle - if the damage is spread around then it will not impact on the length of the fight as much as it otherwise would.

Another thing was in a similar fight was to have several tough enemies (like 4E wraiths with damage reduction form ethereal) but have a controlling necromancer. If the necro dies they all take bloodied damage, so the bloodied ones will be dead automatically due to having their 'bond weakened' or some such.

If the PCs are being idiots a religion or arcana check could give them a clue "These undead seem to be linked to the necromancer" or "These wraiths aren't as independant as others you've encountered"

 

[MerricB]

4E could benefit from a fresh style of character sheet much closer to the post-MMIII or so stat block.

In short, powers need to be called out by action and by frequency because, yes, players have a lot of choices.

Whenever I played 4E (rarely, as opposed to DMing it), I'd do my own character sheet for it exactly for that reason. I was also playing a psionic character, where choice was a major thing. Players who couldn't organise their characters and spent a lot of time looking for their next action rather annoy me when I'm in a game.

However, grind, as Johnny3D3D notes, is a separate thing from slowness of player choices. When the opposition can't hurt you but there's still a half-hour of combat to go, then you wander into grind. It's partly system mathematics, partly monster design, and partly encounter design. A lot of the first two were fixed in later products in the 4E line (the main reason I liked essentials so much), but they could still reoccur.

Cheers!

 

[pemerton]

I haven't really experienced the "foregone conclusion taking half-an-hour at table to resolve" that others are describing here.

But I agree with Quickleaf's post:

IME player decision-making is harder in 4e because:

• Everyone essentially operates like a spellcaster in 3e; the palate of choices is vast.
• Reactions/Interrupts are widely available and cause rapid changes in game states, often throwing off what players had planned to do.
• Tracking conditions takes up brain space and are easily forgotten (even with markers).

These three factors make the 4e game environment different from any previous edition, and are, I believe, the primary culprits of grind. IOW it's not the math, it's the class design and to a lesser extent monster design.

These are factors that can slow play, and are different from classic D&D (and presumably 3E, but I don't know it very well).

4E could benefit from a fresh style of character sheet much closer to the post-MMIII or so stat block.

In short, powers need to be called out by action and by frequency because, yes, players have a lot of choices.

I've attached the combat sheet (worked up in Excel) for the invoker in my game. All the players have something similar. (The fighter player's sheet is double-sided, one for his polearm and one for his mordenkraad.)

 

[S'mon]

I'm a bit concerned at how fights are now routinely taking 2-3 hours in my 15th level 4e game (usually 6 PCs and a Companion Character). One big issue is that even after playing over a year, several players still don't understand stuff like "1 Immediate Action per round" "1 opportunity action per turn" and "temp hit points don't stack". As the PCs get higher level with more and more options these sort of things come up more and more often, and we have to debate them each time.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

(snip) One big issue is that even after playing over a year, several players still don't understand stuff like "1 Immediate Action per round" "1 opportunity action per turn" and "temp hit points don't stack". (snip)

At the risk of sounding like I am slagging off on players, I am also amazed at how few players I have encountered in 30+ years of running D&D who actually take the time to organise their character sheets - or construct a short summary - to make managing this sort of information easier.

As a DM you have to do this with effectively multiple characters but these "namby-pamby" players cannot handle one or two....