D&D 4E How to build encounters in 4e (aka Only you can prevent Grindspace!)

[chaotix42]

1. Agreed. I describe things almost too much sometimes, so the PCs should be well aware of what exactly is tossing them around.

2. The fall won't be too bad. You can only fall to the outside of the elevator, which is enclosed in a shaft of crossed beams. The fall itself will do some damage, but they won't be plummeting hundreds of feet to the bottom of the shaft or anything. The beams themselves are narrow (10 ft. wide), but once someone manages to get down on one there will be little risk of falling any further - outside of a bullrush the dracoliches won't be able to knock anyone off.

What could I add to the encounter that would benefit the PCs? Right now I have a few environmental effects that pretty much just benefit the monsters. The elevator is a major means of transportation for the hobgoblins that populate the dungeon the PCs are escaping from. As the PCs are fighting they'll be passing several floors before the elevator breaks, so maybe I could sprinkle a few elements there that would benefit the PCs.

One idea is to have a modest freight crane on one of the floors that, with a successful attack/skill check, can be swung out over one of the dracoliches. The dracolich will be pinned between the rising elevator and crane before the stress finally shatters it into scrap, dealing huge damage to the beast in the process and knocking it prone.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

My main concern is to have a way for the players who have fallen off the platform and catch up - preferably fairly quickly.

Otherwise they might as well be dead - at least for the purposes of the encounter.


Dr. Ruminahui - shrink with a spear

 

[Hambot]

I've avoided grinding by giving level appropriate challenges or those level -1 or -2. Nothing turns a fight into a grind like introducing a party level + 3 soldier. Yawn! It goes on for ages. My players like to feel awesome. Then when they start to get confident they have a real level +1 or level +2 fight. Variation is exciting for them - figuring out how deadly the bad guys are.

Also, my 2 players have a monster hireling that helps shore up their lack of a defender.

Letting small groups have much better starting stats works too - they are far more versatile as people can still have a very good primary stat, but other multiclassing options are open. I got them to roll for ability scores 36 times (4d6 drop lowest) and put the roll results into a grid. They then picked the best row, column or diagonal to use. The sheer number of rolls takes away the randomness and ends up like 5d6 drop 2 (that method can still randomly screw a PC).

At first I thought this would cause me problems, but it absolutely hasn't - 4E is at most a tri stat dependant system, so having them good at other stats just allows them to be a little more versatile at untrained skills and willing to give other things a go.

The ultimate lack of grinding was when they stupidly got themselves poisoned and lost all their gear, then tried taking on level +3 encounter rather than escaping easily. Hp flew down to zero and they learned a lot about how they should be a team, not separate heros trying to best each other. Now I'm trying to figure out how to get a bit more treasure back into their hands as they have really lost all their gear and they are level 5 now. This makes encounters more deadly and exciting, as they are effectively level +1 without gears. Still, I've discovered the designers goal of making magic items less important has worked beautifully - they're back to 90% effectiveness after fighting lots of normal NPC's like human guards and escaping the city, all the while stealing mundane gear off their opponents.

The most important thing to avoid grinding is keeping the stuff that propels the story forward, and cutting chaff unless it is a way to get mundane gear into their silly PC hands.

Giving players control over their destiny ensures they don't get bored - my PC's have a map of the world and they point to where they are going to next AND the way they are going to take. As they talk to townsfolk the map gets names and places added to it (magical obv) but that allows them to choose their future, so that they can sway encounter balance by sailing around the coast rather than going through the swamp, or going via the haunted forest rather than the greenskin hills. Having seen players react so well to a visual aid I am never doing a game without a map again.

 

[MyISPHatesENWorld]

I'll add that dynamic terrain that adds to an encounter doesn't include:

"Random bad thing happens to PC when they step on random square."

That just adds annoyance to the grind. A dynamic environment should be interactive, something that can work both for and against the players and the monsters.

To give an example, the previous encounter in the cathedral (which isn't the same as the situation above because the players could see where the negative terrain was) works occasionally, but if every time the environment comes into play it is detrimental to the players, but not the monsters, it exacerbates the grind. To change it up, the players could be able to attack the cathedral windows with ranged weapons, creating areas of light which deal radiant damage. This puts things on an even footing, with both the players and monsters choices being disrupted randomly. Too much random disruption, even if it affects both sides, can still get frustrating quick.

I've played games with DMs who construct the entire map (static or dynamic) to the detriment of the PCs all the time. It really takes the fun away when you see a detailed map and your first thought is, "I wonder what penalties we're taking this time?"

For individual classes, I play a lot of rogue, I like minions (collateral damage on Blinding Barrage and Cloud of Steel - along with the nifty new Downward Spiral), and stealthing up to take out the enemy artillery/controller is a rogue specialty. Standing in the open on a bad map while the artillery blasts you makes an unhappy rogue (along with everyone else), but generally, taking out enemy artillery, or at least disrupting it enough that it isn't able to focus fire is one of the high points of the game for me when I play. I vastly prefer using stealth for combat advantage to just standing there locked on a monster like a fragile fighter, though I'll dart in and unload when the rest of the map is clear. I'd say:

Happy Rogue: Cover/Concealment and/or Superior Cover/Total Concealment, Monsters that can be dropped quickly.
Unhappy Rogue: Wide open spaces. Environment/effects that restrict movement. Waves in conjunction with a lack of terrain that allows them to do something other than flank for combat advantage.

Melee clerics like hitting anything but minions, which limit their use of their rider abilities. They dislike things that do damage to them just for standing there, as they can't move as well as the rogue or ranger and can't take sustained damage like the fighter.

Fighters, at least heavy armor fighters, are kind of immune to a lot of encounter design. A lot of boring design actually favors the heavy armor fighter, so he can pe perfectly happy in something that is a drag for other party members. More agile/mobile fighters can be hindered somewhat like rogues, but to a lesser extent.

Swordmages are really somewhat immune to a lot of things, especially if they add a little wizard multiclass to grab an encounter ranged attack and another teleport (and if they're eladrin or water genasi their racial). But, as mentioned, solos and brutes can be a bit of a slog.

Playing or DMing, I'm not a big fan of encounters that run along the lines of the party clusters together in one part of the map while the monsters do things to them until the melee monsters are dead, at which point the party goes after the artillery/controllers (which have been pounding them all the while), or the variation in which the party clusters together, and slowly creeps forward, engaging enemies as they go. I like things to spread out a bit, with people ducking into and out of hiding, charges, teleports, mobile attacks, etc.

 

[CapnZapp]

Lets remember one thing, before we get too carried away in elaborate encounter theory:

The optimal strategy for the partyis to focus their attacks, in order to bring down the enemys numbers as quickly as possibly. That is, cluster around one enemy rather than spreading out, attacking several enemies at once.

Of course, several circumstances can mitigate this somewhat:
* giving the main monster heaps of hit points, making it a better strategy to leave it for last (to minimize the total damage output of the enemy)
* status effects, if you can hinder all the foes first, before you get down to business
and so on...

But in the end, you can prepare all you want, a good party will still desire to focus their attacks, despite how this can lead to a "less fun" battlefield or a boring grind against the BBEG when all his support has been stripped away.

 

[shilsen]

Lets remember one thing, before we get too carried away in elaborate encounter theory:

The optimal strategy for the partyis to focus their attacks, in order to bring down the enemys numbers as quickly as possibly. That is, cluster around one enemy rather than spreading out, attacking several enemies at once.

I'm guessing that people posting here, since it seems most of them have a lot of DMing experience, are quite aware of that.

Of course, several circumstances can mitigate this somewhat:
* giving the main monster heaps of hit points, making it a better strategy to leave it for last (to minimize the total damage output of the enemy)
* status effects, if you can hinder all the foes first, before you get down to business
and so on...

Or simply a large and varied battlefield with many foes who are both a danger and who get in the way of such focus. Many of the suggestions made on this thread will make focusing on one foe fairly difficult.

But in the end, you can prepare all you want, a good party will still desire to focus their attacks, despite how this can lead to a "less fun" battlefield or a boring grind against the BBEG when all his support has been stripped away.

Perhaps true, but that kind of desire won't always be met with success.

 

[MyISPHatesENWorld]

Lets remember one thing, before we get too carried away in elaborate encounter theory:

The optimal strategy for the partyis to focus their attacks, in order to bring down the enemys numbers as quickly as possibly. That is, cluster around one enemy rather than spreading out, attacking several enemies at once.

If you design an encounter in such a way that this is the optimal strategy, it may be the optimal strategy (optimal strategy often turns out to be something the encounter designer never expected). But I don't particularly enjoy playing or DMing in such encounters often.

Of course, several circumstances can mitigate this somewhat:
* giving the main monster heaps of hit points, making it a better strategy to leave it for last (to minimize the total damage output of the enemy)
* status effects, if you can hinder all the foes first, before you get down to business
and so on...

Pretty much everything you do when you design an encounter can make it more interesting and challenging than focus on one thing until it is dead and then move on.

I can think of very few encounters where just kill one thing while sucking up attacks from everything else on the map was an optimal strategy in games that I've played or DMed. WHen it does occur, it is because that one thing is a great threat, not because allowing the enemy to do whatever it wants with the exception of one monster at a time is going to be the optimal strategy.

But in the end, you can prepare all you want, a good party will still desire to focus their attacks, despite how this can lead to a "less fun" battlefield or a boring grind against the BBEG when all his support has been stripped away.

I've been in a few good parties, and even the below-average ones knew that one tactic wasn't universal.

 

[chaotix42]

My main concern is to have a way for the players who have fallen off the platform and catch up - preferably fairly quickly.

Otherwise they might as well be dead - at least for the purposes of the encounter.

The elevator stops working once the chains have busted, so if anyone falls off they won't get left behind. The dracoliches can use Horrid Presence and push targets they hit, so I'll be careful about sending PCs over the edge before then!

 

[equilibrium17]

In re: Ranged vs. Melee encounters:

I will sometimes frustrate the heck out of my melee PCs by presenting them with encounters where they are getting kited by ranged attack monsters. Goblin archers shooting from the top of a ledge, flying dragon, whatever.

But whenever I do this, I always have the plan that the melee types will eventually get payback on the ranged attack enemies a bit later down the road. Frustration and anger, in the right measure, are important to dramatic tension. And you need to release that tension eventually; that's what payoff is all about.

This could happen in the same encounter. For example, an encounter starts with untouchable enemy archers on a ledge above. But there's a ladder or climbably wall, and if the melee PCs manage to climb up to the ledge under fire, they can run amok amongst the melee-weak enemy artillery. Or it could happen an encounter or two later -- kiting archers keep ambushing the party in the woods, lasting 1-2 encounters, but the party eventually tracks them down and traps them in their cave lair, where the melee characters can really shine.

You can do similar things to play to other player strengths and weaknesses. For example, with a ranged attack-heavy party, maybe you have an encounter or two against kobolds in tight tunnels, where it's hard for the party to keep distance from the attackers. But then you have the party discover some information that the kobolds are about to go on a raid, allowing them to set up an ambush in open terrain more favorable to their fighting style.

In general, any frustration/payback cycle like this you want to keep within one game session. But if you game really frequently, it is possible to stretch it out longer. If you use a BBEG with a particular strength (such as flying dragon w/ strong ranged attacks), finding a way to engage the BBEG on favorable terms can even become the goal of a whole adventure.


Obviously, you need to be careful about CR with all of the above; the initial encounter(s) should be hard enough to be present a real threat and generate some frustration, but you don't want to create a TPK situation; there needs to be some way that the PCs can survive, until they get their chance for payback.

Failure and frusturation are an important part of dramatic structure. Think about how many times Indiana Jones fails, before he finally wins in the end. . . you just need to make sure there is a clear connection to a payoff for all the frustration in the end. Once your players experience this once or twice, they'll get the idea, and start to enjoy findings ways to get through the "frustration" encounters, so they can get their just desserts.

Cheers,

EQ17

 

[MyISPHatesENWorld]

I don't like frustration/reward to extend past one encounter very often, and in 4e, with multiple waves of opponents and battles spanning multiple areas of the map, there really isn't a need for it to do so. It is easy to create encounters where players are initially frustrated, work to overcome their frustration and overcome it in one encounter. A brief hit by skirmishers or or snipers that fade away works to create tension and a little frustration, but that is because the players sren't stuck unable to do things for an entire normal length encounter.

An entire encounter of frustration and one encounter that is accomplishment is one hour of fun, maybe, if the player isn't in a bad mood for the rest of the session after spending an hour doing nothing. Two encounters with a mix of frustration and accomplishment make two hours of fun.

Indiana Jones fails a lot, and it is enioyable for the audience to watch, but Indiana Jones isn't enjoying it. Similarly, though it may be enjoyable for the DM to watch, players aren't enjoying long bouts of frustration.

When you extend a frustration/reward cycle over time, it can take on elements of an abusive relationship (like a lot of DM behavior can). Players tolerate more and more abuse in hopes that it will get better because they have time invested or because they are afraid they won't be able to find another game or whatever. But it isn't because more frustration or frustration over a longer period of time somehow becomes more enjoyable. Most players never enjoy suffering through an encounter that is nothing but frustration. And the idea that players have to let the DM make them suffer through unenjoyable encounters to 'earn' an enjoyable encounter isn't palatable to me.