"Looks like we're going to win this battle . . . in about 90 minutes from now."

[Jdvn1]

The problem is that in some battles, after the first 2-3 rounds, it may become very clear to the DM and players that they are almost certainly going to win the battle, even if it should be a challenging encounter. BUT the natural course of battle would take another 90 minutes to complete.

Do you have very reliable dice? Mine roll poorly sometimes, and the GM rolls well sometimes. I've noticed the same trend in all roleplaying games I've played.

 

[Forrester]

Really? What about the option of having all the numbers be smaller? That's neither particularly swingy nor does it take an hour and a half for "mop up".

Interesting you should say that -- that's exactly what a friend of mine suggested -- halving the hit points of both the party and the monsters (roughly).

Of course these must be two Earth Titans on a terrain-free map, just standing still and repeatedly attacking the defender in the party right? Because otherwise, a lot can happen to make the battle interesting. Two Earth Titans, making 4 attacks, do something like 51 damage if they hit with 3 out of 4 attacks, which is uncomfortably close to half the hit points your average striker at that level has.

Plus, as long as you're just running hypothetical numbers, I think you're doing yourself a disservice by just looking at the brutes. You may see them as the heavy hitters because they do a lot of damage with their attacks, but as you've already noticed they miss a lot. As per the advice in the DMG, brutes are designed to be boring/simple in combat.

But again, if you don't want boring slugfests, don't design boring slugfests as encounters. Include a variety of monster roles, put terrain in that will shape the battle, and occasionally have reinforcements or other surprise twists change the way things are going.

The battle I outlined had a bunch of annoying terrain, as well as three different monster roles . . . re the titans, if it were TWO elite brutes (level 16) banging on one defender, the defender damn well better feel it, that's an encounter that's supposed to be somewhat challenging for a party of 4.

Anyway, I have a feeling that most people doing regular adventurin' at this point are levels 1-10 -- I'll check in in a couple months, see then whether people are experiencing any drag.

For the record, I enjoy 4E combat a lot more than 3E combat, and think the designers did a fantastic job. I'm just wondering about whether there's a potential bug here.

 

[hong]

Halving hit points while keeping damage output the same does make things more swingy.

I was also under the impression at first that 4E combat had lost its "shock" compared to 3E. After playing a bit, I reckon this is still true in that you won't have fights over in 1-2 rounds, but not to the stage where it gets boring.

There's still plenty of shock, but seeing it to best effect is a matter of experience and skill with the game. Attacks never outpace defenses unlike in 3E, and there's fewer sources of bonuses to hit, so being able to stack those you do have becomes more important. This can be the difference between taking the monsters down in 10 rounds and doing it in 6. This applies to the PCs and monsters (DM) equally.

Also, if you prefer fights with bodies going down all the time, then use more minions. That's what they're there for.

 

[AtomicPope]

I have not played a lot of 4E, but the bit I've played so far suggests a problem -- from my point of view, at least.

The problem is that in some battles, after the first 2-3 rounds, it may become very clear to the DM and players that they are almost certainly going to win the battle, even if it should be a challenging encounter. BUT the natural course of battle would take another 90 minutes to complete.

...

That's not how it works in 4E -- monsters that tear off a huge chunk of hit points simply *do not exist* -- that's not the way encounters are designed to work. Battle isn't BOOM BOOM BOOM, it's drip drip drip. In a lot of ways, I can see how this could be seen as a feature and not a bug, but . . . well, it just seems a little annoying that there could be battles against theoretically even foes that need to be called 7-8 rounds ahead of time because most of the suspense is gone.

I haven't played a ton of 4E, though -- and I don't want to generalize from a battle or two that's left a bad taste in my mouth. But has anyone else had this experience?

You're not looking in the right places. Monsters that tear off huge chunks do exist. They're Artillery, Lurkers and Skirmishers (the Strikers of the Monster World) and the occasional Solo. Furthermore, 4e is not all about hit points and damage - effects play a major roll in every encounter. Unlike previous editions it's the effects not the hit points or damage that changes the tides of battle.

The Earth Titan isn't just a simple two slam Monster, it's also an Elite. This means that it can rush right into the middle of the party, use Earth Shock to stun all of the weaker party members and Double Slam the stunned characters. All of this can be done in a single round. The damage of the Earth Shock is good but the effect is better. Stunning Controllers and Leaders changes the dynamic of the fight. The abilty to shut down monsters (controllers) and quickly recover from attacks (leaders) is stymied. If there are two Earth Titans the ability to stun several characters at once can result in serious damage to the entire party.

From my own experience in playing and DMing 4e the effects dictate the tides of battle. Most of my players are 3e and falsely assume that they will either win easily or TPK. In one encounter the PC's thought they would roll through the easy equal level encounter. They had killed two brutes in one round but spread themselves too thin across the grave site. Three minions and the remaining brute ganged up on the cleric and dropped him in one round. In another fight that was supposed to be more difficult they struggled the entire time (Warlord was dropped three times) yet managed to not TPK.

There's still plenty of shock, but seeing it to best effect is a matter of experience and skill with the game. Attacks never outpace defenses unlike in 3E, and there's fewer sources of bonuses to hit, so being able to stack those you do have becomes more important. This can be the difference between taking the monsters down in 10 rounds and doing it in 6. This applies to the PCs and monsters (DM) equally.

Also, if you prefer fights with bodies going down all the time, then use more minions. That's what they're there for.

Hong hit the nail on the head. If you have a strong Controller you need Minions to overwhelm the PC's and make things a bit hectic. The minions will provide a body count and a flank while softening up the PC's. They're not absolutely necessary but they do change the tempo of battle.

 

[JesterOC]

I had hoped that interesting encounters would be simpler to design in 4E than 3E, not more complex.

It is simpler exactly because we have terms like Brutes, and Skirmishers. The DMG give great examples of how to put together good encounters. It is much simpler to have a few guidelines describing how to use the various monster roles, vs having to know the intimate characteristics of each monster.

Check out chapter 4 in the DMG it is really good at helping the DM create good consistant fights.

JesterOC

 

[Forrester]

The Earth Titan isn't just a simple two slam Monster, it's also an Elite. This means that it can rush right into the middle of the party, use Earth Shock to stun all of the weaker party members and Double Slam the stunned characters. All of this can be done in a single round. The damage of the Earth Shock is good but the effect is better. Stunning Controllers and Leaders changes the dynamic of the fight. The abilty to shut down monsters (controllers) and quickly recover from attacks (leaders) is stymied. If there are two Earth Titans the ability to stun several characters at once can result in serious damage to the entire party.

*sigh* . . . nobody listens to me. I know that with good tactics, these monsters can have a big, nasty effect. I'm not talking about 4E monsters being lame, I'm talking about situations in which the Big Bads have used up their encounter powers and are relegated to their at-wills, 2-3 rounds into the battle, where any of the big nastiness that was going to occur, has already occurred. And, at that point, it may become obvious that there's really no realistic threat left, not at the damage output level these guys have. [Again -- not saying this will *always* happen, or that the party can do stupid things like spread out and leave weaker characters alone, as in your example.]

The Earth Titan ability is once/encounter. Let's say there are two titans plus some other guys, up against a 17th level party (the encounter is, say Level +2, a real sweat). The Titans get unlucky on the stun attack, and something bad happens to the Other Guys, they get trapped behind a wall or who knows what. *in that situation*, where the Titans have most of their HP but have used their encounter-ability and are just swinging twice a turn, I can see the situation arising in which it might take 8-10 rounds for the good guys to do 800pts worth of damage to the two of them, but that unless the titans get very lucky on consecutive rounds, nobody in the party is going to be in real danger.

Again, this leaves the DM the choice of ending the combat 10 rounds early, which is weird (but perhaps we just have to get used to it), or the non-suspenseful-combat just going on for another hour just in case something interesting happens.

(One idea that a friend of mine had was to allow each creature with an encounter-power the ability to recharge that power on a '6'. I like this - a lot.)

 

[theNater]

Just opened to a random grim brute that you'd really hope would be a big-time threat, potentially -- the Earth Titan (Level 16 Elite Brute). He's got about 400 hp, attacks twice/round for an average of 17pts of damage per hit.

This guy against the average character of his level is going to hit maybe 40% of the time, for an average of about 15pts of damage a round. The average 16th level character has, what, about 120hps? It's a little sad that IF a battle against something like this is going well, that the Brute's realistic best-case scenario is the 2% chance that he hits once and crits once, for a total of 43 pts of damage -- not even enough to bloody a character.

I'm having a little trouble following your math. My calculations show an average(mode) 16th level character as having 12 + con + (level-1) * 5 hit points, for a total of 90 hps(using 13 as an "average" con score). An average defender(give him 14 con to start, have him increase it every chance for 18 by level 16) will have 123 hps, and while he's going to pull the mean up more than the controller pulls it down, I find it highly unlikely that it'll get as high as 120. I don't have the Earth Titan's stats, but I was under the impression that there was some spread between the ACs of various 16th level characters. Is the 40% hit chance against defenders, or against an average based on what armor, stat, and enhancement bonuses are probable for all level 16 characters?

If he's got a much better chance of doing solid damage to another character, he might be willing to take the Combat Superiority basic attack or the Divine Challenge damage. Given the large amount of hit points elite brutes have, those might not be much of a deterrent.

And these are the *brutes*, the big-time damage dealers.

I don't have a monster manual handy, but I was under the impression the brutes were glacier-like fighters: easy to hit, very tough, do pretty good damage, but connect relatively rarely. AtomicPope points out that artillery, skirmishers, and lurkers seem to be the big damage dealers.

 

[Forrester]

I'm having a little trouble following your math. My calculations show an average(mode) 16th level character as having 12 + con + (level-1) * 5 hit points, for a total of 90 hps(using 13 as an "average" con score). An average defender(give him 14 con to start, have him increase it every chance for 18 by level 16) will have 123 hps, and while he's going to pull the mean up more than the controller pulls it down, I find it highly unlikely that it'll get as high as 120. I don't have the Earth Titan's stats, but I was under the impression that there was some spread between the ACs of various 16th level characters. Is the 40% hit chance against defenders, or against an average based on what armor, stat, and enhancement bonuses are probable for all level 16 characters?

If he's got a much better chance of doing solid damage to another character, he might be willing to take the Combat Superiority basic attack or the Divine Challenge damage. Given the large amount of hit points elite brutes have, those might not be much of a deterrent.

I don't have a monster manual handy, but I was under the impression the brutes were glacier-like fighters: easy to hit, very tough, do pretty good damage, but connect relatively rarely. AtomicPope points out that artillery, skirmishers, and lurkers seem to be the big damage dealers.

I figured 40% given what the typical 16th level character has -- something like +4 magic armor, say +9 from armor (or, for a Dex character like +3 for armor and +6 for Dex), and +8 from level. With no shield and no other feats that help AC, that's AC 31, Earth Titans would hit 50% of the time, but there might be another +2 to AC somewhere.

I don't know about that about artillery and skirmishers and such dealing more damage. Wyvern is level 10, has some nifty stuff but damage is generally something like d6+7. Basilisk is level 10, not many hp but does basically 2d6+5 ranged, which isn't deadly but isn't bad at all, 12hp/round when it hits (technically 2d6, ongoing 5).

 

[AtomicPope]

I don't know about that about artillery and skirmishers and such dealing more damage. Wyvern is level 10, has some nifty stuff but damage is generally something like d6+7. Basilisk is level 10, not many hp but does basically 2d6+5 ranged, which isn't deadly but isn't bad at all, 12hp/round when it hits (technically 2d6, ongoing 5).

In your encounter you mention Vine Horror Spellfiends which have a power that targets Fort (anti Controller), causes Blindness and ongoing 5 Acid Damage. I think it's a waste to say, "Fights over gents, you killed my painted model!" when there's still Artillery like that on the board. Ongoing damage is a fairly new feature (it existed before but was never as abundant) and needs to be spread around the party to become a visible threat. Lots of Artillery have ongoing effects that increase damage output and stymy the party (as you've already pointed out above). As a DM I've seen what stacking ongoing damage does to player morale. They start panicking - Would one of you Leaders give me a saving throw so I don't dissolve!

Wall of Fire blocks LOS but not LOE and the Vines have Blindsight. Not to diss the DM but there was still a lot of things that could have happened. Blasting away with Caustic Clouds would buy the Monsters time to get back into the fight.

*sigh* . . . nobody listens to me. I know that with good tactics, these monsters can have a big, nasty effect. I'm not talking about 4E monsters being lame, I'm talking about situations in which the Big Bads have used up their encounter powers and are relegated to their at-wills, 2-3 rounds into the battle, where any of the big nastiness that was going to occur, has already occurred. And, at that point, it may become obvious that there's really no realistic threat left, not at the damage output level these guys have. [Again -- not saying this will *always* happen, or that the party can do stupid things like spread out and leave weaker characters alone, as in your example.]

Sorry but I don't really see your point. Most monsters have several abilities to choose from and Earth Titans are no different. Earth Titans have a Daze Attack that is useable at range. Please don't ignore this. Dazing characters forces them to either act or move. It provides some battlefield control by freezing characters in place for other monsters to dogpile.

As theNater pointed out it's not always about leaving weaker characters alone. It's about Brutes being reckless and ignoring Defenders when weaker characters are stunned. Brutes have the HP to ignore Defenders and should be headhunting. As a DM this is precisely how I play them. It's up to Strikers to take them down and Controllers to lock them up. In the Earth Titan example both Strikers and Controllers are more susceptible to getting stunned then the Defender (lower Cons and lower Class Bonus). With 384 HP an Earth Titan can take 20hp from a Defender he's ignoring to cause 35 to a Stunned Striker or Controller. The lower HP and Surges increases the Titan's threat. If the non-Defenders are stunned or dazed it effectively negates the mark penalty making the risk worth it.

The only way I could accept your position was if I built encounters entirely out of the same creature but I don't. I don't do it specifically because if I did you would be entirely correct. I see it as loss of fun prevention to build mixed role encounters. I try to add a mix of monster roles to keep a dynamic battle long after the 1/enc are spent. Adding Leaders allows monsters to hit more often and gain additional attacks. Skirmishers skirt around Defenders and hunt the softer classes. Artillery allows me to spread damage and react to critical hits by targeting the injured. Last but not least I usually throw in 3 or 4 minions to take pressure off of the other monsters by putting pressure on the PC's. Throwing 3 Minions on a Striker is very effective.

4e monsters are a team. Like a rowdy union with a bad dental plan that hoards earnings and provides substandard living quarters.

 

[cangrejoide]

To the OP:

Can you post the actual encounter in question? ( The one that needed 7-10 rounds to mop up).

What where the player classes and levels?

What was the opposition?

NOTE: Remember that some monsters had been errataed, because their damage output was below average.