The Grind Problem (My 2 Cents)

[Zsig]

Take 2 fighters and 2 clerics into dungeon ( a very viable D&D party) in 4E and try it out. A combat will feel very much like trying to finish off a boss with only tank and heals. You may be successful but deep in grindspace.

Negative.

If a DM sets up a given encounter, as described on the DMG, to adjust for a 3 PCs group, they'll have a much easier time going through it then a 5 PCs group facing an encounter built up for a 5 PCs group.

That happens because as a DM you'll have a much cheaper budget to work with and thus, weaker enemies/ fewer enemies, making the stuff the PCs have access to (second wind, magic items, et cetera) much more valuable and gives them a bigger edge.

You're probably basing your arguments on something other than experience.

 

[ExploderWizard]

In general I've come to decide that for any one encounter, if there isn't a lot of running, shifting, pushing, pulling and sliding going on, and if there's isn't a respectable amount of 'terrain and hazards' type damage being dealt almost every round, then something needs improving.

Just make sure every combat is held in an area with rough terrain, a pit with lava or other nastiness below, some dangerous moving automation to avoid, teleporting obstacles, mysterious effects that push combatants randomly every other round, and super sticky walls that restrain if touched and you are good to go.

 

[Mallus]

My friends and I haven't encountered the grind problem (yet), but I can see the potential for it given how many HP certain monsters/types have.

But couldn't you mitigate it by tweaking monster selection, rather than by tweaking the mechanics or pushing the players towards "more optimal" party compositions?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Negative.

If a DM sets up a given encounter, as described on the DMG, to adjust for a 3 PCs group, they'll have a much easier time going through it then a 5 PCs group facing an encounter built up for a 5 PCs group.

That happens because as a DM you'll have a much cheaper budget to work with and thus, weaker enemies/ fewer enemies, making the stuff the PCs have access to (second wind, magic items, et cetera) much more valuable and gives them a bigger edge.

You're probably basing your arguments on something other than experience.

If it were only about the number of PC's that would be one thing. Im talking about the lack of filling the correct roles even if you have the same number of characters.

Yes this is firsthand experience. Our party sucked and several combats took a lot longer until we finally wiped. Our 2nd party had a controller and we restarted the adventure. Same encounters, vastly different results. AOE effects on minions vs having to pimp slap them piecemeal is a HUGE difference.

 

[timbannock]

Unless I"m missing it, certain bonuses that I've been used to from early editions are no longer in 4E, and that caused some alarm at first. The most obvious: height advantage. Again, maybe I just missed that rule, but if I didn't and it's really not there, that's +1 that my PCs can't get.

However, the +2/-2 circumstance bonus/penalty rule is still there (or am I really mixing up my editions in this post!??!). So maybe that's intended; maybe some circumstances for a +2 would be a mounted melee combatant getting +2 against melee combatants with smaller weapons? Or hopping up on a table to fight gives you a +2 to hit (or maybe just a +2 AC and/or Reflex because they are swinging at your feet and you can just jump over it)?

Just some thoughts...hopefully I'm not mixing up my editions and this post actually has some pertinence!

 

[jdsivyer]

...Yet, many groups approach encounters with the same mindset from 3e or other previous editions - "You open the door, there is a large trol;, roll init and then beat on the troll with pointy sticks and spells until it's dead." Now, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that, at all. 3e was designed around this kind of combat...

In all honesty, I never once encountered this kind of mindset amongst my players while playing 3e - and I've DMed quite a number of groups over the years. And I don't think 3e was designed simply as a war of attrition, as you suggest. Sure, every edition of D&D has been a war of attrition to war extent (hit points exemplify that), but every edition of D&D has tried to add more combat options in it. 3e had bull rush, disarm, AofO, Overrun, Sunder - just to name a few. And 3e did put emphasis on the need to move, hence the diagrams in the PHB and DMG showing mins cutting across terrain, etc.

Now, I will agree that 4e has put even further emphasis on movement and additional type of actions, but to state that 3e was simply designed around hitting things and hurling spells in not entirely accurate.

In my 3e games we had people using cover, aiding others, getting into good positions, trying to back enemies into a corner, using the terrain, etc. - rarely, if ever, did they ever stand still and hack away at a monster. And the same went for the monsters. If a DM is just having a monster stand in the one spot and simply do the same thing over and over again, then, but sorry, that's the sign of a reasonably lazy DM...unless, of course, the monster in question is as thick as a piece of wood.

You could argue that ALL editions of D&D (or any other fantasy rpg for that matter) is all about hitting stuff until it dies...and 4e is no exception. It's just that with 4e there is a more obvious emphasis on using different methods and actions to do it.

 

[Mengu]

I just knock the monsters over or have them flee when I feel a grind is imminent, unless they are the bbg, in which case, they just have to slug through it and survive. I'll try to spice it up with taunts from the bbg, or he'll take minor actions to kick stuff around or throw a tantrum, or drop his weapon and beg for his life, depending on the bad guy.

The only problem I sometimes run into is that players know they haven't yet bloodied a monster, and if I just knock it over, they'll know something is up. So I have them start moving around the battlefield wildly in desparation, and provoke all sorts of free attacks to get them bloodied, and then suggest they can use Intimidate to force the last few enemies to surrender.

Grind can definitely be a problem, but as a DM, there are ways to watch for it, and either make a new story out of it, or kill it.

 

[occam]

In my 3e games we had people using cover, aiding others, getting into good positions, trying to back enemies into a corner, using the terrain, etc. - rarely, if ever, did they ever stand still and hack away at a monster. And the same went for the monsters. If a DM is just having a monster stand in the one spot and simply do the same thing over and over again, then, but sorry, that's the sign of a reasonably lazy DM...unless, of course, the monster in question is as thick as a piece of wood.

Not true. There's a single prominent feature of 3e that encourages standing still in a fight: full attack.

 

[Kzach]

I see a lot of these types of arguments. This is, by far, the most well thought out and intelligently presented I've seen, but at it's core, it's still part of the same basic set of arguments I see all the time.

And I just don't get it.

Every time I see one of these arguments pop up, my immediate internal reaction is, "Yeah, but so is every other game system... so what?"

People seem to forget or refrain from acknowledging that there are fundamental flaws in every game system that are all basically the same. Some overcome some of the problems by adjusting to them in some way, some flatten things out, some ignore the problems altogether. At the end of the day, however, the same problems exist for every RPG system, just in varying degrees.

So I fail to see why 4e gets these pointed out as if they're somehow unique to 4e's design and are therefore entirely a fault of 4e.

It's just bizarre.

 

[Felon]

But you base your original notion of not liking 4e on the correctness of the qualifiers.

And because you think they're not correct, they're not, and that's all that needs to be said? There you go again, Jack.