The Grind Problem (My 2 Cents)

[Nebulous]

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.

I'll keep this in mind. I've run a good deal of 4e combats but have not hit the grind as bad some other people it seems. Maybe our players are just synergistically good, or maybe it's luck. We finished the last two full encounters of Keep on the Shadowfell in less than 4 hours, which was great i think. Not even the huge Irontooth encounter took that long.

I also agree that although PCs can drop easily, actually killing them takes some forethought, like throwing them against a solo well above their level, or pitting them against elites and traps with a wide variety of roles covered. I've actually started tracking just the Healing Surges for our group session to session. Their individual hit points don't matter anymore, let them deal with that. The DM can judge at glance how wounded a party is if their fighter is 2/12 HS and the rogue is 1/7. That's a TPK waiting to happen.

 

[jdsivyer]

But it is usually the best. Move and Attack is often worse (Provoke, get only one attack). Trip is often worse (the opponent can't be tripped, can easily counter-trip, you might suffer an AoO). Disarm is often worse (the opponent is not armed, can easily counter-disarm, you might suffer an AoO). Sunder is often worse (the opponent might not have equipment to be sundered, can make AoO, you lose potential treasure). Grapple is often worse (the oponent is too large, can make opportunity attack, you lose Dex Bonus against opponents allies).
And in most cases, you simply deal less damage without gaining the benefit of the enemy dealing less damage.

And worse, Trip or Disarm can all be made as part of a full attack. Tripping is particularly great with one of your iterative attacks.

I didn't claim that some of these combat options were easy to perform, I'm just saying that there are many more combat options you can do in 3e than in much of the previous editions. Myself, I'm a big fan of AofO - they make sense to me, especially when it comes to spellcasting. Sure, there are some disadvantages to Sunder and Grapple, but hey, that's the gamble you take. However, in the games I've DMed I've seen some of the players perform these actions with panache.

I haven't been talking about the effectiveness of some of these options, simply that there ARE options in 3e

 

[Sir Brennen]

I haven't been talking about the effectiveness of some of these options, simply that there ARE options in 3e

Right... and most of these options still do not involve moving or shaking up the combat dynamics much. You're still just standing there making a "to hit" roll. Worse, many of these options are more effective if movement is sacrificed so they can be used as part of a full attack.

 

[Thasmodious]

Right... and most of these options still do not involve moving or shaking up the combat dynamics much. You're still just standing there making a "to hit" roll. Worse, many of these options are more effective if movement is sacrificed so they can be used as part of a full attack.

Exactly. When I say 3e encouraged static combat I don't mean it had a lack of options, I mean the design of the combat system was built around the necessity for staying in one place. Classes depended on a lack of movement for a large chunk of their effectiveness, it was built into the system, both its need and tools present in other classes to make opponents stationary so your companions could take full round actions on them. That style of combat was the baseline of 3e.

I'm not even saying this is bad, its just the way the system was. It worked fine. (Although, I will note that as this isn't my style I just houseruled some changes to make it fit what I enjoy and never felt the need to come to a messageboard and rail against 3e for it ) My point is just that if you approach 4e combat as if it were a more static 3e combat, whether as DM or player, you are much more likely to create and experience this long grind as you are playing in a manner in which the system was not intended. Forced movement, terrain and conditions are there to be used, not to be considered a mere side effect of a damage roll.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Exactly. When I say 3e encouraged static combat I don't mean it had a lack of options, I mean the design of the combat system was built around the necessity for staying in one place. Classes depended on a lack of movement for a large chunk of their effectiveness, it was built into the system, both its need and tools present in other classes to make opponents stationary so your companions could take full round actions on them. That style of combat was the baseline of 3e.

I'm not even saying this is bad, its just the way the system was. It worked fine. (Although, I will note that as this isn't my style I just houseruled some changes to make it fit what I enjoy and never felt the need to come to a messageboard and rail against 3e for it ) My point is just that if you approach 4e combat as if it were a more static 3e combat, whether as DM or player, you are much more likely to create and experience this long grind as you are playing in a manner in which the system was not intended. Forced movement, terrain and conditions are there to be used, not to be considered a mere side effect of a damage roll.

There is also another option.

Do not live your life in squares. Go beyond a game board and move freeform. Move your full movement and still attack multiple times, its ok, the world won't end. Get close to your companions when needed. Not even the wizard has an ego so big as to require 5 feet of personal space.

 

[Thasmodious]

There is also another option.

Do not live your life in squares. Go beyond a game board and move freeform.

I evolved beyond that beret-wearing, clove smoking, bolshevik, drama class nonsense in the early 80s.

 

[jdsivyer]

Exactly. When I say 3e encouraged static combat I don't mean it had a lack of options, I mean the design of the combat system was built around the necessity for staying in one place. Classes depended on a lack of movement for a large chunk of their effectiveness, it was built into the system, both its need and tools present in other classes to make opponents stationary so your companions could take full round actions on them. That style of combat was the baseline of 3e.

I'm not even saying this is bad, its just the way the system was. It worked fine. (Although, I will note that as this isn't my style I just houseruled some changes to make it fit what I enjoy and never felt the need to come to a messageboard and rail against 3e for it ) My point is just that if you approach 4e combat as if it were a more static 3e combat, whether as DM or player, you are much more likely to create and experience this long grind as you are playing in a manner in which the system was not intended. Forced movement, terrain and conditions are there to be used, not to be considered a mere side effect of a damage roll.

If only you had written this in your first post

Seriously though, now I know exactly where you're coming from, you've made a good point

But, I still have to stay, that most of my 3e combats didn't involve standing there toe-to-toe swinging swords at enemies. And that was the point of my original posting

 

[gribble]

The combination of the need to limit movement so you could get the extra attacks and the more devastating effects of AoOs made static combat the "proper" strategy.

Actually, IME this commonly repeated "fact" about 3e is actually a fallacy. I've found that the "proper" strategy for a 3e fighter is to power attack/expertise (depending on build) for as much as possible, which tends to make most of your iterative attacks useless.
Also, when you're facing opponents capable of making more than 3 attacks a round, it's usually better to be moving around - forcing the opponents to be making at most 2 attacks a round (one AoO and their normal standard action attack). PCs invariably win battles of attrition because of the cleric healing factor and wizard save or die/suck spells, while the fighter(s) suck up the damage and deal a steady stream of HP damage that can't be ignored.

And for some reason 3e combats "drawn out" like this still tend to last fewer rounds and seem a lot less grindy to me than 4e combats. Not saying 4e is bad or anything - we do enjoy playing it - but we've definitely experienced grindspace, and it isn't related to lack of movement around the board or lack of team synergy/tactics (for us at least).

I think the assumption in the 4e design is that PCs stats/items and tactics will be optimised such that their daily/encounter powers will usually hit. Monster HPs are assigned accordingly. A possible solution to grindspace might be to adjust a monsters HP according to the PCs chance of hitting the monster.
E.g.: if the average attack bonus in the party is +10, and a monster has an AC of 25, the players have a 25% chance of hitting, so give the monster 75% of its listed HP. If they only have a 50% chance of hitting, give the monster 50% of its listed HP, etc.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I evolved beyond that beret-wearing, clove smoking, bolshevik, drama class nonsense in the early 80s.

Awesome. So you actually know what its like to game free from the confines of the square? Remember that not everyone considers conformity to be evolution.

 

[Harr]

I think the assumption in the 4e design is that PCs stats/items and tactics will be optimised such that their daily/encounter powers will usually hit. Monster HPs are assigned accordingly.

Where do you get this conclusion from? I'm looking at my player's character sheets (6 level 5 sheets) and in general Dailies have the same bonuses to hit as do At-Will, as do Encounters... they all have pretty much the same hit chance, except when an attack targets a non-AC defense, which any power may do.

A possible solution to grindspace might be to adjust a monsters HP according to the PCs chance of hitting the monster. E.g.: if the average attack bonus in the party is +10, and a monster has an AC of 25, the players have a 25% chance of hitting, so give the monster 75% of its listed HP. If they only have a 50% chance of hitting, give the monster 50% of its listed HP, etc.

Hm, I could agree, but shouldn't this be backwards? Or was that 75% meant to be 25?

I wonder what would happen if you designed a pack of custom-made monsters *based off of the party's actual attack stats*?

ie, you would design and choose AC and defenses so that they could be hit on a roll of 7 or 8 on the die. For example if the party had an average +10 to hit vs AC, you would give the monster 17 AC. If the party had on average +8 to hit reflex, the monster would get 15 Reflex. And so on.

You could actually do this with pretty much every stat... give the monster enough HP to go down in 4 or 5 hits, ie if the party does an average at-will damage of 11, the monster would get around 55 HP. And if the party on average has 50 hp, then the monster can do around 10 damage with his at-will attacks.

You could design a monster entirely from the party's stats, put an equal number of monsters to PCs in an encounter, and run it like a Wolf Pack type encounter. I wonder what would happen? Would that be a 'perfectly-balanced' encounter? How long would it take to resolve then...? Hm.. interesting stuff.