Tips for Spicing Up Combat

[Recidivism]

Hey guys,

Figured I'd come here and seek some DMing advice. I'm actually running my first 4e campaign ever, and I've been running into some issues (or at least, things I perceive as issues).

My group initially began as a D&D Encounters group running Keep on the Borderlands. We finished that adventure, but I felt that many of the players in our group wanted to continue playing their characters, so I've been homebrewing a followup campaign.

Currently the group consists of the following, all at level 5:

Dwarven Battlemind
Human Rogue
Dragonborn Fighter
Minotaur Warpriest
Human Psion
(occasionally) Drow Ranger

One of the things I've been noticing is that I don't feel combats are as dynamic or as interesting as I would hope they should be. My experience with 4E is that while combat can tend to drag out a little bit due to monster HP, there's often a lot of tactical positioning going on throughout the fight.

However, in the case of this game that I'm running, I feel like the combats proceed in a pretty rote way.

-The Psion sits in the rear of the battlefield and basically never moves, instead attacking through her figment
-The Rogue sits in the rear of the battlefield and shoots foes with a crossbow. He uses surprise bolts to automatically grant himself combat advantage against foes, and so he pretty much ignores cover/concealment rules. When he does get up into melee combat, he can pretty much just use Clever Strike to basically ignore positioning for combat advantage.
-The Ranger, when he shows up, follows a similar route. Hang back and pelt the enemies with arrows, rarely ever moving.
-The Battlemind is extremely durable using Iron Fist, being a Dwarf, and on and on. Once this guy marks a foe, they're almost locked down totally unless they've got some skirmisher multiple shift powers.

The Minotaur Warpriest is kind of a wildcard, and doesn't always just stand there and slug, so he's okay. And the Dragonborn Fighter is actually a new addition I haven't totally gotten the hang of him yet. Although I will add both these characters are pretty heavily optimized for defense so my monsters are still missing about 50-60% of the time against their AC.

In general though it feels a little lame to have 3 characters that hang back, never moving, and 3 characters up front slugging away, rarely moving. My own play experiences in 4e were generally pretty dynamic, but not only were my play experiences awhile ago, I generally stuck to basic printed materials (e.g. PHB, PHB2). The Battlemind is pretty new to me, and Surprise Bolts just seem like typical munchkinizing power creep items.




Here's an example of a scenario I concocted for the players and how they ended up playing out:

The players were in a library seeking a tome of knowledge to help them on their task to protect the Keep.

The library had several interesting features. The main setup consisted of a wide room with many rows of books. There were swinging guillotine blade traps that attacked every creature in rows between the stacks, encouraging players to stand parallel to the stacks.
In addition, there were 2 statues that had defensive mechanisms to blind intruders.

Foes in this encounter were spectral enemies essentially set up to magically ward away intruders. The general idea was that the players would proceed into the area, discover the traps, and have to navigate between the statues and the guillotine blade traps while combating the foes.

Unfortunately, the encounter didn't play out nearly that neatly. Instead, the players stood at the entranceway to the library. One player advanced forward, but it was the Battlemind whose defenses and damage resistances allow him to ignore most challenges. Traps triggered, but the players mostly stood still, pelting the foes from a distance until everything was dead. Then they proceeded forward.

Do you guys have any tips for making my combats more dynamic and interesting?

 

[the Jester]

A couple rounds in, attack from the rear. Even a wave of minions should shake the rear guys up pretty nicely.

 

[Robtheman]

Spicing up combat in 4e

Hello Recidivism! Thanks for posting this topic. I really enjoy creating dynamic and fluid combat encounters so this should be fun!

Let me address one thing right off the bat. The primary challenge I see is that you let your players get away with it.

Perhaps we should start with the ranged combatants. The following techniques should keep them guessing and on their toes. Using one each encounter, or possibly two if you really want to strain them, should force them to develop some new strategies.
- Swarming ranged attackers with minions that can shift, phase, fly, teleport, burrow or charge through the front ranks.
- Messing with the terrain so they are forced to move each turn and potentially lose the best strategic position.
- Giving them a dose of their own medicine but cheat. Give your ranged guys murder holes or crenelated walls.
- Give your bad guys tower shields, energy fields, flaming spheres, or gusts of wind that cause many of their shots to miss, bounce off or be consumed.
- Use misdirection to confuse them. Think funhouse mirrors. Perhaps the party has to figure out a puzzle related to targets not being where they seem to be.

As for the "Tanks" up front, you simple need to knock them down harder. If they can min-max their character sheet you can darn well min-max your monster block. Bad guys think, learn and adapt. They talk to each other back at camp. They conduct recon when their buddies disappear. Consider the following.
- Cheat. Break the rules. Ignore the rules. Give hps to monsters. Take them away. Add powers on the fly if you realize you need them.
- They have perfect combat advantage set up? Blow up a wall! Everyone slides 2 squares and is prone, including the monsters. They will scramble for new cover.
- If you can't seem to hit the tank, have the monster get a +2 to all attack rolls when it is bloodied. Increase the damage dice.
- Give occasional encounters that are tailored to force one player to use a new tactic. Pick their favorite move and give a monster a counter to it. They will curse you, but if you give a fair way of using a different skill or power they will thank you later for a challenging fight.

Most of the Keep on the Shadowfell encounters are boring as all get out. They are also very similar in design. Consider some of the following.
- Play with terrain. Have it change mid-fight (exploding floor when monster gets bloodied).
- Make some encounters completely easy and full of minions. Follow it with a stupidly hard solo that flees half way through the fight.
- Make the boss easy and shielded but his guards super difficult. The party can take down the shields then drop dailies on the boss only to have the guards come in later on in the encounter.
- Add monsters in stages. I do this all the time. When the party expects me to do this I stop and just make the existing monsters enrage at bloodied.
- Use lots of elite controllers. They die fast once they are vulnerable, but they also are fantastic at manipulating the PCs with debilitating powers or forced movement.
- Have a running fight without a battlemap where the players have to flee from or chase down the bad guys. Each round still follows initiative but it could combine skill checks until they catch up or are caught with running shots or preparing of impromptu ambushes.

Level Design
This last bit deserves it's own paragraph. One of the largest differences between the previous editions and 4e is the need for wide open spaces. The number of movement powers encourages an exciting flow of battle. If the party is fighting in a traditional setting (we'll use your library as an example) the most important thing to consider is how you will entice the players in to the setting (in this case the middle of the stacks). The players know they dont' want to get trapped. Moving 1 or 2 a turn is certain death. Therefore they will sit tight and wait if you give them an option.

As you design your encounters consider this one challenge. "What excuse do I have to make the room wide open, with dynamic terrain and interesting features?" You will probably get annoyed with this, however the game really does flow better for you and for your monsters.

That said, some times a tight space is ideal; for an ambush. I don't mean the kind your players set either. As long as the bad guys can shift and move better than the players (home field advantage) you should have cursing you in now time as the baddies phase through walls or stealth through hidden passages.

I hope these suggests help you to remedy some of your concerns with combat in your campaign. Your attitude is great though! It really is all up to you to set the scene. I'll close by saying that 4e is a super fun way to play DnD but it requires a bit more effort to cover up the set and create a suspension of disbelief. The trick that I've found is to pack each encounter full of surprise attacks, changing environment, lots of minions, ticking timers, and intelligent, colorful monsters. I avoid traps (unless they are essential), small rooms, high AC monsters and static environments because they encourage a sluggish pace. Anything that makes the players think more about what they can't do than what they CAN is a no-no in my book.

Good luck and have a great game!

 

[catastrophic]

Lurkers on the rear line could be very useful here. Just make sure they have a good lurker mechanic- lurkers and soldiers need really solid role mechanics to function well. A good example lurker imo is the bugbear strangler, and the recent air elemental works pretty well also- possibly too well.

As for pc Tanks, well tbqh i've noticed monsters have started to get damage auras, because sometimes they just plain can't hit the tank. A damage aura 1 like the one on (iirc) the infernal girillon is a good example of this mechanic, although that guy is pretyt nasty.

Either way, the idea is to make standing toe to to at least a little painful for a tank. OTOH, no-attack effects that for instance, daze or prone or even slow can be very frustrating to a lot of players- damage is a nice, generic option.

 

[Gardukk]

Just out of curiosity, what sources are you drawing your monsters from?

Content from the Monster Manual 1 (And to a lesser extent, 2) and other materials released around the same time is rather sub-par. Most of the monsters have heaps of hit points, have really high defenses, don't do a whole lot of damage and generally stand around not doing much of anything until they die.

More recent content like from Monster Manual 3 and Monster Vault is quite a bit better - Monsters have lower HP but do more damage, along with using more interesting abilities, which results in combat that not only is more visceral and exciting, but ends quicker so that you have less time spent grinding down monsters with your At-Wills.

 

[Iron Sky]

*Use minions to aid-another against the tanks instead of attacking; only need to hit AC 10+1/2 their level to give the "real" monsters +2 to hit.
*Phasing/invisible/stealthed lurkers that ambush the ranged attackers - not all the time, but enough to make them worry.
*Fights where the enemies are coming from 2+ all directions so the PCs can't make a single shield wall to keep them from the ranged guys.
*Previously mentioned Skirmishers that bypass the front line.
*Brutes with push powers that knock the melee characters back.
*Varied terrain, including different elevations. Having a wall that gives enemy ranged attackers total cover but that the melee characters can get around gives them pretty good incentive.
*Dynamic combats, a bridge that's collapsing slowly as the PCs try to fight their way off of it, a building with fires that spread, falling rocks/stalactites/chandeliers, walls that explode out to reveal new enemies 2-3 rounds into the fight, enemies that arrive in waves, statues start animating and attacking anything nearby
*Objectives, an NPC has to survive/escape, a specific enemy has to be brought down before he gets away, a crystal focus must be destroyed within 5 rounds or else, a side of the map that no enemies can cross, a wall that must be held for x rounds, etc.
*Elites or solos that grab and throw PCs at each other can be fun, or solo skirmishers with lots of movement powers so they can suddenly be back attacking the ranged guys.
*Attacks that target NADs on the defenders since their ACs are probably huge.
*Previously mentioned MM3 monster design.

Those should all help.

 

[mudlock]

These spectral bad guys had a room full of traps and favorable terrain, but when their enemies kicked their door in, instead of hiding and waiting for them to walk into the terrain and set off the traps, they decided to jump out in the open and get blasted?

 

[Kzach]

I think a lot falls on the shoulders of the DM to be a tactical genius. Some people just aren't up to the task. That's not a criticism, it's simply an observation. I suck at Chess. I have no patience for it. And yet in 4e I can out-think and outmanoeuvre any player or DM. And I think the fundamental difference between the two is imagination.

So that would be my recommendation. Don't think of 4e as a tactical miniature's wargame. Chess is boring. Think of it as a tactical miniature game of the imagination. Make combats exciting by doing daring and exciting things. Have your orcs swing in on chandeliers, flip tables for cover, throw burning pitch at the PC's starting a tavern fire, have them gang up on ranged forcing your defenders and healers to scurry to save their comrades, provoke attacks of opportunity if it will put your monsters in a better position or attack the real threat, use logic to dictate enemy morale, etc.

Then there's also combat conversation. I try and spice up combats between hated enemies with a bit of trash-talk. Religious zealots don't just cast their at-will powers, they call down the wrath of their dark god upon the heathens. Monsters with sound effects are always fun too.

Essentially, try not to focus so much on the numbers in front of you and more on the game that everyone is playing in their heads.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=51740]Recidivism[/MENTION]
That's some great adive you've gotten so far

I'll add that if your players have goals in combat besides "kill all monsters" you will find them moving a lot more across the battlefield and changing up their tactics. Weem wrote up a good article about this: theWeem.com | RPG Fan and Graphics Guy

For example, you might build goals into your scenarios to draw the rogue, ranger, and psion off the backline.

The specters have animated ropes to hang the library's custodians off the edge of the 2nd level galley - the PCs could *really* use the info the custodian's have, and so the best climber/knot-tier (the ranger or rogue) has a reason to expose himself. Delay too long and the custodians die.

The psychic energy of the room might be momentarily disorienting for the psion but also allows him to shift his consciousness to different areas of the library or sense past events fueling ghosts. Killing the ghosts won't permanently get rid of them, it just delays their haunting for a while after which they'll return. If the psion is interested in making the library safe or using it later, then he might need to consult some books/murals and/or visit some rooms during the fight.

 

[Trit One-Ear]

All of the above advice seems really excellent to me. One thing no one's touched on so far though is the Surprise Bolts. I don't have my books on me atm, but if I remember right a rogue I used to DM for tried to use those for a while, before I pointed out a rather high cost per bolt.

Don't know if you're the kind of DM who makes players keep track of their gold strictly (I'm rather lax till it's something important) but check the price of those bolts. Might be a good way/excuse to make your rogue worry about cover and stealth (the way I think a rogue should be played ).