Would this solve the "grind" issue?

[Shazman]

I think KarinsDad is trying to say that if you need a computer program to track conditions, then conditions are too complex and numerous and should be simpler. After a certain point, tracking all this stuff starts to feel more like work than a game.

 

[Herschel]

It tells me 4E has better e-tools than 3E did.

 

[KarinsDad]

Regarding buffing in 3.x, I am currently playing in a level 17 party, and planning before a big encounter can easily take 1-2 hours with the 5-10 buffs each character wants/gets.

I can easily see where this could happen, but on the other hand, I have to question why the spell caster players don't have the bread and butter buff spells prepared days / weeks out of game in advance.

Morning spells Cleric. Fighter gets x and y, Rogue gets z, etc.
Morning spells Wizard. Fighter gets q and r, Rogue gets s, etc.

Average pre-encounter Cleric. Fighter gets a and b, Rogue gets c, everyone gets Mass d, etc.
Average pre-encounter Wizard. Fighter gets h, Rogue gets j and k, everyone gets Mass f, etc.

Major pre-encounter Cleric. Fighter gets a, b, c, and d, Rogue gets a and c, everyone gets Mass e, etc.
Major pre-encounter Wizard. Fighter gets m, n, o, and p, Rogue gets a and c, everyone gets Mass e, etc.

Everyone marks it on their sheets. There might be a few minutes of discussion as to whether we should put xyz on the Cleric and the Rogue or not. There might even be a few modifications where some spells that are normally cast are not and some others are added.

But a 1 to 2 hour discussion before a major encounter about every piddly little spell that is going to be cast??? That seems excessively unorganized.


In fact, PC sheets could be printed out with little sections for differences in AC, to hits, saves, etc. for 3 or 4 common sets of spells cast. Fred, you are using the Buff the Fighter #2 Section on your sheet with the addition of a Greater Mage Armor spell for the incorporeal undead.


To me, this sounds like your group is organized in combat for 4E more than you are for out of combat for 3.5. Many people here played 3E/3.5 for 8 years and some of us did not waste this kind of time prepping. It also became a lot better once 3.5 came out and some buff spells like Bull's Strength went from D4+1 buff to +4 buff as well. No dice rolls needed.

I do remember long prep happening in higher level pick up games, even back in 1E and 2E days, but not in campaigns. We've always organized this stuff out of game once it became more than a few spells pre-encounter.

 

[keterys]

The 4E level 18 game I'm in goes about 3-4 times faster than the similar 3e games, and involves tracking about 1/10th the amount of stuff, or less. As the main buffer in one 3e game I remember keeping a chart for the group of the 17-30 buffs on people at the tail end of the campaign. Which was totally necessary, for resolving things like dispel magics.

Or the 12 minute Tower adventure, where every round of a big wizard's tower got tracked so that minute/level buffs could last the entire adventure. That was something.

Low level 3e is usually faster than 4e, though, which is an advantage in its favor. Also one of those reasons people like "E6".

So a lot of it depends on what you're looking for. If you have trouble dealing with conditions in your 4e group, I'd suggest using less things that inflict conditions. People often overlook damage for excessive control anyways, so having a group contract to focus less on bogging the game down and more on resolving it quickly is a good thing.

 

[Shazman]

That seems a little excessive in the buffing department. Of course, mage armor or greater magic weapon in the morning are no-brainers. I can also see throwing up deathward if you think you will encounter level-draining undead or death effects and casting bull's strength on the fighter before a combat, but 1-2 hours of picking spells and adding up the modifiers? Either the DM is throwing excessively difficult encounters at you or you guys like buffing way too much. It sort of becomes an arms race against the DM at that point. I guess that's why Pathfinder has put a 3 spell limit per character on buffs.

 

[MichaelSomething]

That seems a little excessive in the buffing department. Of course, mage armor or greater magic weapon in the morning are no-brainers. I can also see throwing up deathward if you think you will encounter level-draining undead or death effects and casting bull's strength on the fighter before a combat, but 1-2 hours of picking spells and adding up the modifiers? Either the DM is throwing excessively difficult encounters at you or you guys like buffing way too much. It sort of becomes an arms race against the DM at that point. I guess that's why Pathfinder has put a 3 spell limit per character on buffs.

Well I assume it only occurs during high level play when there are 10+ buffs to go around. It doesn't help that many written adventures operate under the assumption to pre-buff if possible.

 

[Obryn]

I think KarinsDad is trying to say that if you need a computer program to track conditions, then conditions are too complex and numerous and should be simpler. After a certain point, tracking all this stuff starts to feel more like work than a game.

When did I say I needed a computer program to track conditions?

-O

 

[KarinsDad]

When did I say I needed a computer program to track conditions?

You didn't.

But you did say that it made it easier. I'm not quite sure what "easier" means, but I assume it means faster and more efficiently.

If it is faster and more efficient (realizing that it does indeed take time to select conditions and durations and targets and such on a computer), this implies that the original paper and pencil and homemade token system (whatever that may be) is slower and less efficient.

I also don't quite understand how a computer helps in the process of constantly adding and removing tokens on miniatures so that the players know what is going on. Do you still do that?

 

[Mallus]

My group just hit Paragon level and we haven't had any problem w/The Grind. Our secret? Well... it's not very secret.

Be mindful of your group's combat ability, particularly their potential damage output. At 10th level the group I was running for could take out 200-300 HP foes in 3 rounds (sometimes less) on a good day. On a bad they, some of them have trouble hitting the ground after being thrown off a cliff...

Don't select opponents with low damage output and a great big sack of hit points. They're certainly out there and should probably be revised out of the system.

Remember that harder-hitting foes are usually better than harder-to-hit ones. And more opponents are almost always better than fewer with great gobs of hit points.

By mindful of the opponents AC's. In general, really hard-to-hit foes should have relatively few HP (and nice condition-imposing attacks are a plus). For (an extreme) example, I used a few 16th-level Minions in a big fight against a 10th-level party. They were the hardest thing to hit on the field, but could hit easily and impose Daze... they made an interesting tactical consideration.

It's all a question of picking the right tools from the tool box. The grind is largely the result of picking the wrong opponents for a given group. The 4e toolbox has quite a few interesting monster choices --so and a few fairly bad ones-- there's no need to select opponents that invite The Grind.

 

[Felon]

I understand that things can be done to mitigate grind in 4E, but I don't see how it can be eliminated. When you are fighting a lot of monsters, can expect to hit them only about 50% of the time (sometimes less) and do less than a quarter of their starting hit points in damage even on a good hit, it is going to take a lot of time to get through their hit points.

If there's any distinction I would draw betwen 3e and 4e combat is that in 3e you really took big damage bombs for granted--like a barbarian critting while power-attacking with a two-handed weapon. In 4e, dailies are supposed to be the big bombs, but a lot of them just add one more die than an encounter power.

IMO it is very unfortunate that the designers opted to use the at-will/encounter/daily setup rather than a robust system that would allow players to build up to powerful attacks throughout the battle. The way 4e works, combat is front-loaded, with players trying to unload their best attacks as quickly as possible, and then when that's all gone they start slap-fighting with at-wills (meanwhile, monsters are recharging their good attacks, or throwing around dazes at-will). It's anticlimactic to open with your best moves and then work your way down to the less impressive stuff. It's like a toy whose rubber band is winding down.

I thought the tactical feats we got in some of WotC's later 3e products were great in concept. They gave a player ways to build up to big finishes. Likewise, Mike Mearls' Iron Heroes classes revolved mainly around building up and then expending token pools. But they scrapped a "power-up combo" approach for something more facile and unconditional.