Why do 4e combats grind?

[wedgeski]

the problem with this is monsters running away tends to increase the combat rounds for me. the PC's aren't about to let them go and alert others, and the lack of ranged powers for the fighter (and the limited range of most of the cleric's powers) mean the DPS goes down.

Can we replace 'DPS' with 'DPR' in future discussions please? 'Damage Per Second' really has no meaning in D&D, and my irrational nit-pick-o-meter is twitching.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Can we replace 'DPS' with 'DPR' in future discussions please? 'Damage Per Second' really has no meaning in D&D, and my irrational nit-pick-o-meter is twitching.

For some reason, members of my group often refer to "Damage per Ten Seconds". I suspect that must have been some other game they played (probably computer game)

 

[wedgeski]

For some reason, members of my group often refer to "Damage per Ten Seconds". I suspect that must have been some other game they played (probably computer game)

For good or ill, 'Damage Per Second' is the de-facto measure of all kinds of things in modern MMO's, WoW being the one I play and know about.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

For good or ill, 'Damage Per Second' is the de-facto measure of all kinds of things in modern MMO's, WoW being the one I play and know about.

Yes, but what game did have damage per ten seconds? Where would this make sense?

Torg would fit with its 10 second rounds, but measuring damage in Torg... doesn't work that way.

 

[Jhaelen]

I'm not sure why the focus here seems to be on the number of rounds. IME the grind I experienced was directly related to the passage of real time not rounds.

But that's not relevant to 'grind' (at least how I understand the term). E.g. in 3E I've had combats that took 4+ hours. But we never felt it was a 'grind'. These 4 hours were intense and full of meaningful, tactical decisions, often started with a feeling of despair and slowly turned around into victory. When the combat was over, we'd look at the clock and say 'Wow, I cannot believe this combat took 4 hours!'. That's the opposite of 'grind'.

'Grind' is about perceived time and lack of interesting choices. It's 'mashing buttons' in a brute-force approach to slowly cut away chips from a mountain.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Why do 4e combats grind?

Off the top of my head, I can think of a few reasons.

1) Players are very durable, Monsters are numerous. Players wont generally die in the first round, and it is not difficult to get them back on their feet if there is a leader in the party. Because players only get one attack per round, it can take a while to clear out minions of the party does not have a Wizard (at the time of this posting, the only PC controller class). Non minion monsters will generally last much longer than previous editions.

2) Encounter / Dailies vs the 5 battle Adventuring day. Players expect that rolling out the big guns can end a fight fast. Dailies may end it a bit faster, but they wont cut the fight in half. And the difficulty of monsters assumes that players break out the per encounter stuff every encounter. If the players are hoarding dailies, or they already burned them, they only have Encounter powers to fall back on.

3) Your dice hate you: If your selection of powers require you to hit to get much benefit, and you did not hyper optimize your character, its very easy to end up wasting encounters or even dailies.

4) Boring battlefields: If your used to having battles on terrain that plays no tactical role beyond a closed door, you will have issues with larger fights getting boring once the players have used up their encounter powers.

It will take a while for DM's to get used to planning out fights that hit the sweet spot for duration and difficulty.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[LostSoul]

Some of the decisions I make as DM contribute to the lack of grind in my game.

1. I tend to have NPCs bunch up for protection until they see the amount of area attacks the PCs have. I don't know how often I do it, but I know the PCs unload a lot of area attacks. I think it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

2. I will have monsters who are marked by the Fighter shift away, getting attacked. I figure that the monster doesn't know about that ability and that it's a lame ability to have if it never gets used.

3. I don't avoid damage. I want to deal as much damage as quickly as possible, so I'll have my bad guys run into things like the Armour of Agythys and smash the Warlock for a couple of rounds until the damage adds up.

4. I like it when the players try out neat tricks so I try to reward them.

5. My first priority in combat is to have the rounds go by fast. I won't stop to think what the monster's plans are going to be, I just do whatever seems best at the time. I could stop and think, but that would slow things down and I don't want that.

My basic thought on combat is that most fights are there to drain healing surges. In any encounter the monsters are going to lose, but through attrition I might be able to kill them later on. I like this, it raises tension throughout the session as the PCs get into trouble, then have a nailbiting combat, then try to get back to safety again.


The PCs in my game all have decent builds so that helps, and the players are pretty good (at least better than me!) tactically.


For people who have combats that grind, what things do you do differently or the same as I do?

 

[IanArgent]

Beyond this, I find that combat grind occurs when there are no more meaningful choices to be made. As soon as that happens, the whole thing settles into a slog. Once the PCs run out of encounter and daily powers (or expend all the daily powers they're willing to use on this fight), the chances of grind go way up; it is then incumbent on the DM to either end the fight quickly - e.g., the monsters run away - or ensure that there continue to be meaningful choices after the ones built into the system have been exhausted.

Player strategy is a big part of this. 4E is clearly built on the assumption that people will look for the best possible moment to use their encounter and daily powers, even if that means using at-wills for a couple of rounds at the start of the fight. That stretches out the span of time during which there are meaningful choices to be made.

However, a lot of players burn all their encounter powers right away and then have nothing left to do for the rest of the battle. IMO, this is a failure of game design. Tactical mistakes should be punished with defeat, not boredom.

I'm coming to the conclusion that it was a mistake for WotC not to include some way of recharging encounter powers during a fight. IMO, that would do a lot to prevent grinding. (Maybe one standard action to recharge one encounter power?) Or else have some sort of power-up mechanic that keeps people from "going nova" with their encounter powers.

A mistake they appear to be trying to rectify - see Dragon 366 and Sacrifice to Caiphon (expend a certain amount of HP beased on power level to recharged a power that missed cleanly). There are some balance issues associated with it (I dont' have the thread to hand on the subject).

I find encounter powers to be problematic right now - they have neither the repeatability on a miss that at-wills do, nor the effect ona miss that most dailies do.

 

[Odysseus]

4) Boring battlefields: If your used to having battles on terrain that plays no tactical role beyond a closed door, you will have issues with larger fights getting boring once the players have used up their encounter powers.

END COMMUNICATION

4E combat is very movement orientated. So by not having terrain objects (pits etc) to push people into your combat options become more limited and therefore grindier.

But that's not relevant to 'grind' (at least how I understand the term). E.g. in 3E I've had combats that took 4+ hours. But we never felt it was a 'grind'. These 4 hours were intense and full of meaningful, tactical decisions, often started with a feeling of despair and slowly turned around into victory. When the combat was over, we'd look at the clock and say 'Wow, I cannot believe this combat took 4 hours!'. That's the opposite of 'grind'.

'Grind' is about perceived time and lack of interesting choices. It's 'mashing buttons' in a brute-force approach to slowly cut away chips from a mountain.

Agreed. Although from my groups point of view. I get more grind as a DM than they do as players.

A mistake they appear to be trying to rectify - see Dragon 366 and Sacrifice to Caiphon (expend a certain amount of HP beased on power level to recharged a power that missed cleanly). There are some balance issues associated with it (I dont' have the thread to hand on the subject).

I find encounter powers to be problematic right now - they have neither the repeatability on a miss that at-wills do, nor the effect ona miss that most dailies do.

I've been giving my players the option of using an action point to recharge encounter powers. But I've been thinking about some sort of second wind type action to recharge encounter powers.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Yeah, that can be a problem. Of course, the monsters could also surrender (depending on the monsters in question).

Yeah they can do that, but then you have the 'what do we do with 3 kobolds in the dungeon' question? Well my guys just question and kill! (or tie up and leave, same thing). Not very heroic (although they are all unaligned) and disrupts the feel of the adventure. And it is not practical, and interrupts the flow of the adventure, for them to hand them into custody or whatever.