Anyone else not feel "the grind"

[the Jester]

I've felt the grind a little bit, but not too much. Still, it's enough that it makes me think that I want to throw a little bit of a hp reduction at the bad guys, and maybe bump their damage- I sometimes don't feel like the bad guys are dishing out enough damage to be threatening.

 

[Rel]

This hasn't been a problem for us either. We've had fights that were kinda long (1.5 hours) but they were never boring. I've found that bad guys with teeth (i.e. ones higher level than the party that can really challenge them) combined with interesting terrain combined with our Power Stunt house rule (so that the PC's can do something beyond their normal powers once in a while) means that the combats are always fun and exciting.

 

[Mesh Hong]

I sometimes don't feel like the bad guys are dishing out enough damage to be threatening.

Now that is a completely different discussion, but probably one worth having.

 

[Bagpuss]

Played through to level 10, only felt "the grind" once and that was the final encounter in H1 KotS. We went into it without our daily powers and the villains managed to spend much of their time in a healing circle, so we could only chip away at them.

 

[chaotix42]

From 1st to 13th I can count the amount of grinds on both hands, and those encounters were ones where I pretty much just threw monsters at the PCs without anything else interesting going on. After several rounds the monsters weren't capable of surprising the PCs so things got predictable.

However, just because things are predictable doesn't mean they're instantly boring. Some of the best encounters I've ran have been composed of mostly brutes and a few skirmishers on a simple battlefield, like ogres and trolls amongst large tree stumps. With brutes the PCs can rather easily hit them, and since they do good damage they can still be pretty threatening. Plus, when the PCs see a bunch of large minis hit the table they're like "Oh !"

Pretty much the biggest grind factor I've experienced is when the PC's dice go cold. Add in a few soldiers and it only gets worse. For instance the PCs fought some rakshasas and cyclopses last week, and eventually the two defenders were going up against two rakshasa soldiers. They kept missing while the rakshasas kept hitting - they get to roll 2d20 and take the highest for their basic attack, plus mark the target as well as pounce on the target as an immediate reaction if they shift. This kept the defenders in one spot, missing round after round while the rest of the PCs chased down the artillery monsters. If they had called back the rogue & wizard they probably could have finished off the soldiers sooner, but the PCs stuck to their guns and ground it out. In this situation they probably contributed to the grind more than anything else!

 

[keterys]

It depends a lot on party - how damaging the party designs itself to be, whether they're good at actually focusing fire, etc. Then it depends next on the encounter - the most grind dangerous encounters are solos and elites whose defenses and/or hp are extremely high but without abilities that let them make things interesting. If the players or monsters are able to act extremely defensive (for example, defending a single access bottleneck or retreating to a defensible location and refusing to otherwise engage) that further increases things.

 

[Beckett]

Played through to level 10, only felt "the grind" once and that was the final encounter in H1 KotS. We went into it without our daily powers and the villains managed to spend much of their time in a healing circle, so we could only chip away at them.

This- some of the dailies got used upstairs, others just missed the bad guy's high defenses. End of Thunderspire also went long, as most of the room had an effect that would daze the PCs, and couldn't help but hit their Will defense.

A few fights have gone way long as dice go bad- when no one rolls above an 8 in two rounds, that's going to lengthen things. But most fights we have enough fun that the time spent is enjoyable.

We've had five-man groups, with either defender or striker doubled, which seems to keep party damage high.

 

[James McMurray]

We've played at all three tiers, and the only times the grind was noticable and repetitive was at epic. Lower tiers can have long fights, but the damage output to monster hp ratio seems much better. It also helps that things like at-will stuns, dominations, and insubstantial creatures that can weaken don't pop up as often as they can at epic levels.

 

[Lauberfen]

I've rarely felt it, although I have met this beast and it's not nice.

I've played/DMed through a total of 17 levels, up to level 8.

Thinking about it, I haven't played any games where it's been a grind and boring. I've played long and tactically difficult battles. I've rarely been bored because of just using at wills.

I've played fights which were so tough that they wern't much fun- vs a brass warden in thunderspire, for example, and vs dragonshields way back at first level (they just shift away, so you rarely get to use a power on them, only charge). Also vs a young black dragon at 3rd level. but we died then, so that might have been why.

I've also played whole-evening encounters which have been very tough, but awesome, such as the end of KOTS, where we were out of powers and healing and I spent a long time fighting very bloodied, including a final 5 rounds at 3 HP (that was a conflict between character and sense, and character won- being a paladin can hurt!).

I think that a party without striking power is more at risk of grinding. Monsters that can make a grind tend to have very high defences, or high HP compared to damage output, or negate the players abilities, or have unavoidable damage resistance.

 

[thadrine]

We get through 2-3 fights a night of playing (usually about 3 hours) depending on how much chatting we do.

We have had a couple of long fights, but nothing out of place. If you pick L+3 soldiers battles last longer, if you pick Brutes they are shorter. It isn't a big thing. My Pcs dish out enough damage to drop a brute of their own level in a round or a round and a half (dpending on how many red powers they use).

Does anyone else just not feel the grind?

You have 2-3 fights a night?!

My god that sounds boring, and like a "Grind" to me. It is typical for me to have 1 about every other session.