Anyone else not feel "the grind"

[Nytmare]

Hold me back. 3 whooping choices.

Chess is the most boring game ever.

 

[CubeKnight]

Quick look at my level 1 Dragonborn Paladin's power cards (courtesy of the Char Builder):

At-will:

• Divine Challenge
• Valiant Strike
• Holy Strike

Encounter:

• Dragon Breath
• Channel Divinity: Divine Mettle, Divine Strength
• Piercing Smite
• Divine Bolts (Invoker Multiclass)
• Second Wind

Daily:

• Lay on Hands (3/day)
• Paladin's Judgement

So I can go at least 5 rounds each encounter using both Standard and Minor powers without repeating. And that's ignoring Dailies. Also, given that I'm a Str/Wis Paladin, more than once I've had to grant a saving throw or stabilize dying allies.

 

[Nail]

FWIW, my genesai Warlord 4 has SEVEN Encounter Powers:

• Earthshock (racial)
• Scorching Burst (multi-wiz)
• Second Wind (duh)
• Inspiring Word....twice!
• Warlord's Favor (attack 1)
• Knight's Move (utility 2)
• Follow Me In (attack 3)

Not to mention the action point (once per 2 encounters). Then add in a Daily class power and two magic item daily powers....I often go most of a combat without ever using an At-Will!

Karinsdad, I appreciate your situation, but I have to say: there's tons of options in combat (if you build your PC right, and your DM is good).

 

[keterys]

Many skills are nearly non-existent. As an example, how many people actually try Intimidate in combat? Disarm Trap? Detect Magic?

Just so I'm clear... is this somehow worse in 4e than star wars or 3e?

What good is Bullrushing a foe 90+% of the time? Sure, if he is standing next to a pit or cliff or hazard, but how often does that really happen?

Are you DMing? Cause it could certainly happen more often. That said, it can happen a lot more than you'd expect - the fight my group was in last session had people jumping up and getting knocked off bookshelves, for instance.

The Fighter cannot charge foe #2 without giving an Opportunity Attack to foe #1 that he is engaged with already.

Shift plus Charge actually usually solves that. In addition... taking OAs really is okay.

If a PC is in melee, is he really going to try to shift away and then swing away on a rope? And even if he does, he did not get an attack that round and how many rounds is he going to do this?

Why swing away on the rope instead of swinging into an attack? I mean, Robin Hood it up... shift away, rope swing into someone, or dropping the chandelier on someone, etc.

It's one thing to list the 12 things a PC can do. It's another to realize that based on the situation (including which powers have already been used), that there really are only 2 or 3 or maybe 4 good choices available at any given moment in time.

And, again, this isn't that much different in most systems. You actually really don't want to have more than a handful of good options at any time to avoid paralyzing people and slowing down the game.

How often is Turn Undead really applicable?

Depends on the campaign, but I mostly agree with you here. It's more of a rare thing, not an expected standard.

Here's a challenge for you. List the actions that the PCs do in your next 3 encounters. Let's analyze them for percentages of At Wills, Encounters, Dailies, skills, maneuvers, etc. Don't tell the players that you are doing this so as to not skew the results.

Part of it may also depend on the length of your combats... I mean, I didn't use any ability more than once in the previous two combats... and I finished with an encounter left in the last one, with my 5th level character (daily, encounterx2, at-willx2 in the first, daily, encounterx1, at-willx2 in the second)

Edit: Actually, I did use Eldritch Blast twice in the first combat, but the first time was as an opportunity attack (Reaper's Touch) so I didn't think of it at first. I'm not sure if that counts or not for your standard.

 

[Rel]

Here's a challenge for you. List the actions that the PCs do in your next 3 encounters. Let's analyze them for percentages of At Wills, Encounters, Dailies, skills, maneuvers, etc. Don't tell the players that you are doing this so as to not skew the results.

KD, if you want to click on the link in my .sig and read my Commentary thread about my 4e campaign then you may get the sort of information you are looking for. However I've got a lot of stuff to juggle as a GM during a fight and I'm not going to take the time to write down every power that every PC does. If you choose not to believe me that's fine.

 

[Akaiku]

Tactically speaking, why are people jumping up on bookcases and swinging from chandeliers? Just cause it's cool? That is the problem I tend to run across. Showy tends to be horrible when you screw up and a marginal at best advantage if you don't.

How do you encourage people to be over the top instead of just dressing up that they attack with general at will #2 and describing it in various different ways.

 

[Parlan]

Tactically speaking, why are people jumping up on bookcases and swinging from chandeliers? Just cause it's cool? That is the problem I tend to run across. Showy tends to be horrible when you screw up and a marginal at best advantage if you don't.

How do you encourage people to be over the top instead of just dressing up that they attack with general at will #2 and describing it in various different ways.

Place terrain in the room and it'll happen naturally.

Rogue: I want to flank the orc with the Ftr.
DM: As you can see, the orc is standing in front of a bed. So you'd have to jump up on that to get in position.
Rogue: I'm trained in Acrobatics. Can I do a kewl handspring off the floor to flip up into position?
DM: Sure, just roll a 15 plus.


Have the orc archers stand with their backs to a lava pit to invite a Bull Rush. [Maybe add an extra orc to compensate for the advantage given the PCs]

Have the fight start on a staircase down into a large room. Soldiers try to hold the PCs at the stairs while Artillery pounds them. The PCs can slug it out toe to toe, or the more nimble players can climb/jump down or swing on a convenient chandelier to either get behind the Soldiers or move to engage the Artillery.

 

[Pale Jackal]

Tactically speaking, why are people jumping up on bookcases and swinging from chandeliers? Just cause it's cool? That is the problem I tend to run across. Showy tends to be horrible when you screw up and a marginal at best advantage if you don't.

How do you encourage people to be over the top instead of just dressing up that they attack with general at will #2 and describing it in various different ways.

Bonuses? Extra damage? Why did the player playing a Dragonborn Sorcerer spend his Encounter power "Thunderslam" to try and knock over a column onto the Blackscale Bruiser? Well, partially because he's clearly into using the environment, but also because it did lots of damage. If I just said "Roll your Thunderslam damage now," then that wouldn't be much of an incentive.

One does have to worry about stupid stuff like "the bag of rats" but if it's all environmentally dependent, then the DM has absolute control when the bonus can or cannot come into play. If nothing else, treat it like Feng Shui, the cooler your description, the better your bonus. If there's a cost to the action, make sure it pays off, and make sure that the payoff is favorable to the investment involved.

An extra 5 or 10 damage (or more, as they level and depending on actions invested in setting up the move) is worth the cool factor in your game. I suppose one thing to avoid is having the investment be too great, at which point success or failure can really swing the battle... which is also cool, in its own way, but may discourage investment, since such behavior is too risky.

But investing a standard action to prepare and then a standard action to execute to get a 25% increase in damage (compared to the average of two round's attacks), that seems like a good deal! If they keep re-using the tactic because the environment allows it (in some cases it won't), then have diminishing returns. It's kind of the rationale behind some Encounter abilities, "Oh no, he's not falling for THAT again!"

 

[KarinsDad]

FWIW, my genesai Warlord 4 has SEVEN Encounter Powers:

• Earthshock (racial)
• Scorching Burst (multi-wiz)
• Second Wind (duh)
• Inspiring Word....twice!
• Warlord's Favor (attack 1)
• Knight's Move (utility 2)
• Follow Me In (attack 3)

Not to mention the action point (once per 2 encounters). Then add in a Daily class power and two magic item daily powers....I often go most of a combat without ever using an At-Will!

Do you? Really? Could you do me a favor and write down what powers you do use for your next 4 or 5 encounters?


Obviously, you have a fairly fined tuned PC. Let's examine it:

Situational powers (i.e. not really a choice unless the situation comes up):

Earthshock (a Warlord is not a defender, so should not have multiple foes around him too often, I suspect that this power does not occur early in encounters and is not typically an option then)

Second Wind (not used if not needed, almost never used early in an encounter)

Inspiring Word (not only situational, but nearly must use in the situations where it is called for, fellow players might get upset if the player does NOT use these, so is it really much of an option?)


True Options powers (i.e. can be used on almost any round):

Scorching Burst (borderline, used a feat to get an extra power, but it is often saved for getting multiple foes)

Warlord's Favor

Follow Me In (borderline, there are lots of times where the Warlord would not necessarily want to use this power like when there are no PCs that need a speed boost or are in a good point in the encounter to charge)

Knight's Move


The point is that you have seven encounter powers. But, how many Standard Action Encounter attacks do you have? 4. If the encounter goes beyond 4 rounds, you are more or less (unless you do a lot of Charges or something) forced to rely on using your At Will powers or using Daily powers.


So, the interesting question becomes: In a 5 encounter day, how many standard actions are At Wills, Encounters, Dailies, or some other At Will (like a Charge MBA) for your PC?

 

[keterys]

People were jumping up on bookcases, cause there were guys with bows on bookcases.

Much like an adventure I made there are goblins on chandeliers hurling fire down at the group.

If you build the playground, they'll use it.