The Sandbox And The Grind

[CapnZapp]

Right, the issue is just that some people believe very strongly that you don't "punish" the PCs in a sandbox game with an "exciting" fight because they wandered into dangerous territory.

You do one of two things:

1. If you are a nice DM, you give them the opportunity to run the heck away. If you do this, you will not need to worry about frustrating grinds.

2. If you are not a nice DM, you kill the characters with an overpowered fight they cannot win, thereby teaching them a lesson in planning ahead and anticipating dangers, so that their next characters won't blunder into these situations.

In short, either version of sandbox theory tells you that you don't actually have a problem. One theory involves running away from unpleasant fights, the other involves embracing them as a stick in a carrot/stick combination.

Your issue seems to be that you want to make sure that there are areas that are more or less powerful, but you don't actually want to pick either of those two options. In that case, you should go with Umbran's idea and just adjust the difficulty of the regions on the fly. Some people do not view that as a true sandbox, but it does provide open ended gaming and a satisfying experience.

Luckily I stayed around to nip this one right in the bud: As I said straight off in my initial posts:

Our goal here is to generate grind-less encounters that are out of the adventurer's reach - without resorting to what many 4E defendants always propose here, namely not staging the fight at all.

If all you got to say is "not fighting is the solution" then frankly, why post at all? Trying to reduce the problem I want to discuss to either "run away" or "you're all dead" is borderline insulting. Please stop it Cadfan.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Much as I strongly dislike 4e for many other reasons, I fail to see anything about it that makes it singularly unsuitable for 'sandboxing'.

That said. . . as for the apparent 'grind', didn't someone post a solution recently, in the general forum (i.e., right here) rather than one of the 4e forums, even? Something like, halve all HPs, or set them at 75%, and up damage by a corresponding amount. Or was that only for solos? Hrm, I don't recall precisely, sorry.

 

[nightwyrm]

Remember folks; this isn't the "what is a sandbox?" thread.

This is the "when my players stumble into high-level territory, how do I 'punish' them with a hard exciting fight and not 'reward' them with a frustrating grindy fight?" thread.

And the "Given the prodigious amounts of hp, surges and other stuff 4E PCs and NPCs possess, is the above even possible?" thread.

And the "If it isn't, what corrective action - like the two suggestions floated in post #2 - do I as the DM need to take?" thread!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you essentially asking for how to make a fight hard without making it grindy? Bringing up the sandbox seemed to have confused the issue.

Well, how do you define a hard fight? Or how do you show to the PCs that your monsters are "hard"? You usually have two mechanical choices beyond describing your monsters as "difficult-looking". You can either give your monsters good attacking ability and/or give them good defensive ability. The first option scares the players more, but may give the PCs less time to respond after knowing they're outmatched. The second option makes it clear to the PCs that they are not having a serious effect on the monster, but may lead to grind if the PCs are determined to stay and fight it out. So, grind is actually an indicator of a difficult fight. It's either that or "rocket-tag" and "splat".

If you basically want "hard" to be skewed towards monster having powerful offensive ability, you can either choose monsters that have a high attack to defense ratio (much like what the grind article suggested) or just adjust the monster to give them less hp/defenses and let them do more damage.

 

[Cadfan]

If all you got to say is "not fighting is the solution" then frankly, why post at all? Trying to reduce the problem I want to discuss to either "run away" or "you're all dead" is borderline insulting. Please stop it Cadfan.

What the heck?

I have no idea what you even want at this point.

You have an encounter that isn't fun.

You want a solution.

But you don't want to change the encounter.

And you don't want to not have the encounter.

And you don't want to provide some way to bypass the encounter, sneak past it, or creatively avoid combat.

Dude, what's left?

Free XP to anyone who can think up a solution to CappnZapp's problem that he hasn't ruled unacceptable. I think he's categorically forbidden every possible solution.

 

[RefinedBean]

Much as I strongly dislike 4e for many other reasons, I fail to see anything about it that makes it singularly unsuitable for 'sandboxing'.

Seconded. Regardless of edition, if the PCs challenge something insanely difficult for them, they'll have to be as creative and cunning as all heck to get themselves out of the situation.

The whole grind thing, sure, that's an issue. But honestly, that's just plenty of rounds where the DM can be thinking up more ways to mess with the party for being so foolhardy.

 

[darjr]

I think that this is a bit of a mountain out of a mole hill.

I go back to the first adventure I'd ever run and the advice therein, arguably one of the defining examples of sandbox play, "The Keep on the Borderlands".

"It is the job of the DM to see that the situations and characters balance."

I like the PC's being able to go anywhere that meets their fancy.

I like the world to be a place to discover and explore.

I like the world to have things and places that can and will eat the PC's for lunch.

Doing it with 4e, if I wanted to avoid 'grind space', I'd have places that are the way they are, but with the caveat that they are dynamic, under my control, and have many ways to play or overcome or experience. Id use that flexibility to create a good game for the players at hand, even if that meant killing their PC's.

I'd do it that way no matter what edition, and I'd be following some old and good advice.

 

[LostSoul]

How about terrain effects that fit the gameworld, something that can be used by either side.

Example:

In the level 17 mountains of the Frost Giant Jarl:

Avalanche: lvl 17 hazard

In the mountain domains of the Frost Giant Jarl, avalanches are common. Each round, roll 1d6; on a 1, snow crashes down the mountainside for 1d6 rounds. The avalanche is 10 squares long and extends to the bottom of the mountain. Any character who enters the affected area is subject to an attack: +20 vs Fort, 4d10+7 damage, prone and push 5; Miss: half damage. Characters who start their turn in the affected area take no damage but are still knocked prone and pushed on a hit.

Roll a check for avalanches each time a power with the Thunder keyword is used. If an appropriate power is used with the idea of creating an avalanche, have the character make an attack (+4 if using a Thunder power) vs DC 22; on a hit, the character creates the avalanche in the intended area, on a miss, the area of the avalanche is determined randomly by the DM.

Ice Bridge: lvl 17 lurker (trap)
Trap: This trap consists of 10 contiguous squares. Ice has formed a bridge over a canyon, but it is weak and will not support weight.
Perception:
DC 28: The character hears ice cracking and settling.
Additional Skills:
Nature DC 23: The character spots an area of weak ice.
Trigger:
When a character enters or begins its turn on one of the squares of weak ice.
Attack
Immediate Reaction Melee 1
Target: Creature in trapped square
Attack: +20 v Ref (modified by size)
Hit: The creature falls 50 feet.
Miss: The creature falls prone in an adjacent square, selected randomly (1d8). If this square is also trapped, the trap is triggered and the attack roll is an automatic hit.
Countermeasures:
None!

 

[amnuxoll]

It's funny. I agree with the facts of what you and Stalker0 say about 4e and 3e but my interpretation is the opposite. I find nothing "poignant" about running PCs against encounters that are too high in 3e. It ends quickly and deadly unless the DM "fudges" to let them live. It feels very anti-fun.

In contrast, in 4e the PCs have time to realize they're in trouble and make a run for it. It's a much better situation and makes for a better story.

We should start a thread and talk about why you can't run an effective sandbox game in 3e...

 

[darjr]

I think I'm beginning to shine on the idea of the 'grind space' to be one of the tools used to telegraph to the players that the encounter is to much for them.

 

[rounser]

I fail to see anything about it that makes it singularly unsuitable for 'sandboxing'.

Not "singularly", no. But speed of getting through combat is an important consideration. You simply cannot explore the wilderness if every fight eats up large amounts of time. That makes 3E less than ideal too.

On the other hand, 4E scales more easily than most editions. BECMI and retroclone players may be interested in the monster scaling formulas I've suggested in this thread:
Dragonsfoot • View topic - Monster scaling formulas
I'll get around to finishing the code for a program for it eventually.