Would this solve the "grind" issue?

[KarinsDad]

Eh, everyone would take expertise, so it's more that they're up a feat, which is much less of a big deal at 15th.

Couple of assumptions here:

1) The group allows PHB II or specifically, allow Expertise. Not all groups do. Our group does not allow PHB III for example.

2) PCs that have multiple types do not gain more. They actually do. The Cleric and Druid in our group get Implement Expertise and Weapon Expertise, so for them, it is more than a single feat.

Campaigns where the PCs get these feats for free have PCs that are on average slightly more capable than ones where they either never get them, or they have to pay for them.

 

[Chzbro]

Yes, this type of thing can happen.

If the DM wants to set up a cardboard mega-villain to be wiped in 4 rounds.

The creature is for all intents and purposes a god. Allowing him to be killed in 4 rounds by fighting the PCs up close is, IMO, inferior DMing.

I apologize that this is getting the thread a bit off track, but I feel I have to stand up for the honor of my DM.

KD, you make a pretty big assumption in saying that if you were the DM this wouldn't have happened. I'm sure my DM didn't envision the fight going this way either. The problem is, especially at epic, he just doesn't have any say in it anymore.

As Hong Mesh said, Yeenoghu isn't a particularly well-designed epic encounter. He's a MMI solo with none of the advantages that more recently designed solos have. He has several minor action attacks, but when he's dazed those do him no good, and when he's stunned nothing does him any good. I was told that our DM had planned several ways for him to divide and conquer our group, but on round two he was slid 9 squares adjacent to the warden, was subsequently stunned (and dazed--as if it mattered), bloodied, made unable to teleport and immobilized, then got one more swing in on round three (still dazed) before dying at the top of round 4 (stunned again).

You talk about all the tools the DM has at his disposal, but ignore that the party also has the same type of tools, and can use them more often. Sure our DM could have added traps and more creatures, but that would have increased the already steep xp budget.

Last GenCon, our 2nd round judge in the Goodman DCC said the same thing to me about our round 1 judge. "He must have played the monsters wrong for you to have gotten through using so few healing surges." But in the end, he didn't fare any better than the first guy. Yes, the monsters/DMs are smart and should do everything they can not to die, but that ignores that the players are also smart and will do everything they can to prevent their opponents from gaining an advantage.

I also have to take slight exception to your assertion that our 2 minute rouunds are slow in comparison to your group. You brought up (and expressed doubt) that the fight could have been over in 45 minutes. Now those rounds are too slow? As I described, 3 of the 4 of us were making at least 3 attacks each in round 2 on top of taking our move and minor actions. You then compare that to your own heroic or paragon tier players and call it slow.

It's very hard to have a conversation when you keep taking the things I say out of the context I put them in and into whatever context you'd like them to be in. And really, this all is supposed to be a discussion about grind and whether or not DMs have to make a pre-emptive attack to squash it, not a discussion about how badly my DM sucks in comparison to someone else (and for the record, he's one of the most solid tactical players of the game that I know).

So to get back to that topic, I still don't think grind is a problem if you (as a DM) know your party and build/tweak the encounters away from a place where they deliberately accentuate major weaknesses and if you (as a player) know your party and try to work together in the encounter--as opposed to having (Hangover reference) a wolfpack of 5 lone wolves all trying out out-cool one another.

 

[KarinsDad]

Wait - so if the encounter doesn't grind, it's because the DM is doing it wrong?

Actually in a way, yes.


The reason this was not perceived as grindy to the player was because the DM did not challenge the players. He threw a 28th level lamb to the 26th level wolves. The NPCs which should have gotten 2 turns per round actually averaged less than 1 turn per round. The DM knows the capabilities of the PCs, so he pretty much knew that this particular N+5 encounter wasn't going to be a threat unless Yeenoghu got lucky and stunned all of the PCs on round one and mostly kept them that way.


But, the encounter really was grindy. It just didn't seem that way because it was so short.


This was 6 creatures for 4 rounds or 24 turns in 45 minutes. That's almost 2 minutes per PC or NPC turn.

Two PCs were stunned on round 1, so the PCs lost 2 turns there. The Soldier was taken out in round 1, so at least 4 and maybe 5 NPC turns were lost there. Yeenoghu was stunned at least one round, so 1 or more NPC turns was lost there.

That means that it was 17 (or fewer) actual turns where a creature got to act.

17 creature turns in 45 minutes is almost 3 (and maybe more) minutes per turn. That's abysmally slow on average.


Sitting around for 3 minutes for each PC's or NPC's turn is not that noticable in a 45 minute encounter.

It's a nightmare in a more typical 6 or more round encounter. In a 5x5 encounter where the PCs cannot just lock down the NPCs (and vice versa), that's a half hour per round for the first 3 or 4 rounds until NPCs start dropping and an encounter that might easily last 2.5 or more hours.

I don't know about your definition of grind, but a 2.5 hour encounter where the average PC or NPC is taking 3 minutes per turn is extremely grindy and boring to me, regardless of how well crafted and interesting the encounter might otherwise be. And a major part of this can be attributed to 4E design.


Part of this issue is caused by the number of options each player has (not just spell casters like in 3E, but non-spell casters as well) at Epic level.

Each 26th level PC has 17 inherent powers, 10 of which are attacks. The PC might also have 3 or more Daily powers off of items. There could also be conditional aspects due to feats or other items. This adds up.


This example was used by Chzbro to illustrate that the game does not have to be grindy, even at Epic level. This is true if you want to play a game where the PCs start mopping up against an N+5 encounter in round one and are not significantly challenged. So to me, it seems like an extreme example and not a typical one. At least not a typical one in the games I've played as DM or player where the BBEG is supposed to kick the snot out of the PCs for at least some significant portion of the encounter and the players are supposed to overcome that snot kicking. That's why they are called BBEGs and not Tough Minions.

 

[Pelenor]

This was 6 creatures for 4 rounds or 24 turns in 45 minutes. That's almost 2 minutes per PC or NPC turn.

I've never seen a 4th ed combat where it actually takes 2 minutes to determine and resolve an npc/pc action. I've seen combats where it takes that long because we are chatting, socializing, etc.. but my gaming groups also using gaming time as our socialization time because that the only time we get together, most of the time anyway.

When I've seen it done and run combats myself where there is nothing but concentrating on the task at hand the combats go pretty darn fast.

 

[Chzbro]

Actually in a way, yes.

17 creature turns in 45 minutes is almost 3 (and maybe more) minutes per turn. That's abysmally slow on average.

While that particular combat may, indeed, have averaged 3 minutes per turn, in at least one round 3 of the characters were each taking the equivalent of 3 standard turns.

We could use your logic and just take that one round, extrapolate that it must have taken 33 minutes, and then say that a 6-player, 6-round fight would take well over 4 hours.

Or we can use my logic and say even if that one round did take 33 minutes (which it probably didn't), that still only leaves 12 minutes for the other 3 rounds (since the whole fight took about 45 minutes). And since those 3 rounds took only about 4 minutes each, I could just as easily say that your 6-player, 6-round fight would only add 12 minutes to the total. Now that 4+ hour fight just lasted 57 minutes.

We can make the math say whatever we want it to say when we get to define which numbers are relevant and which aren't.

 

[keterys]

It's odd how timing of combats take - I remember one combat I was taking time on, where it took 18 minutes for the DM to describe the area, draw it, put down his monsters, figure out what they were doing, and take his first turn. I think it then took us about 12 minutes to take our first turns, action points, etc.

Then another 17 minutes for the remaining 4 or so rounds of the combat.

And if he'd actually been prepared for the start of the combat, bet the DM could have done his bit in 3 minutes, and our first turn would have only taken like 3 minutes, cause we wouldn't have been wandering off for drinks and snacks, chatting, would have just taken a quick turn and not worried about it taking a while to come back to us. Etc. So that would shave the combat down from 47 minutes to 26 minutes.

A couple weeks ago I was curious if we could do fast ~2nd level play, and I did something like 10 combats in 150 minutes... and that includes setting up the maps, rolling initiative, placing minis, etc. It's very possible to go faster if you try.

 

[KarinsDad]

I've never seen a 4th ed combat where it actually takes 2 minutes to determine and resolve an npc/pc action.

Never? Ever? You remember all 5,000 actions that have occurred in 100 encounters? You have never had a slow player in any of your games, even from a hangover or a real life distraction bothering that person?

Nobody who was scrambling and looking through their powers to find one that might help, just because an moment earlier, the entire encounter went south and the PCs are now desperate?

Resolution is typically fast, but determination can be dog slow depending on the person and the situation. And even resolution can be slow if the player forgets some modifiers to the current situation "That's 17 damage. No, wait, wait. The Bard added 2 more. Do I get the 3 for the Cleric, or is that only if I have combat advantage?". I've had situations where the player doesn't quite know how his or her power works and the character sheet is passed to me for adjudication. That too takes time for a turn.

I've seen combats where it takes that long because we are chatting, socializing, etc.. but my gaming groups also using gaming time as our socialization time because that the only time we get together, most of the time anyway.

When I've seen it done and run combats myself where there is nothing but concentrating on the task at hand the combats go pretty darn fast.

My experience that all combats have chatting and socializing. Socializing is one of the reasons most people play the game.

But, the socializing is not "telling long stories about what happened that week" which does take up a ton of time (we reserve most of these to when the players first arrive at the game). It's jokes about the current situation. It's comments about the food. It's minor conversation that does not significantly prevent someone from rolling dice, or adding up totals, or placing a bloodied token on a miniature, or whatever.

But when the groups I am in are in combat, they tend to be somewhat focused on the combat. Travel and roleplaying and out of combat situations are more freeform. Combats, except for the jokes, are typically business at hand.

Concentrating on the task at hand making the combat go fast is also dependent on the players and the PC resources. With 20+ options at level 26, there are players who slow to a crawl with that much information to process, even if they are familiar with their PC.

I have a player who occasionally says "Ok, I used a move and a standard, let me see if I have a minor I can use". When she does this, I give her 5 or 10 seconds to look through her character sheets, even though I pretty much know that she won't find anything since her minor action powers are for the most part pretty obvious when applicable.

I have a player who just started 4E two months ago. She could be really slow being so new to it, but as it turns out, she is fairly average for our group.

It's all dependent on the players.

Yes, two minute individual turns are not unheard of.

 

[Kinneus]

I'm amazed at how many people have their heads in the sand in this thread. Grind is not in the mind. It's a real issue. Specifically, it's one possible outcome from any given encounter. The way I see it, there's only a handful of possible outcomes for any given combat encounter.

1) The PCs win, quickly and efficiently, but are challenged. This is the ideal outcome, yielding maximum "fun".

2) The PCs win, but aren't challenged, and simply flatten the enemy opposition. This may or may not be a good thing, and may or may not be "fun".

3) The PCs win, but it takes a very long time. "Very long time" is subjective: for some people, an hour is too long, while three hours might be perfectly acceptable for somebody else. "Too long" is like porn: you know it when you see it, but it's otherwise hard to define. This is what we call "grind" and is generally an undesirable outcome.

4) TPK. Almost always a bad thing... almost always, but not always.

5) The PCs retreat, or the battle is otherwise ended prematurely due to plot reasons.

Here's the real secret behind "grind": encounter design is a skill. Those who are naturally skilled in encounter design, or who quickly picked up the necessary skills, tend to forget this. I was not one of those people, and my earliest Dungeons and Dragons 4e experiences were chock full of grind. My first ever dungeon crawl that I DMed for my friends was a whopping seven hour marathon. We still had fun (mostly because of the novelty of it all), but there was definitely tons of grind, and I knew I needed to take countermeasures to reduce it.

The very fact that we need to take countermeasures suggests that grind does exist, that it is a very real phenomenon, and that those of us struggling with it don't just have an attitude problem. People also need to consider that, in MM1 and the original Dungeon Master's Guide, there were some very real problems with the math. For those of you that honestly believe that "grind is in the mind," I dare you to make a grindless encounter with 3+ Wraiths, with their lovely insubstantial, regeneration and weaken combo intact. Or, hell, how about an encounter with an as-written Dracolich?

Encounter design is a skill, and a very big part of that skill is knowing which monsters to avoid using. Some are so unbelievably bad and grindy (I'm looking at you, Dracolich) that they almost feel like pit-traps. Novice DMs can blunder right into them, if they're not careful. Other aspects involve knowing how to use terrain and fluff to make things more dynamic. WotC's published adventures and encounters are notoriously underwhelming, so novice DMs don't have very many good examples to go on. Therefore, they come to boards like these for advice... and I for one find it disheartening when they're greeted with a lot of: "There's no such thing as grind, it's all in your head, it's your attitude problem."

The very fact that we're discussing this, that Stalker0 saw fit to create his great guide to anti-grind, suggests that this is a real thing that people actually struggle with. For those of you that don't have and have never had problems with grind, great. Congratulations. I'm glad the game has gone so smoothly for you. But please, please, please stop belittling those who do have problems with grind. For some of us, it's a very real problem, one we have to learn how to avoid.

 

[blargney the second]

Couple of assumptions here:

1) The group allows PHB II or specifically, allow Expertise. Not all groups do. Our group does not allow PHB III for example.

If you start neutering PCs, don't be surprised when you end up with eunuchs.

 

[Herschel]

But encounter running is an art. A good DM can make suboptimal encounters run better and more dynamic while a sub-optimal DM can make a good encounter drag.

Quid pro quo.