Why Must I Kludge My Combat?

[Imaro]

If the last remaining beastie has 40 hp left and its hit and has one remaining is anything served by saying its still alive? IMHO it is more dramatic for the player to drop a relatively healthy monster in one shot than to drag out a fight that is a foregone issue for another round but its not a rule in my opinion.

Well I think because of the rarity of actions in 4e and the chance to miss, depending on how often you do this in a combat, yes it could affect the length of combats. As far as something being gained or lost by playing out monsters with only a couple hp's left in a game... that's not what were discussing so it's irrelevant. I'm not commenting on your DM style, I'm commenting on whether you run combat by the book or not.

A house rule to me is something fairly formal that I would apply consistently and tell the players about. Not an excersise in DM judgement. Now you could accuse me of cheating but I don't care, it my table and my players are happy. By the way I do not inform the players how many hit points a monster has not how many it has remaining so in these cases of fudging they never know.

Again, semantics... fine, you fudge to shorten combat... is that a better term for it? Does it change my basic argument? Not really.

 

[Raven Crowking]

So we're arguing about semantics... ok it's not a houserule... it's fudging that can still shorten the length of combat... is that bettter??

First, you are assuming he only does it for one monster per combat, Which I doubt is the case. Second, you assume it's the last monster in the combat so it's a given the PC's can gang up on it. And depending on the rolls doing this for more then one monster in combat can definitely affect the length of combat...

In the end, my point is that it's kind of disingenuous to say "IME combat as written works perfectly"... but you're not running it as written, and admit so.

In addition, no matter how you slice it, the purpose of the fudging seems to be to prevent the problem that is being discussed using the RAW.

If you are doing X to prevent a problem caused by using the RAW, where X is anything other than simply using the RAW, it is disingenious to also claim that the problem does not exist when using the RAW.


RC

 

[Mallus]

Someone got a Dipping Dots stand dropped on their head.

It's a start...

So we're arguing about semantics... ok it's not a houserule... it's fudging that can still shorten the length of combat... is that bettter??

Out of curiosity, would you say every 1e DM who didn't use the 'weapon vs. AC' table' of houseruling? Bonus question: why does it matter?

In the end, my point is that it's kind of disingenuous to say "IME combat as written works perfectly"... but you're not running it as written, and admit so.

The 4e combat engine doesn't work 'perfectly'. Has anyone said that besides you? But some people can use it better than others. If you like to discuss that, a number of us can provide helpful tips, which don't involve fudging or houseruling, BTW.

Here's one: don't use a lot of monsters the players need a 15+ to hit. Easy-peasy! I've got more, if you really want to talk about this.

Does it change my basic argument? Not really.

Speaking of that, what is your argument, exactly, other than you don't think 4e works very well, if at all?

 

[Fanaelialae]

For what's it's worth, my group enjoys 4e combat just fine as written, and we neither house rule nor fudge to speed things up. Our DM even informs us when an attack leaves a creature with 1 or 2 hp (usually with a sadistic grin on his face). It's tough, but somehow we manage and have fun regardless.

AFAIK, 4e was designed around the "sweet spot" of 3e (around level 6, IIRC). I seem to recall the existence of threads during 3e about speeding up combat. I don't know about you Imaro, but I certainly recall hearing of DM's who fudged monster hp all the way back in the days of 2e (and probably before, but I was a bit young during 1e).

It seems mistaken to suggest that a tweak that existed long before the days of 4e is an indication that 4e combat is flawed in its design. If that were the case, I'd say it's endemic to D&D in general (or perhaps hp systems). That's reading a bit too much into things though, IMO.

Note that I'm not saying that 4e combat is perfect for everyone and that those who don't like it are doing something wrong. Rather, as Obryn and others have been saying, not every system suits all tastes equally well.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I seem to recall the existence of threads during 3e about speeding up combat.

Crom's bones, yes.

As levels rise in 3e, combat takes significantly longer than it does in previous editions, and there were quite a few threads that discussed this. In fact, so pervasive was this problem that one of the early design goals of 4e was to speed up combat. The later decision to change this design goal to instead slow down combat is one of the factors in my decision to give 4e a pass.


RC

 

[Imaro]

It's a start...


Out of curiosity, would you say every 1e DM who didn't use the 'weapon vs. AC' table' of houseruling? Bonus question: why does it matter??

You're asking the question, you tell me why it matters (especially since I've already conceded that we can replace houseruling with fudging.)... I also see you didn't address my post to you earlier about combat length.

The 4e combat engine doesn't work 'perfectly'. Has anyone said that besides you? But some people can use it better than others. If you like to discuss that, a number of us can provide helpful tips, which don't involve fudging or houseruling, BTW.?

The whole thread is about kludging combat rules, earlier in the thread (if you bothered to read it) a discussion about it working right started... adroughter jumped in and said that it worked great for his group without any house ruling... except.... to kill monsters before they we're dead. My point was that this wasn't an accurate reflection of the combat engine per RAW. Others jumped in and claimed it was such a small change it didn't matter or wasn't a houserule... I replied as to what my thoughts on that were... Are you reading this thread or just posting without context... there's that word again... context...

Here's one: don't use a lot of monsters the players need a 15+ to hit. Easy-peasy! I've got more, if you really want to talk about this.

I've got my own "Kludges" for 4e combat since I'm playing it right now... but thanks for the suggestion...

Speaking of that, what is your argument, exactly, other than you don't think 4e works very well, if at all?

Don't presume to know what I think about something without asking, ok? And don't try to broadly generalize my feelings towards 4e... again, thanks... now if you want a real conversation as opposed to smug coments and mis-characterizations, well let me know and we can talk.

 

[Shazman]

Having long combats is one of 4e's design goals, and one of the things that people who like it, like about it. I'm a story-dude, but I like 4e for having lots of roleplay then a big huge dramatic fight. 4e does those big fights pretty good, so its cool for that, it works for me in that way.

But complaining that you can't run through fights in 10 minutes is a bit like complaining that your stupid cat won't learn to bark. Dumb cat.

Point to me in my post where I said that I wanted combat to only last 10 minutes. I don't want 10 minute, super short, anti-climatic fights. I also don't want almost every single fight to last one and a half hours or more. Unfortunately, 4E seems to be designed to make those longer fights almost inevitable. Wasn't one of the selling points of 4E is that combat was supposed to be quicker and more exciting? Then, when the designers realized that it wasn't quicker, they said "but rounds go by quicker". I don't even think they are claiming that anymore, which is good because I do not believe it to be true in most cases. If 4E was supposed to give us more streamlined, quicker combat than 3.5, I believe it has failed spectacularly.

 

[Imaro]

For what's it's worth, my group enjoys 4e combat just fine as written, and we neither house rule nor fudge to speed things up. Our DM even informs us when an attack leaves a creature with 1 or 2 hp (usually with a sadistic grin on his face). It's tough, but somehow we manage and have fun regardless.

AFAIK, 4e was designed around the "sweet spot" of 3e (around level 6, IIRC). I seem to recall the existence of threads during 3e about speeding up combat. I don't know about you Imaro, but I certainly recall hearing of DM's who fudged monster hp all the way back in the days of 2e (and probably before, but I was a bit young during 1e).

It seems mistaken to suggest that a tweak that existed long before the days of 4e is an indication that 4e combat is flawed in its design. If that were the case, I'd say it's endemic to D&D in general (or perhaps hp systems). That's reading a bit too much into things though, IMO.

Note that I'm not saying that 4e combat is perfect for everyone and that those who don't like it are doing something wrong. Rather, as Obryn and others have been saying, not every system suits all tastes equally well.

I agree to a point... I don't remember people having to tweak low level combat like that, but in 4e some people do... otherwise I agree with you, I haven't commented on 4e being objectively better or worse at all in this thread... I have given 3 points I felt abnout 4e combat and I have given my feelings that fudging can skew looking at the length of combats. In the end I don't think "3e did it too" is really a good way to justify things in 4e, but that's just my oppinion.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The later decision to change this design goal to instead slow down combat is one of the factors in my decision to give 4e a pass.

I keep trying to figure out what the goals with 4e combat actually were.

I don't really like it personally. I'm not a fan of minis, tactical positioning makes me groan, and a "deck of powers" is less appealing to me than a "suite of tools."

So I'm left trying to puzzle out why 4e combat is the way that it is. I didn't have any major problems with 3e stuff, or 2e stuff, or GURPS stuff...why does 4e choose to be the way that it is? What goal were the designers trying to accomplish? The 4e design team was (and is) pretty good at accomplishing their explicit goals (it's in making the goals the right ones that they sometimes suffer). What were their goals with combat? What did they want to do?

It's speculation, but if I figure it out, it can help me better tinker with it, and with my home games.

As best I can figure, the noblest goal they had was that they wanted somewhat to address the "20 minutes of fun in 4 hours" problem, where there wasn't a lot of action around the table. Combat is action, so long combat is more action, so if combats are stretched into hour-long things, it's an hour of fun in those 4 hours, rather than 20 minutes. It's an attempt to reach flow, to keep everyone in the zone, to keep tension high at all times, and to make the game more action-packed.

And what they failed to take into account was that combat isn't what everyone wants to do with most of their D&D time.

They figured combat was the heart of the game, that more combat = more fun, that detailed combat was what people were clamoring for, that focusing on combat could sell more minis (which was a major part of the strategy from Day 1 with 4e), that the combat engine was the most important thing to balance, that it was where the classes differed, and where the races should, too.

There would be other stuff, of course. But Combat was the most important.

This is even reflected in the adventures, which are mostly strings of combat linked by a fabric of a plot. I could compare it to a Super Mario game: everything is just a set-up to run and jump and fly. In many WotC adventures, everything is just a set-up to fight.

One of the big revelations of 4e to me was that my games aren't about fighting monsters. That's absolutely a key part of them, but that's not why I play D&D. I don't want to spend my whole night fighting monsters, I don't want to take an hour to fight some monsters, I don't want fighting monsters to be the goal. My games are about being a hero, which is sometimes about kicking ass, and sometimes about coming to grips with mortality (Gilgamesh, the Illiad), or giving up control (LotR), or returning home (The Odyssey), or true love (the Divine Comedy, Inuyasha), or growing up (Paradise Lost, Star Wars, Naruto), or a thousand and one other simple psychological challenges, cast with steel and blood and fire and gold. Being a hero is more about metaphor than minis.

So I, personally, don't want long, involved, tactically complex, option-overloaded, minis-based combats. I need there to be variety and interesting things to do in combat, because combat is certainly a big part of the game, but I also need there to be variety and interesting things to do when confronting your father figure, or when realizing that you will die, or when you see your wife for the first time in a decade, or when choosing to remain weak because power is corrupting, or when falling in love. I need combat to not try and be the reason I play D&D. 4e combat tries to be the reason to play D&D, in part because it hand-waves other stuff as DM fiat (which is deeply unsatisfying to me), and in part because it is so complex, especially by comparison.

If the characters get to be heroes, I don't need to spend 90% of the night chosing powers and pushing little pieces of plastic around a grid. That doesn't make a hero. It's not in the slaying of a dragon. It's in the destruction of evil. It's not in the fighting of the army. It's in the achievement of glory. It's not in the fighting of a rival, it's in confronting your own capacity for evil.

Combat is not the only fun part of the game, and when combat is overly complex, for me, it's not even a fun part of the game.

 

[jbear]

@ the OP.

I'm not going to suggest you try a different system, because I don't think that is very helpful. You might not have that luxury. If you do, it might be good advice. I have no idea.

What might be a good idea, if your goal is to get together with friends and relax and unwind, is to do just that. Hmmm... that sounds like pretty useless advice now that I read over it again. I'm not trying to be a smart arse, honestly.

What I mean is, if combat is now a more major feature in the game due to the system design/how your DM is running things, why not just enjoy it. Mess around. Play around. You can be marvellously untactical playing 4e and do fine, my players are the proof. You can do a lot more than what you have written amongst your powers. Improvise with terrain features, find creative ways around or out of combat. And when your in combat, do fun stuff.

My grandma always used to say, you're only as bored as you make yourself. No, she didn't actually. That's a total lie. She did say wish in one hand and pee in the other and see which gets filled first... but that's less relevant to the discussion.

I haven't experienced serious problems with the system. I have read the suggestions that one needs to this or that to make combat move faster but just haven't seen the need. I do make a conscious effort to build ways for the PCs can end combat with non combat actions into encounter designs whenever it fits/makes sense. Also my players enjoy combat, so that may be a key factor.

Anyway, without being wanting to seem like a twat, and assuming you don't have the possibility to play a system you enjoy atm, my advice would be: 'If you can't change the situation, change your attitude towards it.' Not easy, but simple.

Good luck and I hope you fnd a solution in any case.