Why Must I Kludge My Combat?

[Nebulous]

I'm about at 13th level of running 4e now, and while combat was fun and ferocious up until about paragon, as DM i am now finding it more and more of a grind, and i DO use the many tricks, such as reduced hit points, upped monster damage, someone else tracks initiative, etc. It has just gotten to the point that players (and they agree with me) have too many powers, and worse, too many conditional powers that kick in or react according to what monsters do. And monsters get a lot of powers too, which is difficult to remember. Creating a balanced challenge for the party is getting harder, and making it less than a 2 or 3 hour combat is hard too. Sure, that is a generalization and i fully understand the combat dynamics behind 4e, but i'm quitting it at 13th level and either playing another system or lower level 4e where it was more manageable for my tastes.

I don't even see how anyone could run Epic level 4e, it would just be a tactical clustermuck of endless grid combat. But if ya dig that...

 

[Scribble]

A system with many user errors is often badly designed.

I usually discover that when I try to write the user manual for the software I designed. If it's hard to write the user manual my design usually stinks. If I don't write the user manual or write the hard-write user manual, I often get user errors.

I don't know what can be done to 4e to make it better, but it's quite likely something to cut down on the user errors.

IMO, the difference between "user error" and "bad design" lies in how common the problem is.

If 5% of users have a given issue and 95% don't, then it's reasonable to suggest the ones that have the problem may be doing it wrong.

If 50% of users have a given issue, that's a design problem and blaming it on user error is a cop-out. Well-designed systems don't lead users into error.

Possibly- I'd like to see real numbers on that though.

I personally think a lot of it has to do with what I said to Raven... People not looking the new features of the system, and just doing it exactly how they did it in the past, and wondering why there's a problem.

I guess it might point to a problem with the explanation of the system? But I still think it's not a fault of the system, so much as a fault of people not understanding how it works.

I had a lot of these issues before I figured out what I was doing wrong. I still have them occasionally (well I did as of November when I was still gaming... ) but no where near as much, and I can usually spot what I or the players did wrong when it happens.

 

[Dausuul]

Possibly- I'd like to see real numbers on that though.

Sure, I'm not claiming that 50% of users actually do have the problems in this thread. If I had to guess, I'd put it at 20-30%, but that's just a number I pulled out of my, um, hat.

I bet WotC has done surveys on this, but good luck prying the results out of 'em.

 

[Glade Riven]

It has occured to me that a good chunk of this thread is somewhat ridiculess..

Two main complaints about 3e combat was 1. it was usually over in 3 rounds and 2. it took forever for people to take their turn.

4e addresses #1 with the encounter design, leading to longer, tactical encounters where you can do cool stuff. 4e attempts to address #2 by giving people a handful of powers to choose from rather than a long list for casters and fighters just throwing out attack rolls.

4e's attempt to address #2 fails when you have players that are indecisive, overly tactical, and don't really pay attention to what is going on until it is their turn. The result is you have people taking 5 minutes to take their turn. That's a people issue. There's a guy in my group who takes forever on turns because of that, even when it is a character who is a smashy smash fighter in 3e.

So, how to solve it? Talk to the person. Put a timer on turns so that they don't sit there for 5 min contemplating strategy. Virtual time in the game has 10 turns per minute (depending on system), so if their indecisive, their character is indecisive, so they essentually lose their turn. Or you can put up with it.

WotC makes big epic battle-crawls because 4e sales figures tell them thats what people want, so it is a cheap shot at them to complain about them doing what makes them money. The product works out of the box, although it may not work the way you want it to.

So the DM has to make adjustments. Add or remove minions. Adjust HP or AC. Tweak the situation. Good role-playing removes the need for most skill challenges, unless you're dealing with a funky trap design. This sort of thing has to be done for every system or edition of role playing. It's not a videogame, for crying out loud - don't treat it like one. Part of Rule 0 is that it is impossible for the DM to break the rules, and rule 0 is always in effect.

 

[billd91]

Two main complaints about 3e combat was 1. it was usually over in 3 rounds and 2. it took forever for people to take their turn.

4e addresses #1 with the encounter design, leading to longer, tactical encounters where you can do cool stuff. 4e attempts to address #2 by giving people a handful of powers to choose from rather than a long list for casters and fighters just throwing out attack rolls.

4e's attempt to address #2 fails when you have players that are indecisive, overly tactical, and don't really pay attention to what is going on until it is their turn. The result is you have people taking 5 minutes to take their turn. That's a people issue. There's a guy in my group who takes forever on turns because of that, even when it is a character who is a smashy smash fighter in 3e.

So, how to solve it? Talk to the person. Put a timer on turns so that they don't sit there for 5 min contemplating strategy. Virtual time in the game has 10 turns per minute (depending on system), so if their indecisive, their character is indecisive, so they essentually lose their turn. Or you can put up with it.

In my experience, aside from the few cases in which we had to look up a spell with a long and detailed description, the very problems you mention that 4e won't solve are the primary reason 3e combats take so long too. 4e's attempt to fix how long an individual's turn takes fixes a small set of cases I've encountered.

I'm also one of those DMs who doesn't really feel that fights in 3e were too short. Who cares if my monster goes down before he fires off all of his kewl powrz? My ego isn't invested in doing so. My ego as a DM is invested in my players having fun taking him down, neutralizing him, whatever, to achieve their goals. If they figure out a way to shorten the encounter or manage to bring enough smack down to end it fast and enjoy doing so, I'm good. The idea that the monster has to do a bunch of stuff or the encounter isn't somehow fulfilling is just alien to me. Clearly, I haven't been on the same wavelength as the D&D design team in a long time...

 

[amerigoV]

...and 2. it took forever for people to take their turn.


4e's attempt to address #2 fails when you have players that are indecisive, overly tactical, and don't really pay attention to what is going on until it is their turn. The result is you have people taking 5 minutes to take their turn. That's a people issue.

My foray's into 4e has convinced me that 4e is more "narrow" in its sweet spot for players. Prior editions did not necessarily do anything great, but it covered a lot of playstyles. 4e seems to have a great combat system and can really rock with the right group. It just seems harder to find that "right group" for me (I moved over to Savage Worlds myself - nothing against 4e, but I am not with the right people to really enjoy it).

 

[Raven Crowking]

It has occured to me that a good chunk of this thread is somewhat ridiculess..

Welcome to the Internet!

 

[Mallus]

Personally I think a lot of the "problems" with the combat system in 4e are actually user error.

That's my experience too, and I'm speaking as the user --specifically, DM-- that was in error.

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

That's a good and complicated question. Here's my attempt at a short answer. As far as I can tell they had two principle goals.

One was to create a simple, unified, descriptive language for every action a PC can take in combat, whether it's weapon use, a spell, or impromptu stunt/environmental exploit.

The other was to create procedural rules for using them that increased the overall, average number of options --and therefore potential decision points-- that each class had during a typical combat. The system also prioritized options/decisions made during combat, rather than before it ie, power synergies over pre-combat buffs.

You can see this shake out in a number of ways: changing the HP-to-damage ratios so combats last more rounds, giving some healing ability to every character/making it easy for specialist healers to take other kinds of actions, no save-or-die/save-or-sit-the-fight-out, etc.

 

[Shazman]

[
4e's attempt to address #2 fails when you have players that are indecisive, overly tactical, and don't really pay attention to what is going on until it is their turn. The result is you have people taking 5 minutes to take their turn. That's a people issue. There's a guy in my group who takes forever on turns because of that, even when it is a character who is a smashy smash fighter in 3e.

I beg to differ. 4E's attempt to address #2 just flat out fails. Unless you take extraoridnary measures to stop it, 4E is combat is going to take a long time barring some inordiantely good luck on the part of the PC's. Indecisive players can add to combat length (I personally know someone that is very bad for this) but that really doesn't have as much to do with the system as the person. You can't blame long 4E combats on slow players, because they will most likely be slow regardless of the system. The problem is that 4E combat takes a long time by default with or without indecisive players. The indecisive players just make it take longer.

 

[Mallus]

You're asking the question, you tell me why it matters...

OK. It doesn't.

I also see you didn't address my post to you earlier about combat length.

Oops. My post was something of a joke --ie, when the dice are running cold, then system isn't relevant. Combat will take a long time.

...(if you bothered to read it)...

As a matter of fact, I did. It probably explains why I posted things like "I'm surprised that my group likes 4e's admittedly lengthy combats".

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

Out of curiosity, what are they?

Don't presume to know what I think about something without asking, ok?

That's what I was doing, asking. You seems hung up on demonstrating people who aren't having issues with the 4e combat engine were 'misrepresenting' it or modified the heck out of it to get it to run.