Why Must I Kludge My Combat?

[Shazman]

Did they expect to serve players whose sessions run about 3-5 hours in length? If they did expect to reasonably serve them, then I think Shazman's criticism is valid. The tool fails to serve that segment of the market well.

I think it was intended to serve this group of players. It may not have intended to serve just that group, but I'm pretty sure it was one of them. A while ago they said something about their research showing that the average player played around 4 hours once a week. Another bit of evidence for this is that LFR modules are "supposed" to be completed in 4 hours. They ususally contain three combat encounters plus a skill challenge or two. That means that the combat encounters should take about 45 minutes to an hour to complete. If you go into an LFR session and actually expect it to be done in 4 hours with several 45 minute combats,from my personal experience, you are going to be in for a rude awakening. In reality. most of the fights will take an hour to two hours (sometimes more) and the mod will take a minimum of 6 hours and as long as 9 hours (or even a staggering 12 hours in paragon). If you always play low (all adventures have high and low level options), have extremely optimzied characters, and rush through the fights by just throwing down you dice and barking out damage and conditions (convention style) you may be able to finish it in 4 hours, but I don't think that's how most people want to play, nor is it realistic to expect them to.

 

[xechnao]

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).

I do not agree with this. Skill challenges and stuff.

Now, what the 4e design team is good about is developing/producing a game line like 4e: which is not a small thing to do if you do not have the experience to do it. They are veterans of D&D lore, they can write lots of words and they know how to develop and produce a book.

To do this, as a team they must operate under the same game design guidelines.

4e, as design goals had
- class balance regarding combats
- make combats interesting regarding gameplay
- make combat interesting regarding possibilities of expansion adds (new classes, builds)
- have the D20 system the lingua franca among the designers for the mechanics of these goals

The result was 4e. If 4e was to be smoother in gameplay it should not be based on the D20 system of 3.xe. but built on a new system especially made for the game that 4e wants itself to be.

Personally, I do not like 3.xe's engine regarding combat (requires too much-offers too little) so to me 4e is buffling to high levels. But I understand this is just me.

But as you said 3.x sold minis plus it wonderfully helps itself toward add-ons. So, for commercial reasons it is a very good choice. Also if they did change the engine they would lose a lot of followers of the previous edition.

All of these three reasons:
-design development
-selling future products
-not alienating fans of the previous edition to the extreme
were the reasons of what 4e was designed to be.

 

[Storminator]

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...

I was frequently lost in the sea of powers available to a monster. In our last 3e fight, the encounter included "vrock (3), see MM page XX." I have a player that HATES it when I flip open book after book in the middle of combat, so I thought I'd print out the Vrock from the SRD, with all the spell-like abilities. 10 pages. Of which, I used 2 "powers," and should have used a 3rd, I just forgot it was there.

I much prefer the more manageable list of powers, even tho I, like you, don't care if/when my monsters die.

PS

 

[Imaro]

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.

This is wrong... a system that takes 10 minutes to resolve a combat is still going to take less time than a system that takes 40 minutes to resolve combat if the dice go cold for the same number of rounds.

Out of curiosity, what are they?.

-25% hit points/+25% damage to all monsters except minions... Always replace at least one to two standard monsters in an encounter with minions (though this doesn't always work out that great, as far as combat speed goes, for various reasons I won't go into)...

A new one I have been thinking about trying next week is to have monsters make morale checks (a save) each round once at least half their number are dead and they reach less than half their bloodied value (25% of hit points= demoralized once half their number are dead)

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.

Again you're assuming things... that's not asking. Anyway, I was addressing one particular poster... not demonstrating that... "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". Now I did pose the question (you know like you are possing questions to me) that I would be interested in finding out if others end combats prematurely but claim they are not having any problems with combat length in 4e.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

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.

For the first 6 months or so I ran combat by the book and as far as I can tell it makes no noticable difference to combat length but more to player enjoyment.

 

[Scribble]

Now I did pose the question (you know like you are possing questions to me) that I would be interested in finding out if others end combats prematurely but claim they are not having any problems with combat length in 4e.

What do you consider "prematurely" (aside from the obvious "before it's over?")

 

[Imaro]

For the first 6 months or so I ran combat by the book and as far as I can tell it makes no noticable difference to combat length but more to player enjoyment.

I don't want to assume, so I'll ask...if the players didn't know you were dropping the monsters with a few hit points left... What exactly was the added player enjoyment as far as this was concerned? How was it different from the enjoyment they would have garnered from the next player who hit, dropping the monster with only a few hit points left?

 

[Imaro]

What do you consider "prematurely" (aside from the obvious "before it's over?")

Why? So we can argue for a few more pages about the true meaning of prematurely? I think it's pretty apparent what I mean by prematurely within the context I was using it.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

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.

If it is my statements earlier this is about I would like to state that it would not even be one monster per combat it would one or two monsters in a non plot significant encounter per 6 or 7 combats, though that is not a hard and fast rule.
It usually occurs where someone get a critical that nearly but not quite takes out a monster in a combat that the party victory is a foregone conclusion and I think that it is a cool outcome. This does not happen every fight or every session.
I did it last session when the barbarian got two crits with two daily powers and an action point and took a monster from just above bloodied to 3hp in a round. The player is 12 years old has rotten look with the dice and the tactical awareness of the Dodo. A bit of encouragement was in order, no?

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I don't want to assume, so I'll ask...if the players didn't know you were dropping the monsters with a few hit points left... What exactly was the added player enjoyment as far as this was concerned? How was it different from the enjoyment they would have garnered from the next player who hit, dropping the monster with only a few hit points left?

I don't know about your players but mine get a kick out of dropping a monster when the dice give a good damage result on a daily, especially crits. Where as dropping on an at will is; "Meh, it was probably on 1 or 2 hp anyway".