Why Must I Kludge My Combat?

[Imaro]

D&D has always been behind the curve here. Mostly because it was the first.

How does this statement in any way address what I posted?

Because there are things it does do much better.

Are they related to what we are discussing, and if so... what things does 4e do objectively better than previous editions?

Because it can progress or change the narrative.[/quoet]

Only under rare circumstances. In which case it's effectively a set piece.

No... changing the narrative does not necessarily entail a set piece and I feel any choice a player makes has the potential to change the narrative. You could harm a madman on the streets of a city only to realize later he was the relative of a well known and respected crime boss who has found out about what you did... why again would you harming the madman have been a setpiece?

Not true. Try puttng six 5th level monsters down against six level eleven PCs and see how long they last.

Huh? Darwin awards aren't a horde.

Not even sure what you are talking about in your first sentence... I assumed we were talking about the rules of 4e and thus minons, perhaps I'm not understanding you. If so, then which one are minions?

 

[Dausuul]

As an aside, I will also agree that "slower combats" =/= "grind". If the combats aren't boring to the players, then there is no grind, no matter how long they take. It is only when the players feel that the combat is taking "too long" that "grind" sets in.

QFT. Grind produces the perception that combat is taking a long time, and sometimes that perception is correct and sometimes it isn't. The point of grind is not that combat is lengthy but that it is boring. (As such, I suspect it's less common in groups new to 4E. Combat only gets boring once you've mastered the rules well enough to detect when the outcome is no longer in doubt.)

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

To keep it simple, I'll only address a little of this.

I want to use minis only when I wish to use them, because an encounter is truly worth lingering over. I don't want to use minis for every encounter, nor do I want to eliminate minor encounters because they take too much time to resolve.

This is where the single biggest logical disconnect is coming in, for me (besides the various revisionist histories, but I'm not about to tackle that Gordian knot).

Minor encounters can, in fact, be minor encounters in 4e. Resolved quickly and easily, even with minis/tokens/etc. Minions are the most obvious example without any rules tweak at all. If you're willing to tweak slightly, you can get an effect very similar by nerfing defenses or hp values, and maybe removing a power from an NPC if it has something that requires tracking or will lower PC expected damage. But all of that can be done on the fly, too. You don't even need to add prep time.

Incidentally, IME it's not the grid that adds time to 4e combats, it's adjudicating all the temporary effects. Weakened until next turn, slowed (save ends), etc. That's the system "problem" that ate the most time, IME. Mainly because I haven't played with anyone who did a good job of tracking all that, and we had a lot of pauses for "Did you save?" "Save from what?" "That was two turns ago!" etc.

If you want to keep a specific 4e combat fast and simple because it's not a set piece, cut down on or eliminate those effects.

Back to the grid, though... I have bumped into the kind of player who sees a grid and turns into an obsessive about movement, counting and recounting spaces and driving the whole table nuts by taking 4x as long as anyone else to take their turn, but that problem exists with the same people playing Clue, too. That's a player problem, not a grid problem.

Also, I've seen people do 3D combats with a grid. It requires some fudging when it comes to forced movement and such, and it requires some additional imagination to remember, for example, that the apparently flat plane your mini is on represents a slope at a 45 degree angle, or whatever, but I think it's rather extreme to suggest that the grid makes those kinds of combat impossible or even all that hard. Overhangs are a bit of a PITA, but nothing we can't solve right quick with paper, tape, and maybe some properly bent paper clips (I admit, having a table that enjoys -and can rapidly accomplish- some construction is a help here. For the right kind of nerd, though, this is very much a feature and not a bug.)

But again, I think a lot of this comes back to our very different histories with the game. I want to know to a high degree of precision, what is going to happen when I use my abilities as a player. And all the options I have even with a melee character (usually my preference) to affect the battlefield in 4e makes this even more important. I have never seen a DM running combats in his head who could maintain an acceptable level of consistency, and I've never tried, myself, because for me, moving things around on a map of some kind is easier and more fun, allowing me to spend my mental energy elsewhere.

There's definitely a diff'rent strokes element to the situation, but I think overall you are exaggerating the limitations of the grid (or mislabeling other problems as grid problems) and underplaying its strengths. Likewise, I tend to overemphasize the strengths, and I'd guess reality lies somewhere in the middle.

 

[Dausuul]

Back to the grid, though... I have bumped into the kind of player who sees a grid and turns into an obsessive about movement, counting and recounting spaces and driving the whole table nuts by taking 4x as long as anyone else to take their turn, but that problem exists with the same people playing Clue, too. That's a player problem, not a grid problem.

Depends on how often it happens. If it happens with a large percentage of players, it's a grid problem.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Of what value is complexity?

Of what value is simplicity?

How do they help you achieve the goals your are looking for at the table?

At my table, the value gained by not using grid + minis (lack of set-up time, flexibility in encounters, more narrative combat, less fiddly bits, less decision points) absolutely outweighs the value gained by using grid + minis (visual aid, simulationist positioning, complexity).

This is because at my table, combat is one of many very important things that the party is engaged in. Combat is not, as it were, the point.

I can have miniless combat that is complex enough to be vastly entertaining. I find it difficult to have minis combat that is not overly complex for my tastes.

So for me, abstraction is a very useful tool in combat, to reach the level where it is not really very important how many exact squares one person moves, takes up, or attacks into.

4e, largely because of the presence of a host of effects that relate purely to how many squares your plastic toy can move (slow, push, pull, slide, shift, among others), makes this difficult. The trade-off, ideally, is combat that is more fun than it would otherwise be. Personally, I don't find that combat gains more fun with these additional details. I don't need these additional details of spacing and positioning, any more than I need to know how a dragon flies or how big an outer plane is, or the exact height and weight of a halfling. They are extraneous things for me.

I accept that not everyone agrees with that, and that some have a whole mess of fun with minis. But 4e is not very welcoming of those that disagree with the main design principles on this subject.

I'm not convinced that 4e is any harder to run mini-less than earlier editions, with the exception of large, complex set-piece encounters.

Certainly 4e has a number of effects that relate to positioning, but so has every edition. The DM has always had to know (or at least competently make up) the relative positions of all participants. How else would you know how many orcs get caught in the web spell (or how many successful checks each will have to make to extricate himself and how much cover the web currently grants him)? How else could you know whether or not the ranger with a movement rate of 12 can reach the enemy on the far side of the room this round?

If a 4e enemy is slowed, you know he can't possibly move adjacent to anyone more than 20 feet away (assuming he doesn't run or use a power). If an enemy is pushed 20' (4 squares) away from the wizard, the wizard can push him adjacent to the fighter assuming the fighter is no more than 25' away (and not on the opposite side of the wizard). If you shift, you're probably doing it either to gain flank or to step away so that you can move without provoking OAs, so it's no more difficult to adjudicate than taking a 5' step was.

Now, certainly, it's a little more free form than when you're using minis, but D&D has always been a bit more free form when played thus (IME and AFAIK). I think you'd still need to break out the grid for serious battles (BBEG), but 4e does those quite well (IMO) so I don't see a problem.

I think that simply assuming that 4e never handles well without minis is a mistake. I'll have to give it a try the next time I'm in the DM's seat.

 

[Imaro]

I'm not convinced that 4e is any harder to run mini-less than earlier editions, with the exception of large, complex set-piece encounters.

Certainly 4e has a number of effects that relate to positioning, but so has every edition. The DM has always had to know (or at least competently make up) the relative positions of all participants. How else would you know how many orcs get caught in the web spell (or how many successful checks each will have to make to extricate himself and how much cover the web currently grants him)? How else could you know whether or not the ranger with a movement rate of 12 can reach the enemy on the far side of the room this round?

If a 4e enemy is slowed, you know he can't possibly move adjacent to anyone more than 20 feet away (assuming he doesn't run or use a power). If an enemy is pushed 20' (4 squares) away from the wizard, the wizard can push him adjacent to the fighter assuming the fighter is no more than 25' away (and not on the opposite side of the wizard). If you shift, you're probably doing it either to gain flank or to step away so that you can move without provoking OAs, so it's no more difficult to adjudicate than taking a 5' step was.

Now, certainly, it's a little more free form than when you're using minis, but D&D has always been a bit more free form when played thus (IME and AFAIK). I think you'd still need to break out the grid for serious battles (BBEG), but 4e does those quite well (IMO) so I don't see a problem.

I think that simply assuming that 4e never handles well without minis is a mistake. I'll have to give it a try the next time I'm in the DM's seat.

I'm having a bit of a disconnect here,and I'm not singling you out Fanaelialae, but your post made me think about it...

Emphasis mine: I see many fans of 4e use this reasoning when discussing the grid and defending against the complexity and difficulty of using the game gridless/miniless...but I've seen some of the same people turn around and claim, when the mood suits them, that the 4e ruleset causes/encourages more movement in combat and we no longer have combatants standing face to face only swinging at each other... which one is it?

Note: This question is directed to anyone not just Fanaelialae...

 

[Dausuul]

I'm not convinced that 4e is any harder to run mini-less than earlier editions, with the exception of large, complex set-piece encounters.

But large, complex set-piece encounters are what 4E is built for. Hit point to damage ratios were drastically increased so that there would be time for set-piece encounters to play out. You have to hack on the system a fair bit (altering monster stats, primarily) to make it do quick skirmishes.

 

[Mallus]

... which one is it?

I don't understand the question.

A battle map and tokens/minis make the movement powers easier to envision and adjudicate, but they're not necessary. 4e PC's can still zoom around the battlefield if you don't use a map. Their movement powers don't change, only the method of representation does ie-- positioning is handled using pure narration.

Either way, Come and Get It makes the target close with user, just as Push powers still knock them away.

 

[Imaro]

I don't understand the question.

A battle map and tokens/minis make the movement powers easier to envision and adjudicate, but they're not necessary. 4e PC's can still zoom around the battlefield if you don't use a map. Their movement powers don't change, only the method of representation does ie-- positioning is handled using pure narration.

Either way, Come and Get It makes the target close with user, just as Push powers still knock them away.

You really don't understand the question? Ok, here it is... How can it be just as easy to play a game with tons of movement vs. one with supposedly very little movement... gridless? I never said it was impossible, but there has been the claim that it is just as easy as previous editions... well one of these has to be false.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

You really don't understand the question? Ok, here it is... How can it be just as easy to play a game with tons of movement vs. one with supposedly very little movement... gridless? I never said it was impossible, but there has been the claim that it is just as easy as previous editions... well one of these has to be false.

The answer depends on the group's comfort level with imprecision of placement.

There are more powers in 4e that affect placement and shake up positioning. If you're using a lot of those, the number of variables a human being needs to keep in their head is going to quickly become untenable.

But then.... I thought that was the case in earlier editions, too. Clearly there are a lot of people out there who are willing to compromise far more than I am on that score, so there's clearly not ONE TRUE ANSWER.

Basically, it stops working when someone at the table notices that it's not working. This will depend on several factors: Tactical depth of play, anal retentiveness of individuals, how well the DM describes things, the relative spacial skills of all individuals at the table, and so on.