D&D 4E Help me understand 4e

[Sunseeker]

- The time bubble thing. 4e is the only edition where I felt like encounters existed in a time bubble, and not part of the overall experience. I feel like planning sessions is all about the encounters and how to fit them into the story I want to tell.

As a mainly 3.X and 4e player, I've noticed this problem too, but with a little work, it plays out smoothly. Give your enemies some personality that fits with the overall story, and then boom, they work. At least, that's how it worked for me. It's hard to describe exactly how that process goes on in my head.

- The way powers and rituals work in 4e is, I think, what brings this one to mind. The whole concept of powers that can only be used during combat just flies in the face of what I'm used to as someone who grew up with the earlier editions from a young age.

"Comabt" is when you make of it. If you want to have a dragonborn blow down a door, then poof, the dragonborn is now in "combat" with the door, and may use his in-combat powers on said door. At least that's how I've always done it, and how my GMs have always done it. As someone said earlier, 5-min rest and they're recharged.

- The tactical combat. Just...wow. I literally spent hundreds of dollars in minis, tile sets, battle mats (Until I discovered Gaming Paper. That stuff is AWESOME), etc to support the almost mandatory grid-based combat for miniatures. Yes, it's possible to run combats completely verbally "From the couch" as in the old days but, not really.

Most battles I run/participate in are much less than tactical. But that's a fault of players and GMs, not the system. We TRY not to metagame, but tactical combat really requires it a bit.
The problem here is spending money. I've spent pretty much nothing on gaming supplies outside of dice and books(because dice are pretty and books are useful). I would love to have minis, but I tend to leave those up to players, they want a mini? They can bring one. They don't want a mini? I make them a little paper triangle. Mats? Don't even bother, waste of money in my book. Best solution I've ever seen is my current DM who puts a nice sheet of plexi-glass over 1-inch grid-paper. It was about $30 for the glass but it's AMAZING.

So, can anyone help me wrap my head around the way 4e handles the things I mentioned above? The streamlining of the core rules really impresses me but the base mechanics of the edition being skewed towards combat and enhancing encounters just pisses me off. I'd like to be able to say 4e is all I need, but I really need some help in seeing these bad things from a different perspective.

4E really is all about the combat. But that's where good GMing comes in. Clearly you recognize the faults of the system, where it's focus is, and since it's so focused there, it gives you more time to focus elsewhere. On the story, on the RP interactions, ect.... At least, that's what I do. Encounters basically run themselves, I track initive, I try my best to have the mobs challenge my players, then I get back to the story. That's where I get to shine, not the system.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Regarding encounters as "bubbles": I suspect I know what the OP is talking about, and it has to do with how long combat encounters are.

When a combat encounter takes two hours to complete and you only have a couple of them in a session, they become their own special context. This is especially true when the non-combat portions take up hours at a stretch.

What I'd like to see is quicker combats so that you can bounce in and out of them more rapidly -- 10 to 20 minutes of combat, 30 to 40 minutes of roleplay, etc. That would make it feel more organic.

Am I right, OP, or am I just off on a tangent?

 

[Herschel]

First, I wouldn't call encounters a time bubble, I'd call them an accounting bubble. Outside of encounters you really can just free wheel it with a few basic skills available if you need to adjudicate things.

As for powers and teh grid, D&D has always been about killing things and taking their stuff, but now you can do it with style.

 

[justrob]

Regarding encounters as "bubbles": I suspect I know what the OP is talking about, and it has to do with how long combat encounters are.

When a combat encounter takes two hours to complete and you only have a couple of them in a session, they become their own special context. This is especially true when the non-combat portions take up hours at a stretch.

What I'd like to see is quicker combats so that you can bounce in and out of them more rapidly -- 10 to 20 minutes of combat, 30 to 40 minutes of roleplay, etc. That would make it feel more organic.

Am I right, OP, or am I just off on a tangent?

That's a good chunk of what I meant. Encounters take sooooo long when done right. an hour or two to resolve a combat and 10 minutes of narrative then, right back to the combat. It seems like the non-combat parts of the game just become a framing story for the tactical board game.

Honestly, this is really just nitpicking at this point on my part. My players are all hack n slash kick in the door people. I can dangle plot threads and obvious hooks in front of them all day but their first reaction to anything is if it isn't trying to pay them or asking for help, it needs to be killed. Sometimes the lines blur on those two exceptions...

This is all my fault though. Aside from my girlfriend, they are all complete newbies to the hobby and I have so far been their only example of DM. It's my duty to help them become better players and open their minds to the greater world of STORY vs kill everything in sight. They are learning that their actions have consequences.

One of them is playing a Tiefling cleric of Avandra but who can't keep to her vows because she's convinced her infernal nature dictates her actions. She continuously committed atrocious acts in Avandra's name until one night, Avandra came to her in a dream and offered her a choice; Become her representative for good, or be plagued my misfortune and bad luck for absuing her name. She took the offer and became an Avatar-In-Training.

It's 100% abuse of old school alignment shifting on my part, but the player got into the part and is now tackling a series of tasks for Avandra to prove herself and keep her new status. It worked, I just wish I didn't have to force it.

Again, all of this is my own damn fault. I'm getting better though.

 

[Sunseeker]

That's a good chunk of what I meant. Encounters take sooooo long when done right. an hour or two to resolve a combat and 10 minutes of narrative then, right back to the combat. It seems like the non-combat parts of the game just become a framing story for the tactical board game.

There are only two ways I have ever seen combat go on that long.

The first was was because of the mechanics of the fight. Due to the enemies and the players, everything took forever. Every player had a half a dozen tricks to pull, and so did the enemies, and if I recall, they may have been swarms. So things took forever because A: people wouldn't just sit down and blow them up, and B: the enemies lasted too long.

The other way was simply the DM making the fight fairly endless. First it was X monster, then when they were down, 5-min break, then X+Y monsters, then 5-min break and X+Y+Z monsters. Combat took forever because every 5-min there was another group of enemies descending upon us.

It's up to you the GM to ensure that A: the abilities of the enemies are not causing the game to stagnate. and B: the abilities of the players are not causing turns to take forever.

Create a turn-timer if you have to. Get a little egg-timer and tell everyone their turn can only be 2-3 min long. If they're all super-strikers, this shouldn't be a problem.

One of them is playing a Tiefling cleric of Avandra but who can't keep to her vows because she's convinced her infernal nature dictates her actions. She continuously committed atrocious acts in Avandra's name until one night, Avandra came to her in a dream and offered her a choice; Become her representative for good, or be plagued my misfortune and bad luck for absuing her name. She took the offer and became an Avatar-In-Training.

It's 100% abuse of old school alignment shifting on my part, but the player got into the part and is now tackling a series of tasks for Avandra to prove herself and keep her new status. It worked, I just wish I didn't have to force it.

Honestly, that was pretty awesome in my book. It's well written that a lot of tieflings feel that way and society(in D&D worlds) often promotes that thought that no matter how good a tiefling is, they're still "infernal" and therefore "evil". And I think having Avandra, or an avatar of her tell the player to "shape up" is a great in-game way to make them change. It all sounds like very good RP in my book. Though I may be missing the finer details that made it not-so-good.

Again, all of this is my own damn fault. I'm getting better though.

Takes two to tango ya know. As you get better with what you expect them to do, they'll get better all around. NEVER is anything ever the fault of a single individual in a group game. Though things may be more one person's fault than others. Blaming the GM or the players only results in the very unfashionable GM-Player Cold War.

 

[Logos7]

Just a few notes of my own.

If the Hit Points and Healing Surge thing is bothering you, Try calling Hit Points Pain (or even Pain Points ), its at least as mentally consistant as the definition of hit points as armour,luck,skill,body thats been floating around for ever and explains how someone can deliriously out of the fight one round and back in it the next.

As for the Core setting, I think its pretty rocking, Ancient God Wars and Empires, a lack of direct gods and better than thou npc's. If anything I think those last two may be part of your problem, they are things that are very ingrained in Grayhawk and FR and not so much in Eberron and POLland

As for encounters, they are really what you make of them. I kinda had this problem too, and it was fixed not by better encoutner building, but by being willing to let fractions of an encounter take place. Encoutners are not room fuls of opponents but rather the maximum encoutner you can hit. By spreading encounters over multible rooms/scenes they still take their half an hour plus but your interjecting the world into there. Don't be affraid to have the pc's snipe off an encounter one monster at a time if they sneak about or have an " encounter" that is just one normal monster. As long as your hitting encounters in broad notes , everything still works fine.

Skill Challenges are also sorta this way, Sometimes you have to be willing to let the pc's walk away from a skill challenge, sure you default to the failed setting but sometimes the pc's just don't care/are affected.

If the bubble encounters and tacticool combat are bothering you, just drop the mini's and battlemats out. While the Tacticool combat is certainly part of the game, Its not that much more involved then in 3.x. When people start asking and paying attention to your descriptions and such again and less to how many hobbits i can hit with my close blast 4 , then if you like you can return to the battlemats.

The Shortstory is that people are running 4th edition more or less like 2nd edition (for better or worst) out there. If you want to do that, go ahead, do that.

And I guess Don't worry about the whinning too much, it just shows you love the game (but honestly knock it off with that whinning crap )

 

[justrob]

Honestly, that was pretty awesome in my book. It's well written that a lot of tieflings feel that way and society(in D&D worlds) often promotes that thought that no matter how good a tiefling is, they're still "infernal" and therefore "evil". And I think having Avandra, or an avatar of her tell the player to "shape up" is a great in-game way to make them change. It all sounds like very good RP in my book. Though I may be missing the finer details that made it not-so-good.

Well, let me elaborate a bit. She (the player) is the main hack n slasher. Ditzy kind of girl, but when I mentioned she could rip things to shreds and kill them all conan style, she was totally in for it. She chose a tiefling because of the horns and tail, and a cleric because I mentioned that some clerics adventure to bring the wrath of their gods down upon those who oppose the ideals of that god...yeah, she's kind of a violent needs type player. Try as I might, I really can't get her to RP much beyond what little needs to be done to support her taking on the next group of baddies.

When I put her through the whole shape up or the boogie man would get you scenario, I granted her some low-level magic items "Xxx of Avandra" type deals that would unlock new properties as she grew and her devotion became more solid. What she got out of the whole thing was that she got cool pointy things to stick into other things and the targets she chooses have to be chosen a little more carefully.

Ok, that's fine. She's just that kind of gamer. She has been improving slowly...very slowly. I've been working with her to take more of an active role in the direction her character takes, and she's opening up. I understand it'll take time, but that's alright, It's a process.

The other players are levels beyond her in RP ability, so I haven't had to work as directly with them, but everyone has a place in the story, and I build my plot lines around the needs of the characters, ie. the party currently completing the tieflings tasks for avandra.

 

[justrob]

There are only two ways I have ever seen combat go on that long....

Yeah, short and simple answer here. I think all the players dice are evil. Seriously. Between them, over 2 YEARS of playing, they've gotten 15 natural 20s. 15. Total.

Combats take forever because they are consistently rolling too low. I literally had a hobgoblin shaman die of boredom in a combat. I just knocked him on his side and explained that he had an aneurism or something.

 

[Sunseeker]

Well, let me elaborate a bit. She (the player) is the main hack n slasher. Ditzy kind of girl, but when I mentioned she could rip things to shreds and kill them all conan style, she was totally in for it. She chose a tiefling because of the horns and tail, and a cleric because I mentioned that some clerics adventure to bring the wrath of their gods down upon those who oppose the ideals of that god...yeah, she's kind of a violent needs type player. Try as I might, I really can't get her to RP much beyond what little needs to be done to support her taking on the next group of baddies.

Most players are to start with. And there's nothing wrong with bringing down the wrath of a god of good. I have one of those characters right now. They just have to remember that the bloodthirsty nature only applies while bringing the wrath of her god.

When I put her through the whole shape up or the boogie man would get you scenario, I granted her some low-level magic items "Xxx of Avandra" type deals that would unlock new properties as she grew and her devotion became more solid. What she got out of the whole thing was that she got cool pointy things to stick into other things and the targets she chooses have to be chosen a little more carefully.

And you found the carrot works better than the stick here. It usually does. Even reading over the gods, for most of them killing in their name is fine as long as you're killing in their name the right people under the right contexts.

Ok, that's fine. She's just that kind of gamer. She has been improving slowly...very slowly. I've been working with her to take more of an active role in the direction her character takes, and she's opening up. I understand it'll take time, but that's alright, It's a process.

The other players are levels beyond her in RP ability, so I haven't had to work as directly with them, but everyone has a place in the story, and I build my plot lines around the needs of the characters, ie. the party currently completing the tieflings tasks for avandra.

As long as they don't mind, that's a great way to get players involved with each other. Sure, we're all out here slaying a dragon, but why aren't we slaying each other so we don't have to get the reward is a big issue with a lot of adventures. Make sure the other players are working with her too to improve her RPing.

EX: my current holy-avenger(literally) is my first female character(i'm a guy), and it's only because one of our other players previously played a female character that I was able to get some real direction on how to play a female character well.

Yeah, short and simple answer here. I think all the players dice are evil. Seriously. Between them, over 2 YEARS of playing, they've gotten 15 natural 20s. 15. Total.

Combats take forever because they are consistently rolling too low. I literally had a hobgoblin shaman die of boredom in a combat. I just knocked him on his side and explained that he had an aneurism or something.

lawl. Nice one. We had the opposite problem in our ever-lasting encounter. We kept rolling high, so the DM thought it was fine to keep on trucking through more foes.

 

[mneme]

Yeah, short and simple answer here. I think all the players dice are evil. Seriously. Between them, over 2 YEARS of playing, they've gotten 15 natural 20s. 15. Total.

Huh. Are they optomized, deoptimized, or something in between?

Characters with mainstats of 20 are going to be hitting on 7s, so they don't need 20s to take down the baddies. (of course, they're also weak in some other areas, so mostly characteres without a strong need for secondary/teriary stats should go this way -- Avengers, Wizards, Rogues, etc)

Characters with mainstats of 18 are going to do fine; they're pretty much on teh curve.

Characters with 16s are going to have some bad nights unless their job doesn't involve hitting things on their turn (dwarven fighters, warlords).

Characters with 14s...are often going to be in fights where they miss more often than they hit, and will do -2 damage on every strike (relative to the baseline of an 18 mainstat). This can be bad.