D&D 4E Is Pathfinder Combat As Slow as 4e?

[Shazman]

I played a lot of 4e, and only gave it up fairly recently. We found fights went very, very slowly, but I suspect that's going to vary by group. for example, my group hated the fact there were 3 or 4 different bonuses being generated every round in 4e. When the cleric sets up a foe so the first person to hit him gets healing, the ranger grants bonus damage to anyone next to him, the fighter gives bonus AC to anyone next to her and the warlord causes one foe to grant combat advantage to the theif (but no one else), and some beholder is creating a set of difficult terrain, or slowing the cleric, or whatever, and that whole list changes every round, we got bogged down.

At first, we thought we just weren't used to how the new system worked. But after more than a year of play, it didn't get any better. In fact, the constant influx of new powers, with new conditions, made it worse. And the online character generator was so useful, no DM wanted to forbid characters made with it, so we always ended up allowing in all WotC content.

For us, it is much, much easier to deal with a bless spell, a bardic performance, and a bull's strength for the fighter. We note those down, keep track of durations, and don't have new statuses popped up several times a round. Fights take us half as long, and even less when someone does something clever and bypasses a foe (which never seemed to happen in 4e, because the numbers always made sure every encounter was a balanced challenge, no matter what the players did).

But again, I suspect another group might find per-round bonuses faster than we did, and maybe even the broader changes Pathfinder spells can bring to be slower.

That's been my experience as well. Pathfinder combat has been so much faster than 4E combat, and not having to deal with the fiddly round to round conditions/buffs/debuffs really helps improve the flow of the game.

 

[Stan Shinn]

That's been my experience as well. Pathfinder combat has been so much faster than 4E combat, and not having to deal with the fiddly round to round conditions/buffs/debuffs really helps improve the flow of the game.

This was the consensus of a 4e review at All Games Considered just a week ago -- 4e is slow and requires a lot of book-keeping compared to 3.5 (and by extension, Pathfinder).

http://media.libsyn.com/media/tashkal/20101207RPGB-64k.mp3

 

[The_Gneech]

My attempts at 4E tapped out at 3rd level and it was a slog then. The podcast is doing 7th level PvP ... sounds like a nightmare!

-The Gneech

 

[Festivus]

I'll say this, I DM almost exclusively 4E, and when I have a table of people who know the rules and their characters, it's the same speed as the Pathfinder game I play in.

However, when I tried my hand at DMing Pathfinder, I stumbled a bit and the combat took a little longer because a) I wasn't prepared for the looking up of things... 4E has spoiled me with that, and b) I would get hung up on some rules questions that I didn't fully recall off the top of my head. Both of those issues were thankfully tempered by my friend who really knows the rules.

I think the take away is... if everyone fully understands the rules, speed should not be an issue, regardless of the game engine beneath the story.

Let me amend my post a little: I feel that one thing you have to do in 4E as a GM is trust the players a little to help with speed during combat. Typically, I have index cards that I write conditions and what not down in shorthand on for the conditions on the players, but I put the onus on the players to remind me when the bad guys turn is up that there is some condition on him. This does a couple things... 1) keeps the players engaged in what is going on tactically, and 2) frees me up to think more about tactics. The only conditions I try to pay attention to are those that would be triggered if my guy is marked or in an aura... and that isn't that difficult to do. If you don't let go of this, you will be lost in the flurry of conditions, particularly at higher levels when there is lots of conditions that can be present... but I find that not very different that a cleric in Pathfinder with 15 buffs up, many that affect the party or enemies, coupled with spell resistance and saving throws.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Obviously, you can't translate a lot of things directly, but it seems they did as much as they could to make 4e like a MMORPG. They have the clearly defined roles: striker=dps, defender=tank, leader=healer, controller=crowd control that are taken straight from MMORPG's. 4E has marks from defenders to mimic drawing aggro. The at-will, encounter, daily system of powers mimics cooldowns in a MMORPG. Even expanding the standard 20 levels to 30 is bringing the game closer to WoW.

You literally could not be more incorrect.

For starters, there is no "Crowd control" type in MMORPGS.

There are dps, healers, and tanks, yes, but in 4e, it's not nearly as clean cut.

The powers system has nothing at all to do with MMO cooldowns - on the contrary, it is earlier editions that have cooldowns made out to be in minutes or seconds. If anything is closer to MMO cooldowns, it's Pathfinder abilities.

Marks aren't in any way similar to MMO taunts. No, 3.5 abilities that make enemies save vs attacking you are. Once again, if anything is closer to MMOs, it's 3.x.

Expanding levels? Gosh, you're really reaching now, aren't you?

In short, stop. You're wrong. About everything.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

As for combat length:

Rocket tag is rocket tag.

 

[Mark Chance]

You literally could not be more incorrect.

For starters, there is no "Crowd control" type in MMORPGS.

EverQuest's bards and enchanters advise you to not accuse others being incorrect immediately before being incorrect.

 

[Festivus]

Can't you "sheep" or "ice" bad guys in WoW? Isn't that crowd control?

I don't equate 4E to MMOs, mainly because you still have a DM who describes the action. If pathfinder could get away from referencing things in books so that I wouldn't have to look it up I would probably DM it a lot more... it's the one big draw for 4E to me, everything is right there on the page, I don't need any books to play. If I knew the PF rules better I could probably be more efficient but I have other things I like to do in my life than memorize ever spell in the game.

 

[Shazman]

You literally could not be more incorrect.

For starters, there is no "Crowd control" type in MMORPGS.

There are dps, healers, and tanks, yes, but in 4e, it's not nearly as clean cut.

The powers system has nothing at all to do with MMO cooldowns - on the contrary, it is earlier editions that have cooldowns made out to be in minutes or seconds. If anything is closer to MMO cooldowns, it's Pathfinder abilities.

Marks aren't in any way similar to MMO taunts. No, 3.5 abilities that make enemies save vs attacking you are. Once again, if anything is closer to MMOs, it's 3.x.

Expanding levels? Christ, you're really reaching now, aren't you?

In short, stop. You're wrong. About everything.

(comment removed) On the rest, I will agree to disagree with you. All I can say is that I've heard multiple instances of people that have played WoW but don't know anything about D&D, and "It's just like WoW." is their first reaction upon looking at a 4E PHB. The "4E is not like WoW" argument seems pretty hollow.

 

[Shazman]

I'll say this, I DM almost exclusively 4E, and when I have a table of people who know the rules and their characters, it's the same speed as the Pathfinder game I play in.

However, when I tried my hand at DMing Pathfinder, I stumbled a bit and the combat took a little longer because a) I wasn't prepared for the looking up of things... 4E has spoiled me with that, and b) I would get hung up on some rules questions that I didn't fully recall off the top of my head. Both of those issues were thankfully tempered by my friend who really knows the rules.

I think the take away is... if everyone fully understands the rules, speed should not be an issue, regardless of the game engine beneath the story.

Let me amend my post a little: I feel that one thing you have to do in 4E as a GM is trust the players a little to help with speed during combat. Typically, I have index cards that I write conditions and what not down in shorthand on for the conditions on the players, but I put the onus on the players to remind me when the bad guys turn is up that there is some condition on him. This does a couple things... 1) keeps the players engaged in what is going on tactically, and 2) frees me up to think more about tactics. The only conditions I try to pay attention to are those that would be triggered if my guy is marked or in an aura... and that isn't that difficult to do. If you don't let go of this, you will be lost in the flurry of conditions, particularly at higher levels when there is lots of conditions that can be present... but I find that not very different that a cleric in Pathfinder with 15 buffs up, many that affect the party or enemies, coupled with spell resistance and saving throws.

I don't know how you managed that. In my experience, 4E with players that know the rules and their characters well is still much slower than Pathfinder with players that barely know the rules.