D&D 4E Changing the Combat Parameters of 4th Edition

[Myrhdraak]

Also I know from experience that there's a complex relationship going on here. For instance certain powers do a small amount of damage and a small amount of healing. You will find that decreased cleric damage output actually INCREASES the damage suffered by the party because combat is enough slower that the additional rounds of incoming damage more than make up for whatever is healed (this applies to surgeless healing that was largely introduced with DP).

Yes that is an interesting drawback. As WotC actually increased monster damage output between MM2 and MM3 if I remember correctly, maybe a better choice would have had been to reduce the healing capability or the number of healing surges or the healing surge value, and they could have achieve the same, but reduced the average combat length instead.

I am going to simulate the healing for a number of other levels (than just level 6) in order to see the game effect of the exponential healing.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes that is an interesting drawback. As WotC actually increased monster damage output between MM2 and MM3 if I remember correctly, maybe a better choice would have had been to reduce the healing capability or the number of healing surges or the healing surge value, and they could have achieve the same, but reduced the average combat length instead.

I am going to simulate the healing for a number of other levels (than just level 6) in order to see the game effect of the exponential healing.

To the extent that DP in particular increased the power of healing it did have a negative impact on play. Luckily most groups fairly quickly discovered that the best strategy was to just pick up a couple of the most optimum new options to boost existing healing powers, and not add more at the expense of offense. Unfortunately less analytical players and groups didn't understand this level of trade-off and sometimes you'd find 'turtle parties' that were stupidly indestructible but had miserable damage output. These groups are HARD to build good encounters for. You really have to focus on plot elements and just forget about the whole concept of "beat the guy down to 0 hit points".

 

[Myrhdraak]

To the extent that DP in particular increased the power of healing it did have a negative impact on play. Luckily most groups fairly quickly discovered that the best strategy was to just pick up a couple of the most optimum new options to boost existing healing powers, and not add more at the expense of offense. Unfortunately less analytical players and groups didn't understand this level of trade-off and sometimes you'd find 'turtle parties' that were stupidly indestructible but had miserable damage output. These groups are HARD to build good encounters for. You really have to focus on plot elements and just forget about the whole concept of "beat the guy down to 0 hit points".

Houston we got a problem! I hope I have done something wrong in my calculations, but right now the whole healing thing looks very broken. Will have to go through the numbers again, but right now it looks like you can't have a flat M+0 monster challenge over all party levels. It works at 6th Level, but for 16th level you need to be at M+1, and at 26th level you need to have a M+4 challenge to work for the Single Encounter scenario. The healing without HS also increase this effect, even though most of those Powers seems to be of Daily nature. However, at higher level the monsters will not be able to do more damage than the party's ability to heal if you optimize it for healing. Will have to do some more work on this, but right now it does not look promising.

 

[pemerton]

Would be interesting if you could calculate the average healing capability of your party during one encounter, just for a high level reference. What level are they?

30th level.

In an average encounter the dwarf will use 4 surges via Second Wind/Cloak of the Walking Wounded - which are boosted by the Dwarf feat that leds him add his CON (probably +5) to healing surges, and an item that lets him add some additional bonus (CON again, mayble?) to surges when bloodied - which he will be when using Second Wind, because he wants to trigger his Cloak.

That's probably 4.5 surges worth.

Battle Cry lets the fighter and bloodied allies in 10 sq use a surge - so normally 2 or 3 when used. Running total 7.

Say the paladin uses 1 LoH per encounter, plus Second Wind (forgot to mention that, via Questing Knight paragon path, he can second wind as a free action when blooeied). Running total 9.

The ranger-cleric is obviously the big one. Healing Word is 2 surges, with bonuses of 30+on each (6d6+WIS, plus maybe a Holy Symbol bonus as well). The bonus is about half-a-surge for the fighter (60-ish surge value) but close to a surge worth for the invoker/wizard. Call that 3 surges - running total 12.

Word of Vigour is a cl burst 1, and also bring some sort of bonus with it. Normally 2 or 3 surges - running total 15.

Healing Torch is a healing effect in area burst 2 with a small bonusa as well. That would normally be the fighter and at least one other PC. So runing total 17.

I'm sure there's stuff I'm forgetting, and there are other small factors (like the invoker/wizard has a belt that grants +3 to HS value) as well as the two daily "words". But to me that looks like 16-odd surges per encounter for 18-odd surge values worth. I would say that more than half that healing is on the two defenders.

Another factor is temp hp. The paladin gets quite a few of them from some feat combo. And often the cleric/ranger is able to use Cloak of Courage at the start of an encounter to grant everyone else a surge's worth of temps.

Hopefully that gives you some sense of things.

 

[pemerton]

Houston we got a problem! I hope I have done something wrong in my calculations, but right now the whole healing thing looks very broken. Will have to go through the numbers again, but right now it looks like you can't have a flat M+0 monster challenge over all party levels. It works at 6th Level, but for 16th level you need to be at M+1, and at 26th level you need to have a M+4 challenge to work for the Single Encounter scenario.

To be honest I haven't followed all your graphs and calcuations; but if I'm understanding you right then this will be no surprise to anyone who has refereed higher level 4e.

I think it's pretty well known that, if the players know how to play their PCs, then an on-level challenge at epic tier will generally not be as proportionately challenging as at heroic tier.

Level +3 to level +8 is the range I tend to work in at upper epic.

EDIT: And our group doesn't use Expertise feats. A +3 to hit would obviously make the PCs even more effective.

 

[S'mon]

Re changing the parameters of combat, this is something I've been looking at for my new 4e campaign beginning in March. I had the idea to make minions the 'standard' enemy and give them 1/4 the hp of a Standard monster so they feel more meaty and real - I think this will make for faster and more brutal fights. I plan to use Standards more as hero and leader types, and keep Elites & Solos very rare (typically downgrading 1 step, eg turning the Kobold Hall dragon solo-3 into an elite-3) which will improve ease of play. I want to be able to have lots of relatively quick fights as well as the traditional 2-hour-massive-battle.
To encourage PCs to press on, I'm giving an Action Point for every battle. To have small fights meaningful, I'm enabling attrition by having an Extended Rest restore only 1/4 of maximum surges (rounded down). This means PCs can be attrited by several battles over several days, without every fight needing to be Helm's Deep.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Houston we got a problem! I hope I have done something wrong in my calculations, but right now the whole healing thing looks very broken. Will have to go through the numbers again, but right now it looks like you can't have a flat M+0 monster challenge over all party levels. It works at 6th Level, but for 16th level you need to be at M+1, and at 26th level you need to have a M+4 challenge to work for the Single Encounter scenario. The healing without HS also increase this effect, even though most of those Powers seems to be of Daily nature. However, at higher level the monsters will not be able to do more damage than the party's ability to heal if you optimize it for healing. Will have to do some more work on this, but right now it does not look promising.

So, you have discovered that high level 4e is kinda broken! lol. This is a known issue. Late 4e monster design attempted to fix it, but its well known that you have to use a LOT of monster levels to challenge epic PCs AT ALL.

Of course, attrition still happens, the powers are daily for a reason, and every HS is a daily resource that won't come back. As long as the day eventually reaches a high enough aggregate level of challenge then those easier challenges start to become significant when you get to the big bad and you are out of HS, that's not a good feeling!

 

[Myrhdraak]

30th level.

In an average encounter the dwarf will use 4 surges via Second Wind/Cloak of the Walking Wounded - which are boosted by the Dwarf feat that leds him add his CON (probably +5) to healing surges, and an item that lets him add some additional bonus (CON again, mayble?) to surges when bloodied - which he will be when using Second Wind, because he wants to trigger his Cloak.

That's probably 4.5 surges worth.

Battle Cry lets the fighter and bloodied allies in 10 sq use a surge - so normally 2 or 3 when used. Running total 7.

Say the paladin uses 1 LoH per encounter, plus Second Wind (forgot to mention that, via Questing Knight paragon path, he can second wind as a free action when blooeied). Running total 9.

The ranger-cleric is obviously the big one. Healing Word is 2 surges, with bonuses of 30+on each (6d6+WIS, plus maybe a Holy Symbol bonus as well). The bonus is about half-a-surge for the fighter (60-ish surge value) but close to a surge worth for the invoker/wizard. Call that 3 surges - running total 12.

Word of Vigour is a cl burst 1, and also bring some sort of bonus with it. Normally 2 or 3 surges - running total 15.

Healing Torch is a healing effect in area burst 2 with a small bonusa as well. That would normally be the fighter and at least one other PC. So runing total 17.

I'm sure there's stuff I'm forgetting, and there are other small factors (like the invoker/wizard has a belt that grants +3 to HS value) as well as the two daily "words". But to me that looks like 16-odd surges per encounter for 18-odd surge values worth. I would say that more than half that healing is on the two defenders.

Another factor is temp hp. The paladin gets quite a few of them from some feat combo. And often the cleric/ranger is able to use Cloak of Courage at the start of an encounter to grant everyone else a surge's worth of temps.

Hopefully that gives you some sense of things.

So roughly 16-18 surges for a 5 player party then. Ok, that is a little lower than the 22 surges maximum I counted for my optimized Cleric, but in most battles it is more likely that only 18 surges would be used (as dailys don't always come into play). It looks at least that we are playing in the same ballpark.

 

[Myrhdraak]

So, you have discovered that high level 4e is kinda broken! lol. This is a known issue. Late 4e monster design attempted to fix it, but its well known that you have to use a LOT of monster levels to challenge epic PCs AT ALL.

Of course, attrition still happens, the powers are daily for a reason, and every HS is a daily resource that won't come back. As long as the day eventually reaches a high enough aggregate level of challenge then those easier challenges start to become significant when you get to the big bad and you are out of HS, that's not a good feeling!

Well you can either choose to accept that the game has a flaw and like permeton try to compensate this flaw by using tougher monsters, or you can try to analyze the game and find what causes the problem and suggest improvements or changes. I am the later kind of person. I want to be able to create that kind of challenge sweat spot, not by chance but by proper planning. I understand you cannot create a game that is 100% right in every occasion (D&D is too complex for that), but if we know that we have a 4 level monster challenge difference at Epic play, we should be able to do something about it. Its too big a flaw to go unnoticed. My guess is that the 4th Edition designers set out with a grand thought of using Healing Surges to put a limit on the healing capability, but along the way more "exemptions" was added - healing without healing surges, magic items that added a lot of bonuses, feats that improved the healing, etc. In the end, the actual Healing Surge value only became a minor part of the whole healing capability, and then the control was lost at higher level. This is still a theory, but lets analyze and see. These days it feels like the world need more facts than feelings.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well you can either choose to accept that the game has a flaw and like permeton try to compensate this flaw by using tougher monsters, or you can try to analyze the game and find what causes the problem and suggest improvements or changes. I am the later kind of person. I want to be able to create that kind of challenge sweat spot, not by chance but by proper planning. I understand you cannot create a game that is 100% right in every occasion (D&D is too complex for that), but if we know that we have a 4 level monster challenge difference at Epic play, we should be able to do something about it. Its too big a flaw to go unnoticed. My guess is that the 4th Edition designers set out with a grand thought of using Healing Surges to put a limit on the healing capability, but along the way more "exemptions" was added - healing without healing surges, magic items that added a lot of bonuses, feats that improved the healing, etc. In the end, the actual Healing Surge value only became a minor part of the whole healing capability, and then the control was lost at higher level. This is still a theory, but lets analyze and see. These days it feels like the world need more facts than feelings.

I don't think the control is 'lost'. Surgeless healing never becomes so prevalent that it obviates the use of surges. Maybe if you carefully husband your surgeless options you can make up for running out of surges for an encounter, but you're really better off, generally speaking, to burn the surgeless stuff earlier in the day as appropriate, because surge healing is always the most flexible as a rule.

I think that Epic PCs ended up being somewhat above the power curve that WotC had mathed out at the start, and additionally their math wasn't playtested heavily at that level, so they underestimated the need for added damage output vs durability for epic (and upper paragon) monsters. The game is PRETTY consistent with the math for all levels, but the formula just isn't as applicable in Epic. You could reform Epic, as WotC did to some extent, by adding a lot of damage output to monsters, making them harder to lock down, etc. They also tried to trim off the power curve of PCs with various errata and creating newer classes that were more toned down (though oddly at the same time they amped up other classes, it wasn't terribly coherent).

Anyway, the true issues with Epic are just that the basic vanilla encounter formula works OK at heroic (it doesn't produce the best encounters without some creativity, but they're passable to good). At Epic they're just not that fun. You need to inject a huge amount of DM creative input into the situations and really amp everything up into crazy situations. Read the descriptions of play in Pemerton's Epic campaign, that's what happens. When you reach that mode of play, the actual stats are kind of just scaffolding. They provide something to work with, but the real focus of the game is on the story and actions of the characters, NPCs, etc.

Obviously if you can tweak the numbers to better reflect what you want to do, that's good, but IMHO its not the primary concern at those levels.