4e Combat Frustrating Instead of Fun?

[Victim]

While I don't have any gameplay proof, based on what I've read and observed, I suspect that as players become more accustomed to working closely together as a group, solo combats will become more like combat against a group of standard creatures. I mean, you can't run around willy-nilly, nova'ing with your daily and encounter powers at the first opportunity (probably only hitting 50% of the time), and then fall back on your at-will powers. That's a recipe for a long slog. Working together is a must.

I agree. Trying to spike a comparable level solo with APs, and the character's best powers seems like a recipe for a long series of at will attacks. Sure, that will inflict good damage from the party in the first round but that won't be enough (barring extreme luck or Blade Cascade), but they'll quickly run out of good powers. Then they'll be reduced finishing up with at wills.

On the other hand, clerics have at will powers that provide attack bonuses to other party members and there are other more limited powers to provide power bonuses. There are lots of ways to get combat advantage. Some powers reduce enemy defenses. A party that waits for an extra bonus before using a big gun should be doing its damage more reliably over the encounter, even if they aren't hitting so hard in round 1.

Of course, at low levels, you run out of powers very quickly regardless.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I tend to roll VERY crappy, to a phenomenal degree, so 4E's hit rates and balancing annoy the hell out of me. I played a dragonborn Warlord, lined up THREE enemies with my breath and hit...zero. Cause I rolled a 3, 5, and 6. This also happened to be the final straw where I quit the game.

See, in 3E, there were always options for a player to take luck over his knee and give it a cruel spanking. Wizards had spells like Web, where even if ALL the rolls went against you, they were still slowly getting out, which you could then stack with other difficult terrain effects to trap them long enough for the party to shoot them all to death. As a melee character, you could get your special attack modifiers high enough to make the rolls near foregone conclusions. Tripping alone won't kill people (unless you're a Setting Sun adept. yummy.), but it'll weaken them badly for the others. Skill checks didn't fail on a 1, and it was easy to drive up your check mod so high only others with that level of dedication could win an opposed roll. 4E systematically destroyed every single one of these avenues to contribute without rolling average+, replacing them with meager damage effects, like Reaping Strike doing half (or full) str mod damage on a miss. Gosh golly! The enemies have super ramped up hp, and I'm supposed to feel good dealing 2 points? No, that is NOT the same as battlefield control (true BC, not the crap they call BC in 4E), that is not the same as being so silver tongued you could sell swampland in Florida, and so on.

This one thing is one of my greatest annoyances with 4E and why I will not switch, ever. Contrary to popular belief, it is NOT broken to trip someone every round, nor beat 99% of the population on a Bluff automatically. Maybe the crazy BC combos were broken, but many of them could be circumvented with simple fly spells, not to mention the ubiquitous dispel magic. The options were powerful, but there were always countermeasures. My melee and Rogue PCs generally always have a way to get up from prone safely, often as a swift action. That's what I call balance in a game system. Oh well.
/rant

 

[Boarstorm]

You hate a system... because you can't roll well?

The mind boggles.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

You hate a system... because you can't roll well?

No, I hate a system that removed any half decent way of contributing and feeling useful without reliance on dice rolls. Thanks for the snark, though. I hadn't gotten my daily dose yet.

 

[Boarstorm]

No, I hate a system that removed any half decent way of contributing and feeling useful without reliance on dice rolls. Thanks for the snark, though. I hadn't gotten my daily dose yet.

No offense, man, but to me that sounded like the core of the argument and I would have had the same puzzled expression if someone had told me they hated the sun because they don't have a green thumb.

There's plenty of powers that can contribute even if you roll low with miss effects and zones and such. But it sounds to me like your problem is with any system that doesn't allow you to stack bonuses to the point where the roll is irrelevant, and I can't help but think that any system that worked that way would be inherently broken.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

It worked in 3E, which I've only found broken when things like Shapechanging into stuff to give you crazy Su abilities, or the Planar Shephard prestige class, or picking out items/races and such to become immune to damage (half celestial troll and some other stuff, for example), but never from stacking bonuses on a die roll. All the other stuff any sane DM alters or bans.

The game didn't cease to be challenging when my Goliath Martial Rogue / Barbarian could use his knockback feat (and heavy optimizing) to generate bull rush mods after a hit in the +30's by level 8, basically guaranteeing he home run batted anything he hit, the only real variable being "how far?" It was fun. I used tumbling and other stuff to position to send the guy flying past allies for AoO's, good times. Despite this horrendous stacking, he still was vulnerable to spells, still bled, still had some weak saves, hittable AC... And when he faced something he couldn't move, he had other options, like (guaranteed success) UMDing a wand to buff the party. The point is, the system allowed me to do things without worry of a dice (and still having variance, and need for dice on other things), managed to not fall apart broken, and never made me ask, "why'd I show up again?"

4E got rid of all that, both the tricks to avoid luck, and the incredible versatility, and I saw it first hand avalanche all together. Maybe at higher levels you get more powers to handle these issues, but in 3E you generally didn't have to wait too long to find a strong area to work around.

 

[small pumpkin man]

Solo fights falling into drudgery are a known possible problem. I think that even if you decide 4e is not for you, that fights with a mix of normal monsters, minions and Elites don't suffer from this problem. (Or at least suffer from it far less).

@StreamOfTheSky: While I sympathise, and agree that there should be such choices, the examples you give (web, AC not scaling properly, and the skill system scaling poorly) were all bugs, not features.

 

[Boarstorm]

Fair enough. I don't think the problem is as pronounced as you do, but perhaps I'm seeing through blinders since I tend to have "hot" dice and don't have the same problems. Anyway, my little part in this thread hijack is over. *cough*
Carry on, then.

 

[small pumpkin man]

It worked in 3E, which I've only found broken when things like Shapechanging into stuff to give you crazy Su abilities, or the Planar Shephard prestige class, or picking out items/races and such to become immune to damage (half celestial troll and some other stuff, for example), but never from stacking bonuses on a die roll. All the other stuff any sane DM alters or bans.

The game didn't cease to be challenging when my Goliath Martial Rogue / Barbarian could use his knockback feat (and heavy optimizing) to generate bull rush mods after a hit in the +30's by level 8, basically guaranteeing he home run batted anything he hit, the only real variable being "how far?" It was fun. I used tumbling and other stuff to position to send the guy flying past allies for AoO's, good times. Despite this horrendous stacking, he still was vulnerable to spells, still bled, still had some weak saves, hittable AC... And when he faced something he couldn't move, he had other options, like (guaranteed success) UMDing a wand to buff the party. The point is, the system allowed me to do things without worry of a dice (and still having variance, and need for dice on other things), managed to not fall apart broken, and never made me ask, "why'd I show up again?"

4E got rid of all that, both the tricks to avoid luck, and the incredible versatility, and I saw it first hand avalanche all together. Maybe at higher levels you get more powers to handle these issues, but in 3E you generally didn't have to wait too long to find a strong area to work around.

What you're talking about here is a lowered use in 4e for system mastery, which, I have to say, I'm glad to see go, so I'm going to accept we like different types of games.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

What you're talking about here is a lowered use in 4e for system mastery, which, I have to say, I'm glad to see go, so I'm going to accept we like different types of games.

Sounds reasonable. I like systems that reward mastery. I'll stop hijacking the thread as well.