4E combat grind but not boring

[Fallen Seraph]

I would say getting used to the system dramatically cuts down on the time both with DMs knowing how to set up encounters and Players in using Powers, etc. It is common for combat now to last about 20-30 minutes in 4e for my group.

 

[Jack99]

Lets see, an Ogre (level 8, xp 350)
4 to 5 orcs, one of which being an Eye of Gruumsh. Rest of them sound like Orc Raiders or Beserkers (150 or 175 xp per monster). The minions one must assume are the level 3 grunts, 38 a piece.

That's 350+5*38+200+3 or 4*150 or 175
Best case, it's a 350+190+200+450=1190 xp combat.
Worst case, it's a 1440 xp combat.

That's a level 5 or 6 encounter. Fairly challenging for a level 2 party. Bordering on deadly due to the ogre.

No wonder it took a while. Basically all monsters are higher level than the players. There are no easy targets, except the minions. Also, the orcs all come build in with healing, which prolongues the combat even more.

Anyway, I would say that in this case, the length of the encounter owes more to poor design of the encounter than anything else.

Then again, he could have adjusted all these monsters, but from your description, it sure doesn't seem that way.

Cheers.

 

[Iron Sky]

I'd agree with others here that the grind is probably due to the difficulty of the encounter and maybe the experience of the players (judging by the fact that you are level 2, I don't know if you've played much before this).

In my experience - our group is up to level 9 - most battles take us about 30 minutes, up to 45 if we're having a particularly slow night/bad rolls. Huge fights way over our level where we blow all our dailies take up to twice as long.

The longest ones are usually the ones we're on the edge of our seats for, since with 3 strikers in a 4 member group, if the fight isn't over fast, it means we're probably taking on more than we should have and we're in an epic knockdown, drag-out slug-fest.

I'm not sure how it'll go into paragon, but our fights have been getting faster and faster as we play. A few extra combat rules helped speed things up ALOT for us too:

1) Whatever you say your character does, he does. You don't get to take it back (keeps people from changing their minds multiple times - "I use eyebite, wait, no, I should probably use witchfire, no maybe eldritch blast this one..."). This rule usually only goes into effect if there's a lot of wishy-washyness.

2) The players have about 10 seconds to decide what they are going to do. Take any longer than that and the DM starts counting down from 6. Supposedly, if he reaches zero, you just lose your turn, but we've never had that happen. Usually it'll go something like:

Player: "Uh... I guess I move to here and, uh..." (stares at the battlegrid for 10 seconds).
DM: "6.... 5..."
Player: "Ok, I eyebite this one!"

3) No tactical discussions in combat. You can cheer for each other, remind each other and the DM of various bonuses/penalties("you have CA against that guy"), status effects("this guy is bloodied and that one is blind"), and the like ("remember to roll your magic item crit dice").

Our fights really were getting bogged down before we added this rule with three players discussing which powers each other should use, debating it, going back and forth, and making each player's turn take forever.

Player 1: "I think I'll eyebite this one"
Player 2: "Well, we could really use witchfire on this one."
Player 3: "I think we'll probably rest after this fight, so just hit him with one of your dailies."
Player 1: "No, I want to save my daily in case we're ambushed while we're resting, maybe I'll eldritch blast this minion to try and get a teleport."
Etc...
Player 4 + DM: "JUST DO SOMETHING!"

Now if we want to shout tactical advice to each other, we have to do it in character: "Wait to attack until I flank him" or "This guy's tough, hit 'em with everything guys" (our group's code for "use dailies") or "I'll take these ones, you get the ones that are running." Not only does it speed up combat, it makes it more immersive too.

If the early bog gets you down, I've found these really help speed combat up. When player turns go from 5 minutes each to 1 minute, combats get way zippier. The extra powers you get as you level actually make combat faster since you're already familiar with what you have, so they just give more ways to dish out more damage/status effects faster.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

Well in our 4E game last night we got a first hand dose of the grind that is 4E combat. This is not to say that the battle was boring, it was certainly not, but it certainly felt like it took forever.

The party:
2nd level warlord, wizard, warlock, swordmage, and rogue. Plus two NPC clerics.

The opposition:
an Ogre, 4 or 5 orcs and 5 hobgoblin minions (approximations since I wasn't DMing)

This is a very challenging encounter for your group. It's no surprise to me everyone blew through their resources. The ogre alone is *really* nasty for a group of level 2 PCs.

The result: a fun battle that took over 2 hours! The PCs eventually lost the fight.

As a player the fight was fun, but man it took way too long and this is only at second level, I shudder to think how long combat will take at paragon or epic levels.

I have noticed this on occasion in my low level 4e games. I usually find I'm enjoying myself throughout the fight, but there comes a point when all the concentration gets to me, and I just get tired and want to move on to the next thing.

FWIW, I find that once you hit level 3 and get the extra encounter attack power, things go *much* more smoothly. So much so, in fact, that I'm thinking about letting level 1 PCs pick another level 1 encounter power. This power can be upgraded when they get their level 3 power.

Another thing, I find that the fights at level 6 take about as long as the fights at earlier levels. I suspect that that duration of combat encounters is similar at all levels, as opposed to annoyingly long at high levels or depressingly short at low levels.

 

[Zathraas]

I was playing the rogue from this encounter and here are some additional details about the enemy forces in the encounter:

As Shadeygm mention, the group attacked while the team was at extended rest, so the enemy were able to come at us from a variety of directions before most of the player group could do anything, so this combat started with the PCs surrounded………

>in addition to the ogre, Eye of Gruumsh, orc cleric, 2 or 3 orc fighter types and orc minion squad, there was an annoying hobgoblin archer left over from an earlier encounter who took potshots at characters with his longbow
>the ogre had two healing surges and was able to use both (via the orc cleric)
>the orc cleric wasn’t just a type of orc healer, he was a cleric exactly like a player character
>the minions were not simple grunts as they had better weapons and armor (I believe) but more importantly they all had the “Death Strike” ability of the Eye of Gruumsh, ie, once taken to 0 hps or less they get a parting basic melee attack at anyone close by making the minions dangerous to kill

Since we were in mid rest, the wizard was not able to regain his daily used earlier that day so the one real large area affecting power was not available. Our team of seven 2nd level PCs managed to kill only the small squad of death blow minions and maybe an orc warrior before the entire party was done for.

 

[Jack99]

Well I guess thats just proves it. The encounter was way way way over anything you guys could handle, but with 3 healers, its normal that your party lives for a while being getting killed, ie the fight goes on for way too long.

 

[Gruns]

I have to agree that was simply a badly designed encounter. 4E Ogres aren't the lvl 2(errata! 3) chumps they were in 3.5. They are now lvl 8 brutes. Not only does the overall budget put this at a lvl 5 or 6 encounter, which is usually going to be deadly even if it's comprised of creatures the PCs can hit, but the fact that there's a lvl 8 alone makes this nearly impossible for the PCs. The Ogre Savage alone can kill most lvl 2 PCs in two hits, and there's a good chance he isn't going to be missing. I can only assume the unerratted version was used. (1d10+5 damage became 2d10+5)
I'd guess the DM was under the mindset that since PCs could fight Ogres and friends at level 2 before, they should be able to handle it now. Maybe if the party was fully prepared, fresh full of Dailys and full hit points, and were the ones doing the ambushing, then maybe they had a chance. (I'm still betting against them simply due to the ogre). But as it was presented, they were simply doomed.

As an aside, why were there 2 NPC clerics with the group? If it was for story purposes that's fine, I guess, but without them the group composition is just fine. Two extra entities that the DM has to worry about also plays a part in the bogging down of things.
Later!
Gruns

 

[Shadeydm]

I have to agree that was simply a badly designed encounter. 4E Ogres aren't the lvl 2(errata! 3) chumps they were in 3.5. They are now lvl 8 brutes. Not only does the overall budget put this at a lvl 5 or 6 encounter, which is usually going to be deadly even if it's comprised of creatures the PCs can hit, but the fact that there's a lvl 8 alone makes this nearly impossible for the PCs. The Ogre Savage alone can kill most lvl 2 PCs in two hits, and there's a good chance he isn't going to be missing. I can only assume the unerratted version was used. (1d10+5 damage became 2d10+5)
I'd guess the DM was under the mindset that since PCs could fight Ogres and friends at level 2 before, they should be able to handle it now. Maybe if the party was fully prepared, fresh full of Dailys and full hit points, and were the ones doing the ambushing, then maybe they had a chance. (I'm still betting against them simply due to the ogre). But as it was presented, they were simply doomed.

As an aside, why were there 2 NPC clerics with the group? If it was for story purposes that's fine, I guess, but without them the group composition is just fine. Two extra entities that the DM has to worry about also plays a part in the bogging down of things.
Later!
Gruns

I have to disagree about being overmatched by the ogre. Although it certainly wasn't missing it wasn't really doing all that much damage due to the aegis of shielding docking 8 points off each hit. We had it bloodied twice and could have killed it if not for the presence of the cleric who healed him at least once if not twice.


The two clerics were story related and originally we also had 3 npc fighters too although they were lost in previous fights.

 

[Jack99]

I have to disagree about being overmatched by the ogre. Although it certainly wasn't missing it wasn't really doing all that much damage due to the aegis of shielding docking 8 points off each hit. We had it bloodied twice and could have killed it if not for the presence of the cleric who healed him at least once if not twice.

The Ogre Alone, sure. My players did it at level 2. But with a handful of orcs and another of hobgoblins? No.

Besides, the ogre is only supposed to have 1 surge. Another upgrade that made the encounter even harder..

Anyway. You might want 4e to be boring and its combats a grind. And sure, we might find evidence of that one day. But in this case, the system is not at fault. Talk to the DM instead.

 

[Shadeydm]

Besides, the ogre is only supposed to have 1 surge. Another upgrade that made the encounter even harder..

Anyway. You might want 4e to be boring and its combats a grind. And sure, we might find evidence of that one day. But in this case, the system is not at fault. Talk to the DM instead.

I did not say 4E combat is boring in fact I specifically stated more than once that it was fun, if you are going to try and cast my posts in a negative light at least try to be accurate.

I did say that in my opinion that this particular fight was my first experience with what others had described as the 4E combat grind and that I did in fact find it to be a grind. I also did point out that in my opinion it seemed system related since I have not experienced 2+ hour combats in other editions especially at second level.

Perhaps you should read another thread if you find this discussion so objectionable that you feel the need to fabricate my motivations.