D&D 4E 4e mid encounter fatigue

[Cadfan]

Alright. Soapbox time!

Robin D. Laws is an incredibly smart guy. Go read his blog.

You'll find posts that discuss being a DM. His view tends to be that a DM should view his job sort of like being the director of an ad libbed movie.

Then try to apply that to fight scenes.

Because the real problem here isn't "we used up our per encounter abilities now we're just hammering away." That doesn't have to necessarily happen, for one. Many at will abilities involve maneuvering and an eb and flow to combat. Imagine a fight where the fighter keeps trying to line up cleaves, while the bad guys do their best to catch the warlock as he keeps slipping away, and the warlord does his best to aid both of his allies in their goals. That could be done using only at will abilities.

The problem is a movie fight scene that's gone stale. Its gone on for just a bit too long, and everyone's looking around waiting for it to be over. This is fundamentally a problem of choreography, and if you're the DM, you're the choreographer.

So try to go into fights knowing what to expect. Have a goal. Perhaps a fight exists to create "rising action" before an end of the night climactic fight scene. If so, you want to accomplish certain things. You want the players to win without major expenditure of resources. You want to raise the tension level. You want to advance the plot, perhaps by foreshadowing the climactic fight scene.

In a different scene, you might have different goals.

Thinking of a fight scene in this manner really helps. I swear. And with practice you can do it on the fly.

The problem with the dragon fight dragging on has a lot to do with it being a fight where the "purpose" of the fight was for the players to lose. Its hard to make that satisfying. Either the bad guy does damage so fast that the players die before they get to do anything cool, or the bad guy absorbs damage so well that the players do all their coolest stuff, it doesn't help, and then they get killed. Either way, no particular fun.

 

[vagabundo]

So what would a good fix be? Perhaps lowering hitpoints of monsters of higher level back down to what would be appropriate if the monster was of the PC's level. Or perhaps some sort of midfight power refresh mechanic? Hmm, without more experience playing with the full rules, I don't want to get too crazy.

Yeah, I don't really want to start doing that, it is a little unsatisfying. It is not a big enough problem, yet, for me to do anything drastic.

I think it is partly my fault, I haven't been thinking Holistically. I need to think about traps, terrain, story events and I need to think big, cinematic. Not every encounter, but most could do with a little jazz, an inspired touch.

I'm eagar for the full rules now. Itchy even.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

So far there haven't been any problems when it's a bunch of monsters versus the PCs. Fights there seem to be pretty fun. I particularly like it when monsters from another room come by and join the fray .

However, I think I can foresee problems with a tough solo opponent. I think what I'll do for the Nightscale fight in Raiders of Oakhurst Reloaded (we should get to it this Saturday) is populate the room with a bunch of stalactites PCs can drop on the dragon, lava flows (the massif is formed by volcanic activity), and other scenery changes, so at least creative uses of powers have the chance to do lots of damage. We'll see how it goes.

 

[AllisterH]

I have noticed this in my playtest. The core issue seems to be as follows:

Everything has more HP and their attacks generally do less damage in 4e.

I presume this was intended to make combats go longer. Why do we want longer combats? So more players can get turns, so more powers get used, so monsters aren't one round wonders and can actually get cool attacks off.

This works best for encounters at or a bit below the PC's level. The problem comes in when you run encounters with monsters at a higher level. Due to lower damage output and higher hitpoints, the players and monster both can duke it out for a long time. The monster can no longer nuke PCs that are of lower level like would often happen in 3.5, and since it has a lot of hit points it takes a long time for the players to bring it down.

This results in players running out of powers and the combat becoming boring as the rounds drag on.

So what would a good fix be? Perhaps lowering hitpoints of monsters of higher level back down to what would be appropriate if the monster was of the PC's level. Or perhaps some sort of midfight power refresh mechanic? Hmm, without more experience playing with the full rules, I don't want to get too crazy.

Another option would be NOT to use a single high level monster which is where most of the problems come in.

For example, if your XP budget was 600xp at 1st level and you want a challenging fight, it is probably better to use a combination of monsters that total say 825xp than 1 black dragon.

The reason why fights drag on is because of the action economy. Say you have a 6 person 5th level party. A single 10th level monster probably can't one shot a 5th level character on their turn (probably can bloody it easily but outright kill? Doubtful) However, since this can't happen, on the PCs turn, 2 of the PCs action will be to negate the damage done by the single monster while the other 4 PC wail somewhat ineffectively on the defenses of a 10th level monster.

A better encounter would probably be to use more 7th and 8th level monsters that total the xp amount of the single 10th level encounter.

My playing with 4E and monster on monster battles show that the big thing about 4E is the number of actions you have. Barring wide disparity between levels (no amount of kobold skirmishers will challenge a succubus much less a PHANE), the side that has more actions will win the battle.

 

[drjones]

That's just level 1 for ya. 4e definitely expands the possibilities for interesting actions at 1st level over all previous editions but still if you have 10 great powers to use and most fights do not last 10 rounds then you are just cluttering up your char sheet.

Also I think it is better to grow into more options because it allows you to hone your tactics with a certain toolbox of powers and then add something new in occasionally to mix it up so it does not get stale. That has been the 'dnd way' since forever and all CRPGs have stolen it so it can't be that bad.

But you are right in mixing things up, do not let your players get complacent. Mine said at one point 'oh so you get an action point every 2 encounters so you should just use it on the first attack after you get it' imo this is not good tactics and assumes that encounters will be like in a computer game where you can pace your fighting by not aggroing the next set of monsters. The playtest I want (oakhurst) had a 'waves of enemies' encounter right off the bat and I think mixing it up like that will be key, how about the good old sleeping big bad monster illusion that takes the players alphastrike while the real monster sits in the shadows waiting to strike..

Don't want to mess with them so much that they never use their dailys out of fear but enough that they actually have to think about it.

Also don't think that every fight has to end with all the monsters dead. if the players really smoke a bunch of kobolds in the first round there is no reason they would not run for it. that is what human warriors would do after all and it saves fights where the PCs are obviously doing well from dragging out.

 

[cferejohn]

One thing I'm looking forward to about the more hitpoint/less damage/longer combats dynamic is that characters can actually retreat effectively. In 3.5 (especially once you got to 7th-8th level or so), if you decided to retreat, you'd better be out of there in a round or you're going to start losing people. In 4e, the 1st level fighter could possibly hold off the dragon for a few rounds to cover the party's retreat.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I think 4E rewards/penalizes good tactics even more than 3E (which did more than the editions before), so player and DM tactics will certainly influence this perception.

And while the "I'm down to at-wills, darn" feeling may be valid ... just compare to 1st level of any other previous edition. How much variety of action did you have at first level before? I've seen a lot of low-level combat devolve into "I roll, I miss, he rolls he misses, I roll, I miss ..." until someone finally hits and ends things. This isn't much different, except that the start of the whiff-fest is postponed for a few rounds. Helps keep things in perspective.

Should a player be able to execute a unique action each round of, say, a 10-round combat without having to repeat an action? Perhaps, perhaps not. I think there's certainly some expectation creep there.