Anyone else not feel "the grind"

[Rel]

You have 2-3 fights a night?!

My god that sounds boring, and like a "Grind" to me. It is typical for me to have 1 about every other session.

Apparently a lot of us are doing it wrong.

 

[Lauberfen]

Different strokes for different folks.

I currently play 1-3 encounters per night (3 hours), and get bored when there are less than 2. But I've also ran a game with about one encounter oer session back in 3rd, so I know what you mean. I think less of us are as bored this way.

...Pretty much the biggest grind factor I've experienced is when the PC's dice go cold.

Just spotted this, and it's a massive point.

I'm fully aware of probability etc, but dice can certainly roll good/bad long enough to make you start to wonder...

Our fighter had this for about three sessions- just kept rolling 7 or below. It was really ridiculous and meant his role in combat was often minimal. He did far more damage with rain of steel than all his other attacks put together.

However the rest of the party were on form, so that was manageable. He got out of his rut eventually.

 

[Jhaelen]

You have 2-3 fights a night?!

My god that sounds boring, and like a "Grind" to me. It is typical for me to have 1 about every other session.

I'd say that's untypical for D&D. When we're playing Earthdawn or Ars Magica then that ratio is about right. But for D&D 3 encounters per session are standard. Encounters are the main source for XP, so that's quite natural, imho.

I assume you're not using the standard XP rules when playing D&D?

 

[Starfox]

I think id depends very much on the focus on the campaign and player interest. The DnD tactical game is interesting, and as long as you find it fun I don't think Grind is such a big problem, at least at lower levels. But of you feel combat is a story vehicle, a bit of exiting dice-rolling before you get back to the role-play (which is pretty much my groups pow), then 4E can be grindy and some houe rule might be useful.

Neither take is right or wrong, just a matter of taste.

 

[Jack99]

No grind here

 

[PeelSeel2]

No grinds. I have had some long combats lately, but my typical group is 10-15 people. Sometimes we only get 1 encounter done a night. When we tell people we are not playing, and we can get the group down to 5-8 hard core players, we can have 2-5 encounters in a night.

It's a bad problem, too many players (about equal numbers of men and women too. Odd), and we suffer from it. To the point that sometimes I do not look forward to the Friday night gaming session. All in all, we manage to go as fast as we can. We have had some deaths. They are 4-7 level. The 'Boss' monster encounter we had (a level 7 green dragon with 4 level 4 kobolds) was super challenging.

 

[Lauberfen]

Umm, a little off topic, but might I suggest that you run two or even three separate games with your mega group instead? Surely this would be better for everyone?

 

[Herschel]

I really haven't felt it. Some battles take longer, and they should. The last thing I want is to unload my dailies and encounters and call it a day. I think picking interesting at-wills helps.

 

[CubeKnight]

No grind here, but then again, the only game I've been was when I ran KotSf for a group of a Strength Paladin, an Archer Ranger and an Artful Rogue. So, yeah, quite heavy on the smack.

 

[sfedi]

All the grind combats I've experienced were flat out bad designed encounters. I mean, REALLY bad designed.

Having DM'd lots of 4E combats, none of them have been grindy.