vic20
Fool
For a several months, I was running a West Marches style 4E game with up to 11 different players at a time, some of which had multiple characters.
How many rounds of combat did you end up getting through?

For a several months, I was running a West Marches style 4E game with up to 11 different players at a time, some of which had multiple characters.
Unfortunately, Customer Service isn't a very good source for rules questions. Alas, they aren't given much support. They are given a database of rules and commonly asked questions. Otherwise, they are just people like you or me reading the descriptions from their copy of the PHB and interpreting the same as everyone else.I emailed WotC CS because Aegeri vehemently claimed that those of us who followed the normal rules for the Grab attack on powers that allowed you to "grab the target" were, in his words, "confused" on the way it worked.
That's what the PHB entry on Grab says. It's likely that Customer Service isn't reading from the Rules Compendium yet, which has a much clearer entry on grab. WOTC has said that one of the primary reasons for printing the Rules Compendium was to clarify rules that were too easily misread. This appears to be one of them.Grab states, "You can attempt to grab a creature that is smaller than you, the same size category as you, or one category larger than you."
I played that same encounter. It made perfect tactical sense for me. If I could grab it, then i was the ONLY one in the damaging aura, not any of my allies. Since I wasn't able to grab it, it often moved to a location where it caught 2 or 3 of us in the aura. And almost every round, it would move away from me before attacking anyone else so that I couldn't get my fighter attack in.Having actually played a brawling fighter that encountered a swarm (the Mul in Dark Sun Encounters), I feel that this is all a storm in a teacup. Sure, the Mul could have grabbed the damn swarm, but it had a damaging aura, which made that a pretty stupid idea. It doesn't make sense that a humanoid could grab a swarm of rats or bugs. It also doesn't make any tactical sense for the humanoid to do that, in many cases, so it balances out.
snip
Do remember that in addition to those 20 powers you mention...the players probably all have one item power and one racial power each.
And, also, during that experience level you probably fought 12-20 different monsters that all had multiple powers as well.
As a GM...you really DON'T get too familiar with all the players powers. You are too busy trying to keep your monsters powers straight during each battle.
DS
How many rounds of combat did you end up getting through?![]()
They didn't all play at the same time. We'd do parties of 4-5 and rotate players in. We played 1-3 times per week. Players would "party-up" with other characters in their same level range (1-4, 2-5, 3-6, 4-7, etc...). When you reached 5th level you got a second character.
It was a persistent sandbox. So if one party did something, it had a lasting effect on the other characters.
I would run a West Marches style game again, but not with 4th Edition. The combat just lasts too long.
That sounds like a ton of fun!