D&D 4E Changing the Combat Parameters of 4th Edition

[Myrhdraak]

CALCULATING XP

In order to be able to calculate the right XP for monster at various levels, I have to take into account both its ability to do damage and its HP. On the player side I also add the ability to heal HP. As I have not done a full analysis of the capability to heal for the clearic at every level, I am right now just looking at 6th level and extrapolating that to the other levels, this result in a basic assumption of a player capability to heal 30% of its HP during an encounter. The result is the table below which shows how many monsters of a particular level is needed for it to be an even fight against the party.



Based on this I can now look at the 4th Edition XP curve to see if it fits the "new" game play created. Major difference will be the bounded accuracy that makes an impact on the ability to hurt monsters and PCs at a wider range of levels. I use standard deviation to look at how much the various numbers from the above graph indicates a value of the XP, forming a relation network between how hard monsters are in relation to various PC levels.



As we can se the average standard deviation expressed like a percentage of the blue values is roughly 20%, i.e. not very good. We should be able to get a curve that is more closer to the actual danger of the various monsters.

 

[Myrhdraak]

I guess I will loose at least half ot the crowd starting to talk about standard deviation. Well the reason is that it really matter when I as a DM start to build encounters. If the XP numbers deviations too far from the actual “threat” or “danger” of the monster vs. the player level, we get a problem. We either build to hard or too easy encounters and loose the DM control. But if we can minimize the difference between the monster actual threat level and its capability to reduce player resources, we get a very balanced game.
As you can see in the graph below, by doing 50 itteration I have managed to reduce the percentage standard deviation from 20% to less than 1%, with the worst correlation from 60% down to 1,5%, see below.



The result is which gives us another shape of the XP curves. We can now choose to use the 100 XP for a level 1 monster as basis for the new curve (green curve), or we can try to keep the 19,000 XP for a level 30 monster as the basis (red curve). The later is actually the one that gives the best result (red curve) as we get a deviation from the traditional 4th Edition XP curve that is smaller. On the secondary axis (purple line) in the graph below you can see the percentage deviation from the traditional 4th edition XP curve. Biggest deviation is in paragon levels, as well as low heroic levels, where we see a +- 60-70% deviation from the traditional 4th Edition XP curve vs. the new XP curve.



Conclusion
We now have something that looks really promising from an encounter design point of view. We just have to set the actual number for each monster level, and its implication on the character XP level progression table. We should also double check the Cleric healing capability as it could affect these numbers if we see a great increase in number of HS that can be used during an encounter.

 

[Myrhdraak]

HEALING

I have now gone through the Cleric class and tried to almost "maximizing" its healing capability. The result was somewhat of a surprise to me (but maybe not for those that have played Epic characters). The party's ability to heal is very exponential as can be seen in the graph below. The ability to almost heal all the PC's HP at higher levels will have a huge impact on the amount of enemies the party can face.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

HEALING

I have now gone through the Cleric class and tried to almost "maximizing" its healing capability. The result was somewhat of a surprise to me (but maybe not for those that have played Epic characters). The party's ability to heal is very exponential as can be seen in the graph below. The ability to almost heal all the PC's HP at higher levels will have a huge impact on the amount of enemies the party can face.

View attachment 81156

what is your 'maximized' build?

 

[Myrhdraak]

So what happens if we then add this exponential healing capability to the analysis - well we start to see magic happening!!!
It seems like the WotC design team was actually using the healing mechanism to balance the monsters. If we look at M+0 monsters we now can see that roughly 2 monsters are equal to party in damage and HP (red line). Before we added the party healing this was not balanced. It started at 1.32 at 1st level and went as low as 0.62 at 30th level. Now it looks much more "flattish" (if that is an English word), which is good for encounter design point of view. We could potentially increase the monster damage output a little at Paragon level and even more at Epic level - which seems to be the feedback on a lot of forums as well. So the figures seems to confirm those claims.

 

[Myrhdraak]

what is your 'maximized' build?

Well, I have at every selection of Encounter or Daily Power selected the power with the highest healing capability (maximum number of healing surges for the most people). I think this is not always the best choice for a cleric, you might want to maximize other aspects and be more content with combinations of Healing Word and Utility powers, rather than always trying to generate healing with every encounter/daily power. However, by maximizing it we might get something that shows the healing potential, in reality the cleric would probably do some other choices, but at the same time will some other characters pick up a utility powers that provides temp HP or something similar.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, I have at every selection of Encounter or Daily Power selected the power with the highest healing capability (maximum number of healing surges for the most people). I think this is not always the best choice for a cleric, you might want to maximize other aspects and be more content with combinations of Healing Word and Utility powers, rather than always trying to generate healing with every encounter/daily power. However, by maximizing it we might get something that shows the healing potential, in reality the cleric would probably do some other choices, but at the same time will some other characters pick up a utility powers that provides temp HP or something similar.

Yeah, I just wondered if you had any specific sort of build in mind like Pacifist Healer or something. There can be a 'BIG' variation in healing output.

Also I know from experience that there's a complex relationship going on here. For instance certain powers do a small amount of damage and a small amount of healing. You will find that decreased cleric damage output actually INCREASES the damage suffered by the party because combat is enough slower that the additional rounds of incoming damage more than make up for whatever is healed (this applies to surgeless healing that was largely introduced with DP).

As you note, even with relatively straightforward choices (say CLW vs one of the stronger Daily powers of the same level) a similar effect is found, the opportunity cost outweighs the benefits. Of course these things are somewhat situational too, but you have to take into account the whole adventuring day when discussing dailies to it gets pretty complex. Mostly the various class guides based their advice on likely and typical party composition and encounter design. Still, as a general rule things play better with a modest healing loadout.

 

[pemerton]

The epic party in my game uses the following for healing:

* Paladin with 5/day LoH;
* Hybrid cleric with Supreme Healer, so 1x/enc Healing Word for 2 targets; plus 1x/enc Word of Vigour and 1x/day Mass Cure Serious Wounds (two surges worth of surgeless healing for everyone); plus one enc power (Healing Torch) and one daily power (Breath of Stars) that allow healing; plus 1x/day self-only Regen 28 from Demigod;
* Invoker/wizard who might have a little bit of self-healing (but not much that I can remember);
* Sorcerer/bard with 1x/day Majestic Word;
* Dwarven fighter/cleric with 1x/day Healing Word, 1x/day Dwarven Armour, 2x/enc free action Second Wind with Cloak of the Walking Wounded, 1x/enc Battle Cry.

They also each have an Epic "1x/day when you die . . . " ability.

That is a lot of healing, but I'd be surprised if it's that atypical (maybe the dwarf has more healing than the typical warrior type?). There's no pure leader in that party, for instance.

That said, in our most recent session the fighter was solo-ing a primordial heroslayer hydra and was going through 100+ hp per round. I don't see how a fighter at that level who can't withstand that sort of punishment would be meant to function. At least as I've experienced it, 4e is much more about taking damage and yet not being defeated than it is about avoiding damage - even when compared to (say) AD&D, and even moreso when compared to something like Runequest or Rolemaster.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The epic party in my game uses the following for healing:

* Paladin with 5/day LoH;
* Hybrid cleric with Supreme Healer, so 1x/enc Healing Word for 2 targets; plus 1x/enc Word of Vigour and 1x/day Mass Cure Serious Wounds (two surges worth of surgeless healing for everyone); plus one enc power (Healing Torch) and one daily power (Breath of Stars) that allow healing; plus 1x/day self-only Regen 28 from Demigod;
* Invoker/wizard who might have a little bit of self-healing (but not much that I can remember);
* Sorcerer/bard with 1x/day Majestic Word;
* Dwarven fighter/cleric with 1x/day Healing Word, 1x/day Dwarven Armour, 2x/enc free action Second Wind with Cloak of the Walking Wounded, 1x/enc Battle Cry.

They also each have an Epic "1x/day when you die . . . " ability.

That is a lot of healing, but I'd be surprised if it's that atypical (maybe the dwarf has more healing than the typical warrior type?). There's no pure leader in that party, for instance.

That said, in our most recent session the fighter was solo-ing a primordial heroslayer hydra and was going through 100+ hp per round. I don't see how a fighter at that level who can't withstand that sort of punishment would be meant to function. At least as I've experienced it, 4e is much more about taking damage and yet not being defeated than it is about avoiding damage - even when compared to (say) AD&D, and even moreso when compared to something like Runequest or Rolemaster.

Yeah, that accords pretty well with what I remember from epic play, though we did a good bit less of it than you have I think. Anyway, we had a similar party at heroic, no dedicated healer, but a couple of guys with some leader, one with substantial healing, and the other 2 with very little of their own. They got by fine, and probably were on a par with a "4 guys and a cleric" sort of idealized build out. 4e really did deliver on the concept of taking a role and divvying it up between 2-3 characters pretty well, if you wanted to fiddle MCing and such.

 

[Myrhdraak]

The epic party in my game uses the following for healing:

* Paladin with 5/day LoH;
* Hybrid cleric with Supreme Healer, so 1x/enc Healing Word for 2 targets; plus 1x/enc Word of Vigour and 1x/day Mass Cure Serious Wounds (two surges worth of surgeless healing for everyone); plus one enc power (Healing Torch) and one daily power (Breath of Stars) that allow healing; plus 1x/day self-only Regen 28 from Demigod;
* Invoker/wizard who might have a little bit of self-healing (but not much that I can remember);
* Sorcerer/bard with 1x/day Majestic Word;
* Dwarven fighter/cleric with 1x/day Healing Word, 1x/day Dwarven Armour, 2x/enc free action Second Wind with Cloak of the Walking Wounded, 1x/enc Battle Cry.

They also each have an Epic "1x/day when you die . . . " ability.

That is a lot of healing, but I'd be surprised if it's that atypical (maybe the dwarf has more healing than the typical warrior type?). There's no pure leader in that party, for instance.

That said, in our most recent session the fighter was solo-ing a primordial heroslayer hydra and was going through 100+ hp per round. I don't see how a fighter at that level who can't withstand that sort of punishment would be meant to function. At least as I've experienced it, 4e is much more about taking damage and yet not being defeated than it is about avoiding damage - even when compared to (say) AD&D, and even moreso when compared to something like Runequest or Rolemaster.

Would be interesting if you could calculate the average healing capability of your party during one encounter, just for a high level reference. What level are they? For calculation, use a 65% average hit chance if the healing is tied to a chance to hit. I have used a 5 member party as basis. For burst 5 healing I have calculated on an average of 3 players being within range.