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

[Myrhdraak]

Ok, now I have simulated the number of HS remaining at various level after having faced 3 Single Encounters versus monsters of the same level of the party (doing the increase damage introduced in previous post), see blue line below. I also added the simulation of the various monster challenges at various levels, which is also dependent on the ability to heal during one encounter (red line). The lines are very similar, and the reason the blue line have larger deviation is due to the fact it looks at the impact after three encounters, the red line only measures the monster impact during one encounter. The variation in healing capability becomes very obvious in this simulation. In order to get a more flatter line we will most likely have to assume an average healing capability that is not so dependent on individual powers.



The 10 HS average looks ok, at least compared to the line if we would have keept the damage output of traditional 4th Edition - see below. There you have an equal challeng between level 5 to level 16 and then Epic level play becomes much too simple if you use monsters of equal level to the party.

 

[MwaO]

The fighter in my game needs to heal practically every round. He takes a lot of hits.

Are you using Masterwork Armor? Heavy Armor doesn't go up fast enough in AC.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm sorry if I'm being obtuse, but it looks like you're focusing on attrition of surges over the day? I get that's a thing, of course, I'm just not sure I understand the interest. Doesn't it mostly serve to calibrate the day length? If you tune surges and monster damage to the party taking on 3 encounters a day, you'll have to run mostly 3 encounter days, if you tune it to 6-8, mostly in that range. No?

 

[Myrhdraak]

I'm sorry if I'm being obtuse, but it looks like you're focusing on attrition of surges over the day? I get that's a thing, of course, I'm just not sure I understand the interest. Doesn't it mostly serve to calibrate the day length? If you tune surges and monster damage to the party taking on 3 encounters a day, you'll have to run mostly 3 encounter days, if you tune it to 6-8, mostly in that range. No?

I am trying to adapt the 4th Edition combat and rest economy to allow it to play like 5th Edition - i.e. it will be more easy to just take an existing 5th Edition adventure and run as is with these 4.5 edition rules and then add a number of climatic battles, rather than having to recreate the adventure to more fit the 4th Edition action setup. This will turn it from a 1+1+1+1+1 strategic fights with 4 short rests in between (in order for the last encounter to be a challenge), into a game that can play 1+1+1 or 1/1+1/1+1/1 or 1/1/1+1/1/1+1/1/1 or a mix like 1/1/1+1/1+1 where the last encounter is a challenge, and where the next day will be a rough awakening as you do not recover as many healing surges as in 4th Edition. And yes you can do all kind of tricks to try to get this experience, with minions and terrain effects, etc. but I am trying to see if we can change certain parameters of the game to make it work with 5th Edition more like as if it had been redesigned to play like 5th Edition.
But in order to do that I need to be sure things stay balanced, and as you guys have learnt the hard way - 4th edition is not well balanced when you reach Epic level, so why not try to adress it when we are working on it anyway.

 

[Myrhdraak]

My guess is that the blue line "bump" at Epic level in post #131 comes from the fact that the healing values are not very smooth. To get rid of this we can try to even them out by replacing them with a 3rd order polynomial (if that is the engligh word) of the 3rd order. The blue bar is the party healing each encounter using Healing Word and Encounter Powers. The red bars are the use of Daily and Utility Powers that have been evenly distributed over 3 encounters.
y = -0,021x3 + 1,5703x2 - 6,918x + 17,456 (purple line)
y = 0,0071x3 + 0,268x2 + 4,9741x + 23,704 (green line)



In a similar way can we also try to model the use of Healing Surges for magical healing in a similar way to make it more smooth.
y = 0,00025x3 - 0,0053x2 + 0,2271x + 2,3348 (green line)
y = 0,7488ln(x) + 0,5332 (purple line)



So why this exercise? Well if we now apply this "smooth" healing to our graph in post #131 we get rid of part of the bump. However, if we add a polynomial (black thin line) to the "HS at the end of the day" curve (blue line) we can see that it is still not flattish. The reason is the party damage output that differs at various levels, but the polynomial seems to indicat that we could work on our monster damage output to get something that is even more "flattish", and thereby easier for DMs to plan encounters after.

 

[Myrhdraak]

After some tweaking on the monster damage output, i.e. doing it a little more granular than the +1 Heroic, +2 Paragon and +4 Epic level. I finally managed to reach a curve which I am quite happy with. The blue line (HS left at the end of the adventuring day) is quite balanced across levels. Level 1-5 is easier, but that I guess is fine, but after that it is quite flat. The party would have lost almost half their Healing Surges at the end of the day, which should be a good average risk level for facing a moster of equal level to the party. We have compensated the increased healing capability of the party with tougher monster damage output. I belive this is a better solution than going in and changing a lot of individual healing powers (which would be much more work). One option would have been to take away the option of Surgeless healing but my gut feeling is that it would not have a major impact anyway. As we are building the game to play like 5th edition were you can have 9 short encounters during a day, the encounter based healing would just be massive in comparison. Healing Word will rule.

 

[Myrhdraak]

For those of you who has or are running Epic level play, do you think your characters would be able to meet monsters of equal level as themselves but with the damage output proposed below. What does your instinct or personal analysis/play say?

This will require the party to quickly deal with the enemies (attack first and have many strikers) or have the capability to heal as a hit can easily take half the PCs' HP.

 

[pemerton]

Are you using Masterwork Armor?

Yes. He is AC 45, which will be 10 +15 level +7 scale +6 mwork +6 enh +1 warpriest.

When facing creatures around level 28 to 30+, that's in the neighbourhood of a 50% hit rate. With mean damage close to 40 per hit, that's around 20 expected damage per attack. (And that's before auto damage, ongoing damage etc.)

In our last session, the fighter was soloing the hero-slayer hydra (four heads, so seven attacks per round including hydra's fury, for 2d12+12 base, +10 for only 4 heads left, +10 for heroslayer; and a +2 to hit for heroslayer as well), and two colossi, plus taking one or two breath attacks each round from a primordial naga. That's about 10 attacks, or 200-ish DPR, plus 35 damage at the start of the round from the collosi.

That's 3 to 4 surges worth of damage.

 

[pemerton]

For those of you who has or are running Epic level play, do you think your characters would be able to meet monsters of equal level as themselves but with the damage output proposed below.

You seem to basically be doubling damage. I feel it would change the dynamics of play quite a bit - for instance, it significantly reduces the viability of melee strikers, I think.

EDIT: If I wanted to double damage at epic, I'd probably keep damage the same, halve monster hit points, and use double the number of monsters. That would make a standard creature's hit points somewhere around 100-odd, which is something that a striker can take down in a round or two.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I am trying to adapt the 4th Edition combat and rest economy to allow it to play like 5th Edition -

Oh, I thought you were trying to improve it. ;| ...

So, you /are/ aiming at 6-8 encounter/day attrition style play?
That makes sense.
Sorry to be so dense.

This will turn it from a 1+1+1+1+1 strategic fights with 4 short rests in between (in order for the last encounter to be a challenge), into a game that can play 1+1+1 or 1/1+1/1+1/1 or 1/1/1+1/1/1+1/1/1 or a mix like 1/1/1+1/1+1 where the last encounter is a challenge

I'm sorry, are you going for 5e? Because in 5e, the prescriptive pacing is as much (if not more) about class balance as encounter balance. A 3-encounter day, for instance, could be made challenging in 4e pretty easily, while in 5e very short days, not only allow novas that make challenge tricky, they start to highlight class imbalances.

Pacing is something I'm usually not that concerned with in 4e. The odd single-encounter day or very long day doesn't have a profound impact the way it could when daily resources were more prevalent as well as much more powerful than at-wills and could be nova'd.

And yes you can do all kind of tricks to try to get this experience, with minions and terrain effects, etc.

but I am trying to see if we can change certain parameters of the game to make it work with 5th Edition more like as if it had been redesigned to play like 5th Edition.

As far as encounter design guidelines and encounter balance go, 'working more like 5e' would be, well, integrating more uncertainty into the formula, if that's a nice way to say it.

But in order to do that I need to be sure things stay balanced, and as you guys have learnt the hard way - 4th edition is not well balanced when you reach Epic level, so why not try to adress it when we are working on it anyway.

I haven't notice the problem with encounter balance at epic that you guys have... though, even if encounter balance shifts from the intended level of challenge, at least class balance seems to be reasonably stable, and, like pemerton you can just up the ante until you're back in the zone (oh, and, coincidence: that'll make advancement speed up, which'd also be more like 5e at high level).

Anyway, I suppose I should just let you get on with it and not bother you. I'm just not grokking the exercise, I guess.