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

[Myrhdraak]

HYBRID SOLUTION

So what happens when we apply the Hybrid Solution - well magic happens again ;-)
Suddenly the party starts to consume HS resources again and cannot run combat forever. As can be seen below, I do not have to drastically change the monster damage output in order to get a "flat" curve for the blue line that represents the HS remaining at the end of the adventuring day.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think there are going to be a lot of knock-on effects from doubling monster damage:

1) The game will trend toward "Rocket Tag" and away from the "Heroic Rally" narrative inherent to 4e. This will up the value of Initiative augmenting PC build components. It will up the power of Warlords even further (Combat Leader). It will up the power of Feats like Improved Initiative, Wasteland Wanderer, Superior Initiative. It will up the power of Daily powers that let the group or player augment (often dramatically) their Initiative (way too many to list spread over Skill Powers, Themes, Classes, etc). Expect to see those much more often.

2) It would likely either (a) hurt Defenders significantly in that the spike damage is beyond their ability to endure or (b) pigeonhole all Defenders toward specialization in + defenses and a large suite of immediate interrupt encounter powers which augment defenses.

3) If healing can't keep up with spike damage, expect to see Leader's that don't force-multiply as a primary shtick to decrease in value.

4) As pemerton mentioned it will hurt the squishier melee strikers. Therefore, it will further encourage the ranged artillery version of strikers. This would in turn diminish Defender's melee control (to a degree), thereby further decreasing their value.

5) Coupled with all of the above, it will up the value of Controller effects that create blocking terrain (walls, disposable summoned creatures, etc), the Weakened status effect (thereby undoing the change), and outright action denial.

EDIT - Forgot. Along with ranged artillery being further valued, you're also going to value Slowed as an at-will rider on ranged effects (and Dazed/Slowed/Immobilized on low level Encounter Powers). So...kiting.

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Alternatively, consider the implications of merely doubling damage at Bloodied. You'll get a sort of reverse effect of 13th Age's Escalation Die (though even more pronounced). NPCs would go from being front-loaded to back-loaded. This will (i) negatively impact 4e's inherent "Rally Narrative", but it will also (ii) discourage Novaing while (iii) initiating an imperative for team PC to finesse every combat encounter's power deployment and force-multiplication big guns a bit more.

The point here being that subtle changes to 4e's paradigm will have not insignificant ripple effects on the baked-in thematics and tactical overhead.

The ideal party concept in such a game would be a group of 5 battlefield archers tricked out with anything that gives them added initiative and front-loads their attacks (IE all the minor action/reaction/interrupt stuff). The whole idea would become to launch a devastating wave of high potency attacks during the first round of combat, effectively reducing your opponents by 40-60% before they even get off a shot. This is ALMOST feasible in 4e as-written, but not quite. That is you can follow this sort of party build, but you can't pull it off reliably all the time, and thus you get into the more elaborate tactical realm of control, disruption, and redirection that leaders, defenders, and controllers provide.

And yes, this is some of what is 'wrong' with 5e combat. It just isn't often worthwhile to worry about anything but ripping a giant hole in the other side's lineup on round 1.

Anyway, SOME small degree of moving to more weaker enemies and relatively higher overall damage outputs isn't necessarily BAD, I'm just not sure that huge changes like doubling and halving things are really a good idea. In HoML its more like things are tweaked 20% and that works well.

 

[S'mon]

I agree, if you want to keep the damage/attack the same, but increase monster damage per round, you could go the route to create monsters with same damage/attack but half the Hit Points and double the amount of monsters. I think S'mon was playing around with that idea in his new campaign (Post #116).

In my previous campaign I halved monster hp (eventually went to 2/3 for standards, 1/2 for elites & solos) but I didn't reduce monster XP. It probably encouraged Strikers.

This time I am giving minions 1/4 the hp of a standard monster, keeping other monsters as normal, but lowballing monster XP budgets especially since minions will now be tough for their XPV. In published materials I'm converting a lot of elites to standards and solos to elites.

 

[pemerton]

SOME small degree of moving to more weaker enemies and relatively higher overall damage outputs isn't necessarily BAD

Sure. Not bad - but a change to things.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sure. Not bad - but a change to things.

Its a change. I kind of wanted to keep most of the tactical depth, but make it a bit more 'organic' and add a little more of a strategic planning aspect. Plus I feel like it could play just a BIT more like D&D without killing the big damned heroes aspect. I guess we'll see. We really haven't played enough to sort out how this will work out. You know how these things are, tweaking a game is somewhat unpredictable...

 

[Tony Vargas]

Upping damage a bit was just what WotC was doing with MM3, so that was the way they left it before the change in direction with Essentials.

The first time I played 4e I was struck by the way Kobolds didn't just die when you connected, and the way you could stand up to a hit or crit yourself. It changes the complexion of combat, from a crapshoot to a tactical exercise or a 'scene,' something many games have done, but I'd only ever found in D&D at mid-levels, before.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Upping damage a bit was just what WotC was doing with MM3, so that was the way they left it before the change in direction with Essentials.

The first time I played 4e I was struck by the way Kobolds didn't just die when you connected, and the way you could stand up to a hit or crit yourself. It changes the complexion of combat, from a crapshoot to a tactical exercise or a 'scene,' something many games have done, but I'd only ever found in D&D at mid-levels, before.

Yeah, but MM3 damage was almost more of WotC actually implementing what they'd always preached. I mean, compare the damage output of MM1 monsters with the damage expressions in DMG1, the monsters are FAR behind what the DMG tells you they should be doing. Now, the RC and final damage expressions ARE somewhat larger, but the key thing is the MM3 monsters ACTUALLY FOLLOW THEM, at least a lot more often. Its NOT like MM3 damage is a huge amount more either. It seems fairly substantial at low levels where a couple more points of damage is a significant boost, but had paragon and epic monsters been EVEN CLOSE to the original damage expressions it wouldn't have meant squat at those levels. Even as it is the difference is not really that big a deal. Better action economy, more and better attacks, and just generally better monster design makes a bigger difference, to which the added damage is kind of icing.

I mean look at the dragons. MM3 dragons get almost entire extra attack routine! One that comes at a higher initiative count, can be sacrificed to remove most conditions, AND they have improved minor action and off-turn options to boot. They mostly also get an additional meaningful option, often one that also contributes to their condition denial in some fashion. They don't NEED more damage, they've already got easily 200% better damage OUTPUT just because of the fact that they actually get a turn most rounds.

 

[Myrhdraak]

Well, things got even worse. Just found out that I had missed three healing powers, an Encounter healing power, a Paragon healing power, and a Daily healing power. These three makes the healing graph even worse.



So big question is - should you optimize the game play based on maximized characters, or should you assume that the party would like to play a cleric that do not only do healing? If the later I could potentially bring down some of the Epic healing powers so you do not have to compensate the damage so much. It is very hard to compensate for that big Epic healing bump without doubling damage output. What do you think is the right way forward?
A) Full Compensation - will make Epic monsters deal very big damage - maybe then forcing players to focus on healing capacity at that level.
B) Lower Compensation - will in average game work fine, but will make it harder for DMs to plan adventures with a party that really tries to optimize their healing.
Personally I Think B is the right way forward.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, things got even worse. Just found out that I had missed three healing powers, an Encounter healing power, a Paragon healing power, and a Daily healing power. These three makes the healing graph even worse.

View attachment 81424

So big question is - should you optimize the game play based on maximized characters, or should you assume that the party would like to play a cleric that do not only do healing? If the later I could potentially bring down some of the Epic healing powers so you do not have to compensate the damage so much. It is very hard to compensate for that big Epic healing bump without doubling damage output. What do you think is the right way forward?
A) Full Compensation - will make Epic monsters deal very big damage - maybe then forcing players to focus on healing capacity at that level.
B) Lower Compensation - will in average game work fine, but will make it harder for DMs to plan adventures with a party that really tries to optimize their healing.
Personally I Think B is the right way forward.

IME parties don't max out their healing potential. They tend to increase the amount of healing they carry until it allows them to keep up with their needs, or even decrease it if they have too much. I think its typical to see lower level parties feeling a need for more healing (particularly before level 5 or so, at which point everyone gets their 2nd daily). It seems like most defender types end up picking up some sort of personal healing capability, a leader MC, a daily power like 'Unbreakable' that grants some healing, or something like that. Leaders are more variable, clerics often pick up a nice daily that bolsters the party and has some healing effect, but most will discover pretty quickly that stuff like CLW really isn't worth the investment, something like Consecrated Ground etc.

Anyway, I suspect that you'll find it isn't so important that you might have missed a power here or there, most players will mix and match somewhat. Certainly non-cleric leaders are likely to focus on other possible modus anyway, like granting attacks, moving allies and enemies around, and such things. They'll usually be decent healers too, but a Warlord for instance can do a lot more interesting stuff than just patching people up.

 

[Myrhdraak]

Listening to AbdulAlhazred's advice I took away some Healing Powers to simulate some "average healing" in the party. I then created graphs for this "new" healing capability to visualize the party's healing capability per encounter, depending on if you run a single, double or triple encounter before the Short Rest. The results was the following:







As we have reduced the Healing Word ability to heal in every Encounter to 2 or 3 Before a Short Rest, it also becomes limited like the Daily and Utility Healing. This is positive as it now make it easier to use monsters in a closer range to the party level, even for the double and triple encounters.