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

[Garthanos]

Nod. JMHO, too, but I wouldn't expect a lot of tactics to develop & play out in a 3-round combat.

Yeh so many things take more than that to gel, whole chunks of rules even. My Dragonborn would never see his bloodied benefits nor my deva and those berzerker monsters I made up ... and heck wouldnt it be nigh impossible for enemies to go oh crap I am bloodied and run or get intimdated in to it. Tactical positioning sure sounds like it would be close to gone too... heck might as well make em minion stomps.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Nod. JMHO, too, but I wouldn't expect a lot of tactics to develop & play out in a 3-round combat.

That is kinda my concern. My own preference is to stick with the 5 round format, that gives you basically 5 'acts' in which there can be initial setup, rising tension, crisis point, reversal, and final victory (or something like that). So, going with the theme of more but shorter combats, which I don't think is a BAD idea, you'd instead want to streamline the actual combat rounds. That consists of fewer but more distinct options, less tracking, and the potential for a bit more repetition (keeping in mind that this is more acceptable in a 20 minute combat where the NEXT fight will be distinct and require at least a different choice of at-will to lean on). This is my goal with HoML, though it is certainly non-trivial to achieve!

 

[Myrhdraak]

Nod. JMHO, too, but I wouldn't expect a lot of tactics to develop & play out in a 3-round combat.

And that is the purpose. Not every battle need to be a tactical fight. Sometimes you want some smaller skirmishes in between the large tactical fights. That is the beauty of this new design.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And that is the purpose. Not every battle need to be a tactical fight. Sometimes you want some smaller skirmishes in between the large tactical fights. That is the beauty of this new design.

Meh, I think the idea is to just have the cool fights and skip the set dressing, or turn it into something besides a fight. I'm very much in favor of the value of table time and find that 4e can burn it rather profligately on fairly trivial tactical points and excess tracking, but I've little need to play out the forgone conclusion against the token group of goblins in the hallway.

 

[dave2008]

Meh, I think the idea is to just have the cool fights and skip the set dressing, or turn it into something besides a fight. I'm very much in favor of the value of table time and find that 4e can burn it rather profligately on fairly trivial tactical points and excess tracking, but I've little need to play out the forgone conclusion against the token group of goblins in the hallway.

I think you are missing the point. I haven't tried @Myrhdraah 's revised combat ideas, but he is attempting to create short combats that still matter. It may not be a real threat, but you loose resources. I can't see just hand waving that away with my players.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think you are missing the point. I haven't tried @Myrhdraah 's revised combat ideas, but he is attempting to create short combats that still matter. It may not be a real threat, but you loose resources. I can't see just hand waving that away with my players.

Sure, but I'm thinking of dramatic structure. The objection is there's nothing tactically interesting about a 3 round fight that uses stock tactics. Why not just ding everyone a few hit points and describe the inevitable result? I want to focus on conflict where there are stakes. I can run the 'noise' as an SC and still make it quick and simple if there's some low stakes something (do you lose a surge or not) and if its just 'color' (of COURSE there are guards at the door!) then don't bother to even make them trivial, just describe how the party rogue ganks one from the shadows and the wizard zaps the other with Magic Missile before they can react, GOSH your all bad-asses!

What I aimed for with HoML was instead to make it possible to 'scale up'. In 4e the difficulty, IMHO, is that you HAVE to focus on some sort of very small group of opponents in a fight, and that the game insufficiently rewards things like surprise, so that in the end its all up to mostly the stronger group wins. HoML emphasizes positioning, morale, surprise, leadership, etc a bit more, and it lets you fight a bit wider range and large quantity of enemies if that makes sense in the situation. It is a bit less likely to 'bog down' too. Some of the things I have done resemble some of the things '4.5e' does, but with somewhat different goals. I think 4.5e might be best tuned to running something like old modules and dungeon crawls, but then that is exactly what [MENTION=6694190]Myrhdraak[/MENTION] is after! Honestly, I think his tweaks are pretty nicely focused on that, it is good work.

 

[dave2008]

Sure, but I'm thinking of dramatic structure. The objection is there's nothing tactically interesting about a 3 round fight that uses stock tactics.

A coupe of points:

1) I don't feel each encounter needs to be dramatic. In fact, some mundane encounters set up the larger dramatic ones quite well in my opinion. If they area all dramatic they kinda don't stand out as much. The overall drama can be enhanced by having some simpler combats.

2) If you handwave or SC simple encounters then it kinda telegraphs that these encounters are not important, which seriously reduces the tension. If I have a fight with 20 minion and a single standard, it can look like a fight with 20 standards and single elite. When combat starts the ruse is basically up, but how the PCs approach it can be very different.

3) I think a 3 round fight can be tactically interesting.

4) I think a 3 round fight can be strategically interesting

Why not just ding everyone a few hit points and describe the inevitable result? I want to focus on conflict where there are stakes. I can run the 'noise' as an SC and still make it quick and simple if there's some low stakes something (do you lose a surge or not) and if its just 'color' (of COURSE there are guards at the door!) then don't bother to even make them trivial, just describe how the party rogue ganks one from the shadows and the wizard zaps the other with Magic Missile before they can react, GOSH your all bad-asses!

That my work for the group you play with, but it is not how I run games or how my group likes it. That is way to much DM fiat form my tastes.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

A coupe of points:

1) I don't feel each encounter needs to be dramatic. In fact, some mundane encounters set up the larger dramatic ones quite well in my opinion. If they area all dramatic they kinda don't stand out as much. The overall drama can be enhanced by having some simpler combats.

2) If you handwave or SC simple encounters then it kinda telegraphs that these encounters are not important, which seriously reduces the tension. If I have a fight with 20 minion and a single standard, it can look like a fight with 20 standards and single elite. When combat starts the ruse is basically up, but how the PCs approach it can be very different.

3) I think a 3 round fight can be tactically interesting.

4) I think a 3 round fight can be strategically interesting




That my work for the group you play with, but it is not how I run games or how my group likes it. That is way to much DM fiat form my tastes.

Hey, I don't think its worth getting into a huge debate over, but I would point out that your number 1 and your number 2 are telling against each other. IMHO nobody wants to sit through dull unimportant dross at the table. Point 2 isn't so bad, but it clearly tells me that you always want to avoid point 1!

As for point 2... I don't feel like I need to use that sort of ruse to create tension. There's a LOT of ways to create tension, and if you meet 20 opponents and we throw down the battlemat then tension is there, because its a big fight! Why bother to then let everyone down with a bunch of minions? I mean, minions are great, but I would rather use them for the sort of set dressing they are made for, "yeah, you carve your way through those 20 ninjas and confront the big guy!" This is one of the reasons I found all the arguments for 'tough minions' and such to be largely missing the point too. They SHOULD be trivial.

Now, when I expand the scope of my thinking from "that bunch of minions over there" to "that encounter over there" then I think "Well, this encounter is trivial, its purpose is to provide some verisimilitude/color and allow for a chance that the alarm gets set off, but there's no real combat stakes. I know, I'll make it an SC!" I mean, you probably can't do that in the midst of a combat, hence minions, but in the larger framework of an adventure I see a lot of these things as low complexity SCs with tangential stakes, they can bring about slightly different downstream results, but they're not presenting something like the chance of defeat that would really fully justify the table time expense of combat.

I do get that 4.5e has a little bit different goal.

 

[dave2008]

Hey, I don't think its worth getting into a huge debate over,...

Nor do I!

...but I would point out that your number 1 and your number 2 are telling against each other. IMHO nobody wants to sit through dull unimportant dross at the table. Point 2 isn't so bad, but it clearly tells me that you always want to avoid point 1!

That is not true at all, and definitely not what I am trying to say. Perhaps I don't have the skills to explain it better, and I don't desire to try. We just see things differently. I know my approach works for me and my group, I assume your approach works for you. Just best to accept that we play differently and move on.

I just posted because I wanted to point that the concept that the OP is trying to achieve does work for some.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Nor do I!



That is not true at all, and definitely not what I am trying to say. Perhaps I don't have the skills to explain it better, and I don't desire to try. We just see things differently. I know my approach works for me and my group, I assume your approach works for you. Just best to accept that we play differently and move on.

I just posted because I wanted to point that the concept that the OP is trying to achieve does work for some.

Yeah, well, sometimes I'm thick too, so don't blame yourself I think its very nice work. There are definitely a few different goals people have with 4e hacks. It would be interesting to see a range of them published.