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

[S'mon]

In the last battle of my Loudwater campaign, Orcus (level 34 Solo) was automatically taking a 29th level PC to 0 hp *every round* with the Wand of Orcus, plus re-animating all his undead minions every round.

He still went down fairly easily, and no PCs died. Being taken to 0 hp didn't seem to bother the PCs much, they had several self-healing no-action abilities before even getting into Leader healing. So it seemed like it almost did not matter what damage the monsters can do, unless they can negative-bloody a PC in one attack routine.

 

[Garthanos]

Being taken to 0 hp didn't seem to bother the PCs much, they had several self-healing no-action abilities before even getting into Leader healing.

Godling battles are a different kettle of fish, I think if I understand it the point of this thread is about adjusting things so it isnt so completely different than lower level battles.

 

[Manbearcat]

So it seemed like it almost did not matter what damage the monsters can do, unless they can negativte-bloody a PC in one attack routine.

Godling battles are a different kettle of fish, I think if I understand it the point of this thread is about adjusting things so it isnt so completely different than lower level battles.

That is one of, and the most recent, points of this thread.

And yes, endgame battles and workday paving are indeed very much a different kettle of fish. That was what I was trying to convey in my prior two posts (where I looked at the Bladesingers level 20-30 build contributions). I looked at the Rogue and Druid/Warlord hybrids' 20-30 build contributions the other day. Truly amazingly powerful PCs (and not silly, incoherent fiction build optimized) on their own. The force multiplication (staying power, action economy gains, team synergy, control effects, mobility/ability to "attack the Y axis", etc) of PC 20-30 build contributions is a large part of the signal here.

Personally, I think [MENTION=6694190]Myrhdraak[/MENTION] 's aims might be better served just using the 1-20 game, introducing a small, scaling damage bump to all non-Minions at Bloodied and deploying less HP-intensive (but still just as threatening) Encounter Budgets. 4e is robust to that treatment. It is one of 4e's best dials.

 

[Myrhdraak]

FLAT CHALLENGE CURVE?

So next step I did was trying to go back to the new healing values and applying them to the analysis to see how the HS value looked like by the end of the Adventuring Day. I had to do some changes to the damage curve in order to reach the kind of "flattish" End of Day curve for the Single Encounter scenario below. It works quite well up till Monster Level +2 vs. party level, after that three encounters are going to be tougher, which I think sounds like a quite good sweet spot. That the curve also "slopes" at Epic level is good as the party will have additional Powers not really simulated here.



Double Encounter
If we now apply the same to the Double Encounter scenario we get another curve. This curve is not flat in the same way as the Single Encounter scenario. I believe it will be hard to avoid this change unless we start to changing the healing paradigm more. The positive side is that we actually are causing clear HS damage in the Double Encounter scenario, and we can use very weak opponents and still cause damage due to the bounded accuracy (i.e. short encounters that still matters in the long run). Encounter design wise we probably have to propose different sweat spots for Heroic, Paragon and Epic play in the Double Encounter Scenario.



Triple Encounter
The Triple Encounter scenario gets even more steeper, but otherwise behaves in a similar way as the Double Encounter.

 

[Myrhdraak]

DAMAGE CURVE

So what did I do to the damage curve to get rid of the Epic bump and the Paragon vale? Well, I had to apply a curve that worked in the opposite direction. I think we are quite close to the original 4th Edition damage output in Heroic level, but we then increase it drastically in Paragon level and even more reaching Epic levels. Personally I think this will be interesting as higher level challenges will drastically start to make more damage at higher levels, and in the way be similar to the 5th Edition monster damage curve (even though that one is much more extreme).

 

[Garthanos]

Personally I think this will be interesting as higher level challenges will drastically start to make more damage at higher levels, and in the way be similar to the 5th Edition monster damage curve (even though that one is much more extreme).

Does 5th edition really even have an Epic end?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Does 5th edition really even have an Epic end?

IME 5e high level play starts to look something like 3.5 high level play. Things get very focused on taking out your opponent in one move. Casters become increasingly more effective, defenses become less viable, and ranged/melee combat loses some significance.

Its certainly quite a bit less extreme than 3.5, and the way loads of weaker monsters can still have some impact is quite different, but there is even less of a rally narrative than 5e has at lower levels (which is already a lot less than 4e does).

 

[Tony Vargas]

Does 5th edition really even have an Epic end?

It seems unlikely, at this point, that it will come to an Epic End. More likely it'll just kinda peter out in another 10 or 12 years...

Seriously, though, it's standard issue D&D: once you hit the double digits and start casting 6+ level spells, the emphasis shifts from simply doing damage or forcing saving throws or pulling cute little tricks to crazy, fairly absolute/arbitrary stuff. It's not as pronounced as in the past (you don't get nearly as many 6+ level spells, nor do you have as many nor as dramatically scaled lower-level ones, though they all remain usable for something, few are wasted, and you also have cantrips to fall back on), but it's a real change in tone. Epic? Matter of opinion.

What I think they mean, though, is that to compensate for Bounded Accuracy making level only a modest consideration in whether you can hit or make a check, the game instead scales hit points and damage very dramatically (compared to AD&D, ever class gets a HD and full con bonus at every level, it's right up there with 3e in terms of ballooning hps with level), damage also goes up dramatically with level - character level in the case of cantrips, slot level in the case of spells, and class level in the case of extra attack & feats.

And, of course, hps and damage really balloon with the monsters, since they don't have a lot else to scale.

 

[Myrhdraak]

XP CURVE

Next step is to look at the XP curve with this new monster damage curve. As can be expected it changes quite a lot in the higher end.



XP Tables
The actual encounter planning, monster XP and PC level progression will change to the following to fit the new damage output. The standard deviation only goes down to 5.7%, but it is good enough for planning.

 

[Myrhdraak]

TESTING THE TABLE FOR ENCOUNTER DESIGN

So in order to test the table and the numbers behind it we can try to design an encounter using the table. I will start with an 8th level example with 5 players (just to try something else than 6, 16 and 26th we tried Before)

8th Level Party Encounter
We start with a Single Encounter against five 8th Level Monsters. Encounter XP budget is 2950 XP, we get five 8th level monsters worth 1180 XP each. Looking at the party we get the following figures for a Single Encounter:
- Party HP: 300 HP
- Party HS value: 50 HP (1/6 of max) with 5 HS
- Average Monster Damage: -121 HP
- Average Magic Healing: 97 HP with 5 HS
- Natural Healing: We need to use 2.4 second winds to heal 24 HP
- Combat Length: 3.7 rounds
= Total Party loss is 7.4 HS to get back to full HP during battle

So lets compare this to a Triple Encounter scenario instead. Encounter XP budget is split into Three: 2950/3=983 XP encounter budget. Just to make it fun lets build a little different encounters just to be able to compare.
- Encounter 1: Seven 3rd Level Monsters (7 x 140=980 XP) -> Average Monster Damage: -37 HP; Combat Length: 2.2 rounds
- Encounter 2: Three 6th Level Monsters (3 x 350=1050 XP) -> Average Monster Damage: -38 HP; Combat Length: 1.6 rounds
- Encounter 3: One Elite 7th Level Monster (900 XP) -> Average Monster Damage: -36 HP; Combat Length: 1.2 rounds
- Total Monster Damage 3 Encounters: -111 HP
- Average Magic Healing: 50 HP per Encounter with 3.7 HS = 50 x 3 = 150 HP with 11.1 HS
- Natural Healing: Will not be needed as magical healing is more than monster damage.
= Total Party loss is 6.82 HS to get back to full during the 3 Encounters

If we compare these two encounters we find that they play out with almost the same result: 7.4 vs. 6.8 HS used. Both cases let party recover to full HP. The average monster damage output is almost identical in the Three smaller encounters: -37, -38, -36; and the total damage is quite similar as well -111 vs. -121 HP in damage. It seems very well balanced on an overall level, we will have to see if we get similar numbers at higher levels or not.

NOTE
Another important thing to point out is that we have managed to reduce a Single Encounter with a combat length of 3.7 rounds to Three Encounters with a varying length of 1.2 rounds to 2.2 rounds depending if you want to throw in many weaker monsters or a single harder monster, while still consuming the same HS Resources as in the Single Encounter, i.e. we have managed to reach the design goal!!!!!