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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7004985" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think it puts a MUCH greater premium on the most vanilla high damage-output powers, and then even more so on anything that 'front loads' damage output, such as minor action attacks, reactions, and interrupts. Certain classes, like rangers obviously, will REALLY benefit from this. Other classes, like most controllers, will find their shtick has been significantly devalued, 2 rounds simply isn't enough time for most control to really be leveraged effectively (though at least a few of the more ephemeral UEONT effects may be a little bit more worthwhile). Frankly though, I don't entirely agree with the initial analysis of 4e. It isn't anywhere near as slow, IME, as it is being made out to be. I do think, however, that 4e is made for 'cutting to the chase' and isn't a game where you toss around lots of trivial encounters, generally. It gives you tools to make every encounter dramatic and dynamic instead. That doesn't mean some of them can't be relatively lighter weight than others, just that they probably will want to emphasize something else besides straight up combat difficulty (IE an at-level encounter probably should feature some plot element, some setting element, and some character element that make it more three-dimensional and interesting). Luckily 4e combat INHERENTLY caters to this because it can be quite interesting! So, yes, it may take an hour to do a really cool interesting 4e encounter (maybe longer even for a real end-arc type of thing) but that should actually be a GOOD feature! There are however 2 aspects that I think can be adjusted in the 4e formula profitably. One is the notion that you should have 5 monsters vs 5 characters. Its not that its at all graven in stone, but it is sort of a baseline and its hard to diverge much from that. 5e gets around it with 'bounded accuracy', so that you can deploy 20 orcs and that kind of works. You could definitely adopt some ways of doing similar things in 4e. Many people introduced another grade of monster between minion and standard, which is a viable approach.Another aspect is the discounting of preparation and lack of really usable buffs that can be prepared ahead of time. This also extends to the combat system not giving a lot of weight to terrain and tactical advantages, and lacking a real system for handling morale. These are things that could be added back in, which would allow for some more interesting encounters with weaker opponents, AND some enhanced 'AD&D-like' strategic thinking. It needn't rise to the levels of what you could do in 1e or 2e even, and surely should go nowhere near 3.5's craziness in that area, but 4e COULD profit from it in some degree. It can also be an alternative way of telegraphing player intent and creation of stakes. If the players decide to go bust on fire resistance potions, that definitely says something about their intent!</blockquote>

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