Combat Challenge

[Greyscott]

I posted this on my blog, but thought I would throw it here for wandering eyes as well...

You’re slogging through the 14th level of the Crypt of Karashtos, deep beneath the flesh funnels and bone vaults, when you encounter a group of undead: a cabal of wraiths and blazing skeletons, flanked by zombie thralls and ghoul outriders. There’s no way around, and no way to negotiate, and although the creatures do not represent a huge threat to you and your heroic band, nevertheless, you have no choice but to fight your way through their rotting hands…

And you pull out the miniatures, the DM starts meticulously drawing the map, and a long, but necessary (or at least unavoidable) battle begins…Don’t get me wrong, I love 4th Edition D&D, and I absolutely love 4E combat, but the truth is – particularly at Paragon levels and above – even “simple” battles can take a while, eating up time in a game night that is probably already stretched. I think this is a positive reflection of the great underlying game mechanics and the wonderful tactical choices players have, but any way you slice it, these great combats slow down play, never more so than when you’re pretty sure of the outcome anyway. I’ve successfully replaced combat with true Skill Challenges, I’ve incorporated Skill Challenges directly into combat as a way of streamlining the process, I’ve tossed minions out as fodder (which also serve to make the PCs feel powerful), and I’ve simply hand-waved some affairs, but none of these has quite felt “right”, and I’m not sure they’ve accurately captured the resource management aspect of the game that combats/encounters are supposed to highlight. Clearly, it can be difficult to challenge higher level PCs, but one way I believe the game is designed to do that is through appropriate Encounter design and pacing – creating a constant tension between the Party’s resources (powers, healing surges) and those resources’ availability throughout an adventuring day.

So in thinking about this, I’ve created the “Combat Challenge” – which is a hybridized Skill Challenge that uses Combat modifiers rather than Skills, and allows a DM to “short hand” combat for those situations and areas when a real battle would logically be unavoidable, but the outcome is fairly certain (and when eliminating the combat and/or foes as a whole seems so obviously transparent). This type of challenge is designed to keep the Party (and game night) moving forward without worrying about maps, miniatures, etc; while still draining some resources and not cheating the PCs out of the vicarious thrill and tension of the fight!

Please note: Use at your own peril - this has not been play-tested, but please feel free to do so, and tell me if it works or what changes you might make. Again, this was designed principally for certain types of combat situations: like a long slog through Underdark tunnels or sewers, or racing through a huge dangerous forest; fundamentally, those situations which are “high conflict”, but (given the party level), “low threat”.

COMBAT CHALLENGE

COMPLEXITY: A Combat Challenge can be any complexity, but typically a 4 or 5 works best.

DC: The DCs for the Combat Challenge are the defenses (AC, REF, FORT, and WILL) of the highest level creature in the combat, +2; or simply the creature with the best overall defenses, +2. The +2 reflects the vagaries of terrain, movement, and the powers of the creature itself. So if the Party was fighting a mixed group of Undead (as delineated above), and the highest level creature had defenses of AC: 24, REF: 22, FORT: 25, and WILL: 21, the DCs for the Combat Challenge would be AC: 26, REF: 24, FORT: 27, and WILL: 23).

THE COMBAT ROUND: THE BASICS: each player picks an At-Will or Encounter power (Dailies are addressed below) and makes an attack roll against the Challenge DC of the targeted defense. As long as 2/3 of the Party successfully hits during the Combat Round, the Party gains a Challenge success. Thus, in a 5 PC party, as long as 3 of the 5 PCs hit, the Party gets a success. In a 6 PC Party, as long as 4 of the 6 hits, etc. If “too few” of the Party tally hits for that Combat Round, the Party suffers a Challenge Failure. Successes and Failures are counted up just like a regular Skill Challenge, and PCs who use Encounter powers have to “deduct” them from their available powers for the rest of the Challenge (Note: PCs can also “burn” other Encounter powers or Feat powers that modify their To Hit rolls, or grant them additional To Hit rolls, etc).

BEYOND THE BASICS: If a PC wishes to use a Daily (attack) power he/she gains +5 to his/her To Hit roll.. If the PC spends an Action Point, or uses a Daily (combat relevant) power of a magic item, he/she automatically hits for that Combat Round. Thus, as the Party starts to accumulate a Failure or two, the PCs will be more apt to stretch their resources to succeed at the Challenge.

A Combat Round Success: The Party gains a Challenge success.

A Combat Round Failure: The Party gains a Challenge failure. And each specific PC that failed his/her Combat Round roll has a –1 cumulative penalty to the next Combat Round roll. Once that PC successfully hits, the penalty is negated.

CHALLENGE SUCCESSES: Every Challenge success adds a cumulative +1 bonus that the Party can assign to one or more PCs for his/her Combat Round roll. For instance, if the party has accumulated 4 successes, they have a cumulative +4 bonus that they can give to one PC, or split between multiple PCs. When the PCs have successfully completed the Combat Challenge, all of their Encounter powers reset, and they earn experience equal to 50% of the full XP value for the Encounter.

CHALLENGE FAILURES: Once the Party garners 2 failures, each PC has to expend a Healing Surge. On the 3rd failure, the Party has failed the Combat Challenge and each PC spends another Healing Surge. Failing the Combat Challenge does not mean the PCs are defeated however, it just means the battle did not go as easily as anticipated, and the adversaries did not die as quickly or as quietly as hoped! The Party still earns some experience equal to (only) 10% of the full XP for the Encounter, the creatures are dead, and the Party is free to move forward into the depths…


As a DM, you decided which encounters are eligible for the Combat Challenge, and then let the Players decide whether they want to fight it out round for round as normal, or just take the challenge.

 

[LostSoul]

You haven't left enough space for players to make important decisions. The only decision players have to make is "Should I spend a Daily or not?"

Otherwise it comes down to dice rolls. If you're lucky, you win; if not, you lose.

I think the effort is a good one, though.


Here's something:

Everyone declares an action.
Initiative is rolled.
Everyone takes their action. If there's a question about who acts first ("I moved here so he can't get past me to the wizard"), Initiative handles it ("He moved too quick for you so he slipped past you.") The DM will have to make judgement calls.
Players make their rolls. The DC is the defense they are targeting.

At this point I always get stuck.

I like your "3 hits in a round counts as a success."

Any failure should mean something.

I'd say that failure in the round means that PCs who were engaged lose a healing surge (per opponent, keeping in mind the 1/4 for minions, 2 for elites and 5 for solos). That is, if two gnolls are attacking the Fighter and two are attacking the Ranger, and one's on the Cleric, the Fighter and Ranger each lose 2 healing surges, the Cleric one, and the Wizard and the Rogue are okay. If one of those gnolls is an elite, he could either spread out the 2 healing surges of damage he deals between two characters or thrash one PC, depending on what he's doing.

You could also do away with "3 failures = failed combat"; you'd just keep draining healing surges.

You'd also want to allow PCs to drop the monsters... but how?


I guess the problem is that there are all these little fiddly bits with HP and damage that you get using the regular system that are hard to keep if you move to a more abstract system.

 

[the Jester]

I like your idea, but if the fight is not meaningful, I'd just model it with minions and maybe one or two standard monsters. However, this is a creative alternative.

I don't know why you're adding +2 to the DCs, though- I see no reason for that at all. If you want to account for the vagaries of terrain and so forth, I'd make an ad hoc, case by case adjustment- the terrain doesn't (or at least, shouldn't) always favor the bad guys anyway.

Any failure should mean something.

I agree with this- and the obvious cost is lost healing surges.

I'd say that failure in the round means that PCs who were engaged lose a healing surge (per opponent, keeping in mind the 1/4 for minions, 2 for elites and 5 for solos). That is, if two gnolls are attacking the Fighter and two are attacking the Ranger, and one's on the Cleric, the Fighter and Ranger each lose 2 healing surges, the Cleric one, and the Wizard and the Rogue are okay. If one of those gnolls is an elite, he could either spread out the 2 healing surges of damage he deals between two characters or thrash one PC, depending on what he's doing.

On the other hand, this is too much imho. It is very rare that even an elite monster can do half a pc's hit points in damage in one round, and that is what 2 healing surges represent. Five surges is more damage than many solos inflict in an entire combat, much less a single round!

You could also do away with "3 failures = failed combat"; you'd just keep draining healing surges.

I like this a lot. In fact, one of the best modifications to skill challenges (and related mechanics) that I have seen is dispensing with the idea that 3 failures always means that the party fails the challenge.

 

[LostSoul]

On the other hand, this is too much imho. It is very rare that even an elite monster can do half a pc's hit points in damage in one round, and that is what 2 healing surges represent. Five surges is more damage than many solos inflict in an entire combat, much less a single round!

Well then post something you do like!

Just kidding. You're right: it is too much. That's what I mean by the fiddly bits about HP and damage. It's hard to abstract and still keep the same balance.

I do think that a PC who is being attacked should lose a surge (or something!) on failure. I also think it (the consequences of failure) should have something to do with what's going on for two reasons: 1. it makes sense; 2. it opens up more options for decision points.

 

[Greyscott]

I think the comment about not giving the PCs enough important decisions rings partially true, but then again, the idea was to limit decisions - which seems to slow combat down. Yes, it comes down to die rolls, but in truth, combat and skill challenges always do. The tension for the Party/PCs lies not in any individual roll, but in the challenge as a whole (do we succeed or fail, and which PCs do we have burn which Dailies or which Magic Item Dailes to succeed?). And again, the idea was to force some resource decisions and resource loss...something that may or may not happen with simply minions (as was suggested)...

And I do think that the best Skill challenges are not simply a binary affair: a true Success or true Failure. As in this example, however, failure in does not mean the characters don't defeat the creatures - it simply means they pay an extra resource cost (another lost healing surge) and an XP penalty.

Of course, this is all just theory anyway.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I think for fairly trivial sorts of encounters the initial proposal is not a bad idea. It probably will end up getting tweaked some based on experience but it doesn't seem far off and has the feel of a workable system.

I just happened to be working on a bit of a little adventure sequence right now that might be able to use something like this, so I'm going to think about trying it. The scenario goes something like this:

The party is 8th level and they are going to arrive at a village which is at the edge of a large, mostly unexplored, and known to be dangerous forest at the start of the next session. Their main goal is exploring the forest but the village itself can present some interesting scenarios besides just being a fairly safe place to return to now and then for basic supplies.

I decided that there is going to be an Oni Night Haunter, Ms Trook, who lives a couple miles outside of the village, at the edge of the forest. Once the PCs show up Ms Trook will wander into town in her little old lady guise and check things out. If the party sniffs her out she'll bolt for home. If they don't she'll come back later with a bunch of ogres, which I figure the group will defeat (I'm setting at about a level + 2 encounter, should be a good fight but easily winnable). The upshot being that will almost inevitably lead to them trying to track her back to her lair or at least follow her trail there if they managed to kill her.

So I got it into my head that the tracking her back to her lair makes a pretty good skill challenge, but it needs to have an up side and a down side. The party will inevitably get to the lair, its only a matter of time and how many resources they burn along the way. Given that they will be starting out at full strength and MAYBE having had an encounter of modest difficulty they need something to wear them down a bit before they get to the lair. Thus it makes sense to have the tracking skill challenge be a running engagement of some kind where they try to follow Ms Trook as a gas cloud while brushing off some kind of basically nuisance harassment.

We have a bit of a running joke with stirges, so I figure its time to dust those babies off again. The regular stirges are level 1, so trivial except in vast numbers. A stirge swarm would be a possibility, but a few Dire Stirges should work fairly well. They can buzz around, popping up from behind a tree or out of tall grass now and then, swoop in for a bite and then either die or fly off to return later. Meanwhile the PCs will be hoofing it, so they won't really want to stop and fight a set piece battle, nor are a few stirges going to do them all that much damage.

So it seems like an extended version of something along the lines of what Greyscott is proposing would fit pretty well.