Combat takes too long

[AntiPaladin]

double post, can't find the "delete post" button.

 

[ObsidianCrane]

s0l0m0n it remains hard to asses things without knowing what you were fighting to know what they could do, and so know how boring they are (some epic critters are pretty bland).

As it is you are talking a combat that is taking 7+ rounds, after all its not until round 6 you should have to even repeat a power, and that isn't allowing for Utilities or Daily powers. Consider a Wizard/Spell Storm Mage/Archmage build:
Round 1 Legion's Hold
Round 2 Crushing Titan's Fist
Round 3 Sudden Storm
Round 4 AP: Storm Cage, Necrotic Web (Archmage Daily -> Encounter) (all attacks this round get +15 damage)
Round 5 Confusion (Orb it) attack the most damaged enemy,
Round 6 Storm Spell to get a used spell back, + Sustained Confusion
Round 7 Repeat the spell if it is a Daily Attack or Encounter Attack,
Round 8 Legion's Hold again (Archmage),
Round 9 Regain an Encounter power (Archmage),
Round 10 Use regained Encounter,
Round 11 oh now you can use an At Will say Thunderwave to push enemies back into the Necrotic Web...

That would be round 11 before I had to use an At Will power, and the build still has an Encounter power up its sleave.

Now clearly I don't know how your Wizard is built but, I'm still not sure where the issue is that you are refering to, there is plenty there to do, and a lot of those attacks immobilize, stun or otherwise hinder enemies making the rest of the party even more effective - especially with Spell Accuracy meaning you can drop every spell over the party without a problem. Storm Cage is particularly cute - a persisting wall (until end of next turn) you can drop around the party and the monsters, no initial damage for the PCs and they then get to shove the monsters into the wall with push or slide effects, particularly cute with Necrotic Web dropped in the same round => a lot of damage for the monsters in that round.

 

[s0l0m0n]

Well Cailte, that's roughly how things played out for my mage, except for the Necrotic Web which I refrained from using for RP purposes (Necro was my barred school before the port). As for the baddies, there were a trio of Balors as a warm-up, and then some undead close combat things with a Lich that seemed to keep spamming Greater Ice Storms, finally another undead basher with a priest, warlock and mage back-up. There were a dozen or so minions per encounter, but they were of no consequence.

However, all that controlling does nothing towards shortening combat in and of itself, it just lowers the damage the party receives. It buys time to collectively gank one enemy, without being ganked yourself by its mates. Taking damage was not a problem at all, it's the infliciting and receiving damage part that felt a bit lacking. The collective hit points to spank off the baddies remains ultimately the same.

 

[ObsidianCrane]

All that controlling does plenty, its about the way the effects work to help out the rest of the party.

Round 1 Legion's Hold - Hit: average 28 damage (11 dice+8Int+6Orb+3) and stunned. Miss: average 14 damage and target dazed.

Stunned and Dazed Opponents grant Combat Advantage - so everyone who attacks before the monsters save gets +2 to hit for attacks including you. Stunned critters cannot act. Dazed critters can take a standard, move or minor action only (ie any 1 action).

So the Rogue in particular should really wail on something for a round. Possibly even burning an AP to get another action (say Assassin's Point followed up immediately by Hurricane of Blood 7[w] + 10d8 + Dex followed by 5[W]+Dex). A Fighter can also abuse these poor unfortunates by going Reaper's Stance, AP: Warrior's Urgning, Cruel Reaper (a potential 6W+3x(Str+6), plus 10 ongoing, and 1[W] each round until they get away)

Round 2 - Crushing Titans Fist - Hit: 30 damage on average and target immobilized. Depending on what you are fighting either keep or dismiss the effect.

While immobilization doesn't automatically cause combat advantage the fact the enemy cannot move means its easy for the party to set it up, and the Reaper's Stance goes off for the fighter yielding 10 ongoing + 1[w] damage for each creature he urged closer.

Round 3 Spend AP - Storm Cage Hit:46 average damage, Greater Ice Storm (Archmage -> Encounter) Hit: 50 average damage and immobilize.

Again all those immobilized guys can trigger the Reaper's Stance, and because they are not moving its easy for the rogue to flank again.

You've now done 154 damage to multiple opponents and pretty much kept them out of the fight or hindered at least for 3 rounds.

At the same time each other PC should have done that much damage or more to one or two of the creatures (note the fighter starting with a potential average of 84 damage to all enemies, and the rogue into the 100-120 range with the first round)

(Oh and Melee guys like Fighters and Rogues get a better average damage by using Gauntlets of Destruction (especially rogues and TWF Rangers).)

So that's about 3 rounds only looking at 3 PCs for their damage, each has used 3 Encounters and 1 daily. At this point one or two enemies are probably down just from sustained fire of these 3 and the enemies might well be standing there being punching bags due to the Wizard's effects, an effect compounded by adding other PCs.

I also notice that you describe 3 seperate encounters, so I have to wonder if you played through all 3 of those encounters before you were reduced to "bashing away with at wills" or if you were getting to the "bashing away with at wills" with just the first encounter?

 

[Dausuul]

s0l0m0n it remains hard to asses things without knowing what you were fighting to know what they could do, and so know how boring they are (some epic critters are pretty bland).

As it is you are talking a combat that is taking 7+ rounds, after all its not until round 6 you should have to even repeat a power, and that isn't allowing for Utilities or Daily powers. Consider a Wizard/Spell Storm Mage/Archmage build:
Round 1 Legion's Hold
Round 2 Crushing Titan's Fist
Round 3 Sudden Storm
Round 4 AP: Storm Cage, Necrotic Web (Archmage Daily -> Encounter) (all attacks this round get +15 damage)
Round 5 Confusion (Orb it) attack the most damaged enemy,
Round 6 Storm Spell to get a used spell back, + Sustained Confusion
Round 7 Repeat the spell if it is a Daily Attack or Encounter Attack,
Round 8 Legion's Hold again (Archmage),
Round 9 Regain an Encounter power (Archmage),
Round 10 Use regained Encounter,
Round 11 oh now you can use an At Will say Thunderwave to push enemies back into the Necrotic Web...

That would be round 11 before I had to use an At Will power, and the build still has an Encounter power up its sleave.

Also three daily magic item powers. Don't forget those.

 

[Shazman]

Well, sure. But that's because in 3.5, everybody dies in one or two hits at 1st level. A better comparison would be a 6th- to 7th-level 3.5 adventure, which is the standard 4E was aiming for.



Um... wha? +4 to hit versus AC 19, and 6 average damage per hit? What the heck were you playing? And what were you fighting?

A typical sword-and-board fighter should have +6 to +8 to hit (+2 to +3 proficiency bonus, +1 fighter weapon training, +3 to +4 Strength) and do 7.5 to 9.5 average damage (1d8 to 1d10 + Strength). And that's just on a basic attack, which you should never use except for an opportunity attack.

Also, 19 AC and 86 hit points is pretty darn high for a 1st-level monster. Even for an elite, that's substantial.

Well we probably did more than an average of 6 points when we hit, but hitting was a rare occurance. My rogue had a +4 (+5 with a dagger) to hit and the fighters had a +6 I think. There were far more level 2-3 level creatures in this adventure than level 1 creatures. The animated statues were 2nd level elite brutes with 86 hit points a piece. The hobgoblin soldiers had at least a 19 AC, and a way to make it even higher. This may be more of a factor or poor encounter design than a flaw of the game, but I don't see 2nd level characters doing much better. I just don't see the massive escalation of monster hit points coupled with comparatively less PC damage output making the game more tactically interesting, which was supposed to be one of the design goals of 4E. It looks to be much more a slugfest than 3.5 ever was. It seems that everyone just spams their at wills after the first few rounds until something dies. That's not exactly thrilling game play.

 

[keterys]

Well we probably did more than an average of 6 points when we hit, but hitting was a rare occurance. My rogue had a +4 (+5 with a dagger) to hit and the fighters had a +6 I think. There were far more level 2-3 level creatures in this adventure than level 1 creatures. The animated statues were 2nd level elite brutes with 86 hit points a piece. The hobgoblin soldiers had at least a 19 AC, and a way to make it even higher. This may be more of a factor or poor encounter design than a flaw of the game, but I don't see 2nd level characters doing much better. I just don't see the massive escalation of monster hit points coupled with comparatively less PC damage output making the game more tactically interesting, which was supposed to be one of the design goals of 4E. It looks to be much more a slugfest than 3.5 ever was. It seems that everyone just spams their at wills after the first few rounds until something dies. That's not exactly thrilling game play.

I think you may have made some mistakes. A 1st level rogue with 18 Dex (Human, Elf, Halfling, etc) will have a +8 (+4 Dex, +3 Prof, +1 Talent) with a dagger. The fighter will have a +8 with a longsword (+4 Str, +3 Prof, +1 Talent), etc.

Monster hit points don't really 'escalate' that strongly and you get a lot of encounter and daily abilities at high level. You are expected to be able to catch more and more creatures in AoEs and have more "tricks" and such as you go (from Paragon and Epic paths, items, etc).

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well we probably did more than an average of 6 points when we hit, but hitting was a rare occurance. My rogue had a +4 (+5 with a dagger) to hit and the fighters had a +6 I think.

Did you forget the proficiency bonus? A dagger has a +3 if you're proficient, as do most swords. Other weapons are +2. A first level rogue can easily start with a +8 when using a dagger, a fighter can do the same if he chooses a sword. Casters don't benefit from proficiency, but at least one of a monster's defenses is usually 3 or 4 lower than it's AC, and casters have /lots/ of non-AC attacks.

 

[Bunnicula]

You're not using those pregen 1st-level characters are you? Those are terrible. We played one encounter with them and got our asses handed to us by a pack of kobolds. Frustrating and embarrassing.

With real characters, optimized for race and class, and learning to work together, combat for us has been comparable to what we were doing in 3e, but only in clock time. I play with a pretty mixed group, experience-wise, but the rules changes from 3e to 4e make us all more or less equal, and simplification means we spend less time looking things up. Frankly I think the time we spend now on shoving monsters around, etc., is made up for by time saved by the wizard/warlock not doing so much bookkeeping.

We do spend a lot of time strategizing, and we're still learning how to work together efficiently, but this gets faster as time goes by. Sometimes we still forget that we should be spending those re-positioning skills to clump enemies up so the wizard can smite them with an AE, etc., but pretty soon it will be second nature.

 

[ObsidianCrane]

Also three daily magic item powers. Don't forget those.

Actually I used no magic item powers in the 11 round break down. I used Class, Paragon Path, and Epic Destiny powers. But that is for an 11 round combat...

If you look at the 3 round break down above you see it ends up using 1 daily (which can be recovered later through the means used in the 11 round combat) and would likely only need to use encounter powers afterwards to finish the combat.

I expect an Epic party to get through 4 or 5 encounters using a daily in each one, along with all 4 of their encounter attacks. About then the combat should be over, maybe a couple of rounds to go depending on how uber the thing you are fighting is. If you are dukeing it out with Orcus I expect it to take more than 5 rounds and you are probably going to want to cycle those dailies etc back as outlined in the 11 rounds of action.