Stuntman
First Post
I'm not sure of the exact definition of "grind" you are referring to. My experience with 4E combat is that at the beginning of combat, players have a great many options. All encounter and possibly many daily powers are available. Also, they have Second Wind and may have an Action Point or daily item powers they can activate. As the battle continues, your options decrease. You use up encounter powers, daily powers, Second Wind or an action point. Then you are left with your two at-wills. At this point, the battle may become less interesting since you are left with few options and most likely the only good option is to use only one at-will power for the rest of combat.
How long it takes to get to this point where you are out of options depends on a great many factors. You refer to HP totals of oppontents. This may contribute to some battles just reaching this point and remaining longer than players would like before the enemy dies. Note that monsters are designed differently than PC's. PC's have a great many options. Monsters tend to have fewer as the DM needs to control many monsters. To make up for the lack of powers a monster has, its hit points are increased compared to a PC. Also, monsters are designed to last one encounter, so it has more HP than a PC, but lack the many healing surges and Second Wind ability to help it during combat.
There are still skills. Also, you can also gain rituals (or automatically have them depending on class). Rituals are non-combat magical effects that you can perform.
Short range teleportation in combat is rather plentiful. Probably most parties has one PC that can do that. Long range teleporation is done via rituals. You have to be at a certain level to perform such a ritual.
Illusions are the same. Some illusions are used in combat. Others are rituals used outside of combat.
Charming a creature to become your ally is something that is considered to be very powerful. In combat, you can dominate a creature for a few rounds to have it attack your enemies. Outside of combat, there really isn't anything that I recall. The only thing close to it is summoning an extra planar creature and then negotiating with it to perform some task for you via rituals.
The impact of magic items have been toned down somewhat. This was done so that PC's are more defined by their abilities rather than their items. There are still a good variety of magical effects. The most powerful effects are usable once per day. Also, there is a limit on the number of item daily powers you can use. That means you cannot load up with 100 items with a daily power and use them all in one combat encounter. Still some items with static or encounter powers are quite useful and some are powerful with certain character builds.
Certain classes allow you to control an enemy for a brief period of time. Most of these effects last only a few rounds at most. The reason is that any effect that can change the allegence of a creature long term is like outright killing an enemy plus gaining an ally for a net +2 to the side that does this. The 4E effects allow you to control an enemy and use only basic attacks. You cannot make the enemy use its most powerful, limited effects because for balanced reasons, this would be overpowered.
