D&D 5E DNDNext Commentary on Arstechnica

[Brax]

It's just it's quite hard for me to understand how an 8 minute combat turn works. I introduced people to the system a few days ago... [snip] If we can do 9 rounds of combat with a party that's almost brand new to the system in a little over 2 hours, using pregenerated level 3 characters, I don't see how it takes 4 hours to run a simple combat with people who have been playing for years.

The problem I've seen, is that as my group has gained more experience with the system, there are more and more options to consider. This consideration and debate at the table takes up more time. When all you know about are two options, an at will attack or an encounter ability, things go faster than when you consider more possibilities. Things like bull rushing, talking tactics, etc. take time.

 

[GreyICE]

The problem I've seen, is that as my group has gained more experience with the system, there are more and more options to consider. This consideration and debate at the table takes up more time. When all you know about are two options, an at will attack or an encounter ability, things go faster than when you consider more possibilities. Things like bull rushing, talking tactics, etc. take time.

Maybe it's time for the DM to step in then. I'll let people discuss tactics at the start of an encounter, and I'll usually let people stop at one point to discuss tactics in the middle, but generally I try and keep things moving.

And again, it still beggers belief that all of that reaches an 8 minute turn. If he said "every combat takes an hour," okay, that's not super-fast or something, but it's very believable. If he said an hour and a half or two hours, okay, they're mighty slow. Four hours?

What do you do with the time, read and debate the rules compendium every session? The only system I saw that got that bad had calculations for bullet drop that included coriolis forces.

 

[Mattachine]

In my 4e games, character turns take 2-4 min per person once they are level 6 or so. I also need about 5 min to run my monsters and NPCs (more for setpiece fights). With four players and me, that means about 17 min per round. Most combats at heroic tier would last my group 4-5 rounds. On average, that makes 75 min per combat. A big setpiece combat would grow to 90 min, or even 2 hours.

I love 4e, but the combats can really drag.

I made some house rules to speed things up. I cut monster hp in half, but raised their damage by +4, +10, or +20 (by tier) per attack. This made fights tough and short (30-45 min). Still, an individual PC typically only acted twice per fight.


When I ran AD&D, most fights would last 25-45 minutes, with an hour or more for major setpiece battles. Most players only needed a minute or less for their turn, except casters (especially wizards). Monsters usually had only one simple attack to make. PCs typically got to act more times in a fight, but options in a fight were usually limited or nonexistant for non-casters.

 

[slobo777]

In my 4e games, character turns take 2-4 min per person once they are level 6 or so. I also need about 5 min to run my monsters and NPCs (more for setpiece fights). With four players and me, that means about 17 min per round. Most combats at heroic tier would last my group 4-5 rounds. On average, that makes 75 min per combat. A big setpiece combat would grow to 90 min, or even 2 hours.

I love 4e, but the combats can really drag.

I made some house rules to speed things up. I cut monster hp in half, but raised their damage by +4, +10, or +20 (by tier) per attack. This made fights tough and short (30-45 min). Still, an individual PC typically only acted twice per fight.


When I ran AD&D, most fights would last 25-45 minutes, with an hour or more for major setpiece battles. Most players only needed a minute or less for their turn, except casters (especially wizards). Monsters usually had only one simple attack to make. PCs typically got to act more times in a fight, but options in a fight were usually limited or nonexistant for non-casters.

I run 4E, and the group as a whole are fans of the game.

For us, with 8th level PCs, an at-level encounter takes ~2 hours, and a bigger L+2 or L+3 can take 3-4 hours.

We play evening sessions, and typically get one battle done in a session. If it's a big one, then that's the focus of the entire session, and quite often I am hand-waving wrap up of an adventure as we tiredly pack away our things!

We tried to speed things up, and decided could probably run the thing at twice this speed, by cutting down on distractions, tactics talk, getting organised around a more formal play style etc.

But we play to relax, not to cajole each other into taking game turns faster. So we accept the slow play as part of the game.

I think 4E has a "natural" pace for players like us that matches the blog.

However, unlike the blogger, we're still big fans of the game and enjoying it.

It would be nice to have more incidental and faster (yet still meaningful in game resources) combats, saving the epic battles for once every now and then. I'm still waiting to see D&D Next's tactical module, because if that makes it possible we'll move. But maybe not at the expense of e.g. class/class balance or other things I've grown to love about 4E.

 

[adamc]

While I think that 4e fights can take too long (probably my biggest gripe with 4e), I don't think we've ever had a battle take longer than 2 hours. 75 minutes is more like it (if we really slog the whole thing out).

There are lots of suggestions out there for making fights go faster, but the gist is: have victory conditions. Minimize the number of fights where you have to grind every opponent into dust, because it's... boring. (If you group doesn't find it boring, then there's no problem... grind away.)

 

[Hussar]

It is somewhat amusing to see those who were formally up in arms over the 4e comments about 3e, now turning around and defending EXACTLY THE SAME COMMENTS when they are made about 4e. Would be nice to see a slight reduction in hypocrisy. Aw well, such is life.

 

[slobo777]

It is somewhat amusing to see those who were formally up in arms over the 4e comments about 3e, now turning around and defending EXACTLY THE SAME COMMENTS when they are made about 4e. Would be nice to see a slight reduction in hypocrisy. Aw well, such is life.

"EXACTLY THE SAME COMMENTS" - do you have a couple of links for comparison?

I think 4E's and 3E's strengths and flaws are quite different. And this is one of the reasons why the arguments go around in circles without end.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I mean 4 hour combats? Regularly? At the heroic tier? WHAT IS HE DOING? Combat takes 3-5 rounds at that tier. That means, with a 5 man party, you have a total of 15-25 turns, plus the DM. For that to take 4 hours, you'd have to be averaging around 6-8 minutes PER TURN. SIX TO EIGHT MINUTES PER TURN

Just had a fight last night take nearly 3 hours. Heroic tier. We had only two monsters.

What did it in this instance was a monster who turned invisible and a party with exactly 1 source of attacks that don't take a -5 penalty to hit. Said monster was probably also at least an Elite, so it had a decent pool of hp. We also had a pretty big party going into it.

I bet certain encounters with solo soldiers or creatures who can weaken or insubstantial monsters would all become similarly tedious.

Just because you didn't experience a thing, doesn't mean the thing doesn't exist. I've never seen a platypus, but they probably exist. I've never seen scry-buff-teleport, but I'm pretty sure it's happened. You haven't had much of a problem with grind, perhaps, but that doesn't mean that problem doesn't exist.

 

[Obryn]

Just because you didn't experience a thing, doesn't mean the thing doesn't exist.

In fairness, he said "regularly."

It should also say, "...unless your DM throws an utter trainwreck of an encounter at the party which is guaranteed to turn into a grindfest," which your example illustrates. In 3.x terms, that encounter is the lich casting Disjunction after your party spends an hour and a half casting their buff spells.

-O

 

[I'm A Banana]

In fairness, he said "regularly."

Man, if it happens once or twice or three times, that's too much for me. Considering that I am a growd-up with stuff to do, adding numbers until I can move on with the plot ain't my idea of fun. I'll complain about a bad movie I've seen and that's just two hours of my life I'll never get back!

It should also say, "...unless your DM throws an utter trainwreck of an encounter at the party which is guaranteed to turn into a grindfest," which your example illustrates.

Right, the "Mythical Good DM" solves all problems with a wave of their magic hand, healing all your games' ills in hindsight on message boards all across the internet.

Dude, my DM last night was no slackjawed doofus, nor does it take a bad DM to get a grindy 4e game.

In 3.x terms, that encounter is the lich casting Disjunction after your party spends an hour and a half casting their buff spells.

Except in 1e-3e, the Lich then goes on to murder your party, thus ending the encounter before you've wasted the night spinning your wheels and getting nowhere.

In 4e, you're probably gonna win...eventually...sooner or later....just....any minute now....oh, guess the session's over, we'll pick up next week!

This isn't an all-the-time problem for every group, but neither was scry-buff-teleport or killer dungeon adventures. It's out there. It happens. It's not a statistical outlier. One of 5e's best selling points for me so far has been a dedicated effort to obliterating that, and it's clearly something this writer noticed as well. That doesn't make him a hater, it just makes him observant of his own tables.

And probably not a Mythical Good DM. But then I'm not sure anyone ever really is that, though so many people talk as if it's The Solution To Your Problems (regardless of edition -- I'd bet even Gygax has his share of this solution. I'm positive I do, too.).

 

[Obryn]

I'm not saying he was a doofus - I'm saying that throwing any enemy at a party where 4/5 or 5/6 or 6/7 of all attacks are at -5 with no good way to counter it is a bad idea. (Especially if the fight is non-threatening enough you weren't under any pressure to retreat. )

MM1 monsters in particular - because of bad math and because of just plain bad design - can do stuff like this. It's a lesson the designers learned (too late) and it's a lesson groups learn. It's the sort of thing you learn with experience. Like "Don't use MM1 Sword Wraiths because they are among the worst-designed monsters in the game."

What sort of monster was it? Or was it homebrew? I'm curious because I want to make sure I never use them.

-O

 

[billd91]

*Edit: I'm sorry, this was meant to be humorous. Always have to remember humor doesn't translate well on the internet. The intent was not to imply that anyone was engaging in illegal activity, simply to offer a humorous exaggeration of what might be involved in an 8 minute combat turn.*

Hmmm... something meant to be humorous didn't get interpreted that way. It got interpreted as insulting. There's an epiphany buried in here somewhere.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Hmmm... something meant to be humorous didn't get interpreted that way. It got interpreted as insulting. There's an epiphany buried in here somewhere.

... that we need to hold a completely unreasonable grudge against [MENTION=6684526]GreyICE[/MENTION] for the next 5+ years, and bring up the comment he made every time he posts?

 

[Hussar]

To be fair, there are a number of monsters in 4e that can get the grind on in a hurry. Anything incorporeal can be a right PITA, for example. That invisible, TELEPORTING, elite (or possibly solo) was another good example.

Something that 4e really needs is to take a very hard look at any ability that reduces damage. Considering how many HP most 4e critters already have, bumping on something like invisibility at will as a minor action, is going to make a fight take AGES.

I think we were on what, round 14 by the end of that fight? So, 5 players, 1 DM, 3 hours (180 min/6/14=) 2 minutes per turn. Not a bad average at all. Certainly a heck of a lot better than 8 to 10 minutes per turn.

But, I think the point is also well made - fights in 4e don't typically take several hours to resolve. If they are for your group (and that's the generic you - no one in specific) then it might be time to take a look at encounter design. Where is the massive time sink. It's not about saying that a good DM fixes everything, but, when possible issues can be pretty glaringly obvious, either try not to use those things, or change them.

I mean, if the invisible critter could only go invisible as a move action, then it would not have been a problem. If insubstantial instead just granted a bunch of HP, it would be a lot better. Particularly when insubstantial gets paired with creatures that cause weakness - quadrupling a critter's HP is not a good thing.

While I think that there are issues here, I'm not sure they are terribly insurmountable ones.

 

[GreyICE]

I wouldn't go as far as insulting Kamikaze Midget's DM, chances are that was an experimental encounter. But it does sound like a complete train wreck. Another in the 4E forums (see: Encounter power recharge thread) featured an encounter lead by an EL+3 Elite... Solider (same -5 to hit as invisibility, really, plus bonus HP and pain).

There's definitely misdesigned encounters. And I've had epic encounters run to the 3+ Hour mark (featuring multiple waves, one featured a short rest as a 'breather' inbetween huge waves of attacks). But those are memorable, epic, truly amazing encounters. They're capstones to entire plotlines.

The word "regularly" was indeed meant as such. If you're regularly hitting combats like that than either your DM favors the "one epic battle" approach, which isn't wrong - and probably means you're playing in a group that enjoys truly epic slugfests where using every daily, encounter, and item power available to you is common - or you're doing something terrible.

And yes, the invisible teleporting monster was a great example of bad battle design. As a recharge power on a solo, that could have been a truly epic fight (invisible, teleport, setup some huge attack, etc.) but as a power on an elite it's just silly.

Hmmm... a solo who teleports and goes invisible. And minion spawners. Hmmm. I could be setting my players up for something truly terrible here.

 

[D'karr]

But, I think the point is also well made - fights in 4e don't typically take several hours to resolve. If they are for your group (and that's the generic you - no one in specific) then it might be time to take a look at encounter design. Where is the massive time sink. It's not about saying that a good DM fixes everything, but, when possible issues can be pretty glaringly obvious, either try not to use those things, or change them.

The times that I have seen combats go very long with my group it's usually because we're spending too much time bulls#ing around the table. There might be side conversations, comments, "stupid quotes", and all kinds of silliness going around. That tends to make things go a whole lot longer.

When I start moving the game by pushing initiative fast, it tends to go away. I have, at times, skipped someone on the initiative because they were not paying attention when their initiative came around, and they had to "delay". After doing that one or two times the behavior seems to stop. I don't do that often, unless we are on a tight schedule.

I also don't take a long time to take turns as a DM. My creatures are NOT "tactical geniuses". They are not constantly looking for flanks. They will move, provoking all kinds of OA's, and violate marks, opening up options for the defenders. This keeps others involved during my turn, and also cuts out some of the grind as the creatures go down faster when they are attacked more often.

 

[Obryn]

To be fair, there are a number of monsters in 4e that can get the grind on in a hurry.

Yep. And I'll just come out and say it - the 4e MM1 is basically playtest-quality. With art and some fluff (mostly in the Monster Knowledge section).

I'll go back to my (least) favorite monsters - sword wraiths. I mostly know about them because WotC used them in two adventures. These annoying undead... (1) Are insubstantial, so they take half damage; (2) Weaken enemies with a basic attack, which means damage is effectively quartered; and (3) Regenerate 10 every round - which can be equivalent to as much as 40 HP. What's more, they're "phasing" so once they hit Bloodied they retreat through a wall and get back to full. It sounds neat. Maybe. But it's really just a slog and a grind.

The problem is that the original designers were such math-heads that they thought "monster who does low damage every round but takes longer to kill" and "monster who does high damage but is quickly killed" were equivalent in play. Same with "high damage, but inaccurate" and "low damage, but accurate". Mathematically, sure - each theoretically deals out similar damage. But in play? Not really equivalent at all. Hence, grind.

-O

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm not saying he was a doofus - I'm saying that throwing any enemy at a party where 4/5 or 5/6 or 6/7 of all attacks are at -5 with no good way to counter it is a bad idea. (Especially if the fight is non-threatening enough you weren't under any pressure to retreat. )

I don't think it was a bad idea to throw an invisible angel of doom at the party.

I think it was a failure in the rule system to support that awesome idea in a way that was a lot of fun. In this instance, the interaction of 4e allowing you to hyper-specialize (few area attacks) plus the 4e invisibility mechanic (-5 to hit), plus the 4e crowd control mechanisms (marking and teleporting and the like to avoid spreading around damage means some characters were full while others were near death), plus the robustness of 4e characters, plus the action economy, topped with a light dusting of 4e Stealth insanity (the distinction between "invisible" and "hidden" is remarkably counter-intuitive), made for fight that took longer than it probably should've.

I mean, D&D is a complex game, and there's always going to be unforeseen interactions in the rules, and this was certainly one of them. I'm not particularly trying to single out 4e has The One Edition With All The Problems or anything. I'm just saying that the system does bear responsibility for this. It legit happened, it's a legit problem, and even if some groups have completely avoided the problem, it doesn't mean that I have a uniquely accident-prone DM or anything. Because D&D is complex, different groups can have different experiences with the same system, since no group exists in isolation. Some continents will evolve kangaroos, and other continents will not. Doesn't mean that kangaroos are imaginary (and it also doesn't mean kangaroos are ubiquitous). And while the Hypothetical Good DM might not've fallen prey to this particular pitfall, the Hypotehtical Good DM is not much of a defense of the system. I can't really accept it for folks defending 3e spellcasters as fine, and I can't really accept it for folks defending 4e grindfests as fine, either. Neither of these things are fine, even if you or I have never personally encountered one or the other. And they are both system problems, not just DM problems. Your DM plays favorites, that's a DM problem. Your DM fails to see the subtle interactions of a -5 penalty to attack rolls due to nigh-constant total concealment, that's...I mean, the system at LEAST has the problem that it's demanding DMs know its subtle interactions to an encyclopedic degree.

What sort of monster was it? Or was it homebrew? I'm curious because I want to make sure I never use them

I honestly don't know (ahh, re-skinning). But I don't think every party would have the same problems with that monster that we did. A -5 penalty to hit on melee and ranged attacks doesn't necessarily need to lead to a 3-hour-plus fight. That's part of the subtlety that makes stuff like this hard to predict, and why I can't easily accept "Your DM Dun Messed Up!" as an explanation.

ghts in 4e don't typically take several hours to resolve. If they are for your group (and that's the generic you - no one in specific) then it might be time to take a look at encounter design

I don't know what we're paying the professional designers for if a DM can't take an invisible monster or a monster that drains strength (or both!) and throw it at the party without taking a community college course on D&D-specific vagaries of encounter design. That's too high of an entry barrier.

If you're regularly hitting combats like that than either your DM favors the "one epic battle" approach ...<snip>... or you're doing something terrible.

OR, certain complex system interactions occasionally produce an unforeseen consequence of extended time spend on some battles.

I mean, personally, I'm of the school of thought that thinks that even when 4e combats "go right," they last too frickin' long, but it's not just a simple issue of mistaken DMing that creates 4e grind. It's something systemic. Not universal or constant, not perhaps avoidable with an attentive DM, but something that happens and unexpectedly spikes the encounter time. It isn't mythical, it isn't impossible, it isn't a fault, it's the game not doing what it should be doing.

And yes, the invisible teleporting monster was a great example of bad battle design. As a recharge power on a solo, that could have been a truly epic fight (invisible, teleport, setup some huge attack, etc.) but as a power on an elite it's just silly.

I'd say it's a deeper problem with system design which enables a potentially cool battle with a big invisible teleporting monstrosity to be about 6-9 turns too long.

Just like I'd say its a system design problem that turns a potentially cool trio of spells into The Win Button for some encounters in some groups.

I'm not trying to say "4e combats are always big grinds that are boring to everyone except idiots."

I AM trying to say "The 4e grind phenomenon does exist, and it's not just a result of simple incompetence."

You don't need to claim that the author is being dishonest or unreliable here. They're being honest and reliable. That happens. Even to decent players and decent DMs. If 5e can avoid that (and it looks like it can!), it'll be an improvement, at least in this respect.

 

[Obryn]

I honestly don't know (ahh, re-skinning). But I don't think every party would have the same problems with that monster that we did. A -5 penalty to hit on melee and ranged attacks doesn't necessarily need to lead to a 3-hour-plus fight. That's part of the subtlety that makes stuff like this hard to predict, and why I can't easily accept "Your DM Dun Messed Up!" as an explanation.

In this case, I really, really think most parties would have had this much trouble. I'd go so far as to say "almost all".

This encounter is cool. And it can work, but not without a little effort. Some quick back-of-the-envelope ideas to make it work...

(1) Provide environmental effects which can make the monster at least partly visible - heavy smoke is an easy one, as are (if this were an angel) holy "candles" or pillars of some sort which reveal invisible creatures that are too close to them. This keeps the cool idea while adding some interesting tactics and strategy.

(2) Make sure ahead of time that the PCs have a chance to find a scroll or something of that nature which can reveal invisible creatures. This was a pretty common trick in 1e adventures. (Even the Tomb of Horrors seeds a cheap magic ring when you need to sacrifice one in the adventure.)

(3) Incorporate the Full Concealment bonuses into its basic stats, at least partly. This is the strategy used in some newer Lurkers in MV and the like. So... Its base defenses are at -3 compared to a normal creature of this level, but this results in a +2 against enemies who are unprepared to face invisible enemies.

I don't know what we're paying the professional designers for if a DM can't take an invisible monster or a monster that drains strength (or both!) and throw it at the party without taking a community college course on D&D-specific vagaries of encounter design. That's too high of an entry barrier.

I disagree that this, in particular, is a high entry barrier that requires mythically perfect DMing skills. I think it's a mistake, and an understandable one. (Like I said, the MM1 is full of mistakes - the incorporeal/weakness/regeneration synergy of sword wraiths is huge.)

But, with that said, I don't think it's particularly hard to predict (once you get some basic system familiarity) that a fight where every PC is at -5 to-hit against a creature with a lot of HPs is going to either be long and grindy or else deadly to the PCs. I'm sorry - I understand your exasperation, but to me that's not an unforseeable consequence. That's not a "mythical good DM," IMO. It's a very badly-designed monster - especially if it had Soldier defenses.

-O

 

[I'm A Banana]

In this case, I really, really think most parties would have had this much trouble. I'd go so far as to say "almost all".

I don't see why a few additional area powers, some better lockdown (such as a Slow effect) and maybe a leader who handed out more attack bonuses/attack rolls, or at least one character who jacked Wisdom and could point it out when it tried to hide wouldn't have solved this problem. It was bloodied by the time it fled, the only problem was not being able to hit it very easily. I'd imagine we'd have a similar problem with a swarm (since swarms reduce melee and ranged damage). If I was playing my Githyanki Pyromancer (what with his preponderance of area attacks), the dude would've been just another fight. But I was playnig my thri-kreen ranger (what with her preponderance of melee and ranged attacks), and so it was tougher. We could've been more cautious with our placement and our initiative timing (it did become briefly visible whenever it wailed on us -- readied actions fix that!). It's even possible that we got several of the rules wrong in the process (Aaah, 4e Stealth).

I mean, if "you need to roll a 16 or better to hit its low defense!" was this incredibly game-breaking, and needed all this rigamarole to compensate for it,I don't know why they even allowed invisibility to have that "-5 to certain attack rolls" effect in the first place. Why include an option with such a tremendous distortion effect on the game?

I'm sorry - I understand your exasperation, but to me that's not an unforseeable consequence. That's not a "mythical good DM," IMO. It's a very badly-designed monster - especially if it had Soldier defenses.

Personally, I think any system that requires such deep system mastery and encyclopedic knowledge to play "right" that a group that's been doing it weekly since about 2009 (~450 hours, give or take) is still at significant risk of messing it up is WORSE than a system that simply didn't forsee each interaction of all its hundreds of moving parts and occasionally fails to produce an expedient combat result.

And either way, you've got a problem with the system. With the usual caveats of not everyone, not always, and maybe not you personally. But WotC, probably.