Going nova and non-dungeon crawl adventures

[Zinovia]

I am running a War of the Burning Sky campaign, and my group enjoys the story aspects of the game. The problem I am having is that there are rarely more than one or two encounters in a day. The group is free to go nova in most fights, so naturally they do just that. My options seem to be to make every fight brutally hard so that they need to go nova to survive, or to cram a lot of encounters into each day. Harder encounters can be frustrating to the players, especially if you allow monster defenses to go up. I don't want to throw a lot of extra fights in just to use up resources, because then we would spend too much time on combat and not enough on advancing the plot.

I have been thinking about reducing the number of surges gained during a long rest, with an endurance check to regain more perhaps. I don't know quite what to do with daily powers however. It is difficult to "nerf" the group by messing with the recovery mechanic at level 10, but I'm afraid this problem will only get worse as they reach Paragon tier. They are mature enough to listen if I explain my reasoning, but will probably still feel ripped off if I take away their full recovery during a long rest.

A different option is just to make the monsters hit like a ton of bricks, but keep their defenses appropriate for their level. That gets to be swingy and unpredictable. Since I roll attacks openly, I can't cheat on behalf of the group as easily as if I were rolling behind a screen.

4E seems to be balanced around dungeon crawling, not long days of travel or investigation with occasional fights. Any thoughts?

 

[LostSoul]

4E also works for a Points of Light game - travel between those points is very dangerous, expect danger.

You might want to declare that Extended Rests only happen at "story-relevant" places. That's probably the easiest way to deal with it. You could systemize it by using a skill challenge related to travel if you wanted to go down a more mechanical route.

 

[S'mon]

I think the main thing is unpredictability - if the PCs never *know* whether there'll be another battle, there'll always be more tension.

Personally I like nova-ing and hard fights, interspersed with moderate and easy fights. You can make fights harder without grind by using lots of minions, a few standard monsters, and avoid elites & solos. Drench the battlemap in minions and then have more waves of minions! Minion artillery are especially nasty. Personally I make the occasional plot-important enemy an elite, but I never make faceless NPCs elites and I try to avoid elite & solo monsters except for the occasional dragon.

 

[Rune]

It seems to me that if you have one or two good-sized assaults on their camp, they will get out of the habit of bedding down with no reserve of daily powers.

You don't have to have an attack on their camp every night, but there must be the threat of one.

 

[Zinovia]

It's hard to have random attacks in a palace intrigue situation, which is where we are currently. We should wrap that up on Saturday with a tough fight where I plan for them to pull out all the stops. That will be followed by a visit to a dream where they need to fight symbolic foes and terrain in order to save the sanity of the king. That concludes this episode, so it is appropriate that it be as epic as possible.

My problem has been that it makes the less weighty encounters during the course of an investigation utterly meaningless, unless I make the foes tougher than they ought to be. They just wtfpwn everything (to borrow some MMO slang)

Have any of you tried the episode-as-day paradigm to recover dailies and surges? What I mean is you break an adventure into episodes, such as travel to the village, investigation of the missing people, proving your worth to the baron through missions he assigns, then rescue of the missing townsfolk once you have the baron's permission to assault Lord Evilguy's manor house. No matter how many days each scene takes to play out, the characters will not recover dailies or surges until the beginning of the next episode. As a variant on this you could allow a lesser recovery such as one surge and/or one daily per extended rest.

With this rule the group needs to be a bit more conservative in the use of their daily powers. Also the fact that the cleric was stabbed by the duchess with her dirk on Tuesday and lost 4 surges (she's a scary duchess) will still matter on Wednesday when they get jumped by some rogues in an alley.

Only for city, travel, or investigation adventures, not for dungeons.

 

[S'mon]

For the lower-EL encounters, I suggest using tons of high level minions and a few high level bad guys; these fights should go fast, feel potentially threatening, but still have a lower target EL (PL+1?) compared to your real "big fights" which should probably be around PL+3 or PL+4.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=57373]Zinovia[/MENTION] WotBS sounds great!

It's hard to have random attacks in a palace intrigue situation, which is where we are currently.

Have you sent an assassin or two while they sleep yet?

My problem has been that it makes the less weighty encounters during the course of an investigation utterly meaningless, unless I make the foes tougher than they ought to be. They just wtfpwn everything (to borrow some MMO slang)

If the objective of an easy fight is "kill all monsters" then really you wouldn't expect anything but quick to order dragon pancakes. Sometimes that's great cause the players get to feel like big damn heroes.

I've used alternate objectives in combat, particularly easy/moderate combats, to great effect. IOW threaten the quest not the PCs.

My view is that there are really 3 flavors of combat each with different design guidelines:

(1) Complex set piece battles closing out an adventure/quest have multiple goals including defeating the BBEG, and may involve multiple stages. PC death is a real possibility, and they'll need to pull out all the stops.
Elites/solos are guaranteed, any minions are there to support the BBEG by weight of numbers and always come in waves.
IME these last half a session or 2+ hours and I'm definitely pulling out a big old map that I've customized, made myself, or assembled piecemeal. Expect turn by turn deep strategy.

(2) Skirmishes are easier fights that require unique tactics because the main threat isn't directed at the PCs. They usually have a "quick win" button independent of monster HP. PCs usually don't fall below 0 HP. and rarely use many resources.
I keep monsters at the PCs' level or lower, use minions liberally, don't use elites/solos, and minimize my use of soldiers and controllers.
IME these last 30-45 minutes though I'd like them to be more in the 20-30 minute range. If I pull out a map it's for rough positioning or because the environment is especially important to the unique situation; mostly I wouldn't use a map because tactics and fine positioning are unimportant.

(3) In between, there's mini-boss fights which at face value look similar to the dungeon delve format. I usually only had one per adventure (if that) but you could have more. PCs may drop below 0 HP but usually aren't in risk of dying. These encounters tend to require significant resources unless the PCs figure out the "secret weakness". Thus in a game where nova is common, you need to make these fights especially hard or provide lasting consequences that carry over to the next day.
The mini-boss is an elite of higher level; I like ones with high damage output and some trick the PCs can use to lower/penetrate it's defenses.
My mini-boss fights take anywhere from 1-2 hrs, and we use maps to handle round by round tactics.

Have any of you tried the episode-as-day paradigm to recover dailies and surges?

Yep I did a few times when it made sense in the narrative that an extended rest was actually not restful (in the DMs opinion). My players did backflips to argue for or arrange an extended rest (even if it wasn't strictly needed), so I mostly abandoned that.

When I do want to put pressure on them I create reasons that an extended rest is unattractive or a milestone is more appealing. That ways it's not top-down but it comes from them.

But mostly I let them nova. It makes me DM smarter than the nova.

Only for city, travel, or investigation adventures, not for dungeons.

I haven't run a single 4e dungeon where the PCs got an extended rest in between encounters. Then again I'm a big fan of the 5-room dungeon, old school lethal dungeons, and RBDM tricks like locking the PCs inside or having a rising tide of lava. Or both.

 

[Zinovia]

Have you sent an assassin or two while they sleep yet?

I have, but as part of a means of getting them to trust a new party character, I had him bring them warning. They managed to save the ambassador they were escorting, so that's all to the good. I will try to amush them some other time, once the bad guys track them down. They just teleported to another country.

I've used alternate objectives in combat, particularly easy/moderate combats, to great effect. IOW threaten the quest not the PCs.

That can work well, and I do that a fair amount when it fits in with the story. I do have easy fights using 2-hit minions and the like, so the group can kick some butt.

The last session wound up with a set piece battle against the BBEG and its allies. Some crits by the PCs and poor rolls on my part meant none of the PCs fell below 0, but several of them got close a couple times. It was a potentially lethal fight, but they won it handily. Later in the session, I had a skill challenge that could have become a skirmish, but didn't due to some clever distractions on the part of the group. It was fun though.

In between, there's mini-boss fights which at face value look similar to the dungeon delve format. ... These encounters tend to require significant resources unless the PCs figure out the "secret weakness".

I like the idea of a secret weakness to end the fight quicker, if the PCs can figure it out. I will also look at designing these as a few linked encounters rther than just one big fight. That way they have to choose when to use their resources.

My players did backflips to argue for or arrange an extended rest (even if it wasn't strictly needed), so I mostly abandoned that.

Lol, my group would do the same, so I may not bother with it.

When I do want to put pressure on them I create reasons that an extended rest is unattractive or a milestone is more appealing. That ways it's not top-down but it comes from them.

But mostly I let them nova. It makes me DM smarter than the nova.

I have successfully used time pressure to keep them going, and they are good about that. They do what the situation seems to demand rather than manufacturing excuses to rest. As for the nova, I keep ramping up the damage and challenge of the foes while keeping them within level+2 for the most part, so it's not ridiculously hard to hit them.

The set piece I just did had a solo, 2 elites, and a number of minions that sometimes hit the group. The solo had a type of dominate attack. Rather than putting the dominate condition on anyone (which is no fun) it had a low attack value huge close burst that made you use an at-will attack against the closest creature other than the solo. This was on the monster's turn, so didn't cost the PCs any actions. They just had to hit their friends, or the guards. I rolled well on that and hit more PCs than I expected, despite the attack bonus being 4 less than its normal attack vs will.

So thanks for the tips!

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I wonder how far along you are.... mainly because I am running #8 now.. and I have had troubles with the one-battle per day in a long while. As a matter of fact, they are currently 3 encounters into a 15 encounter 'day'

Thngs I have done to speed up losses of healing surges has been modified skill challenges {search "lethal obsideon" here for more} and I have ensured the group has motivation to keep moving...usually through competition. I have not {yet} ambushed them when they were resting.

I also agree with the 'day = scene' idea above and have looked at earning an extended rest as a skill challenge {that paying gold at an inn can auto succeed}..but hadn't gone that route yet.


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[keterys]

I'd heartily encourage the extended rests by plot mechanic, yep.

Another thing you could do is say that PCs can only use one daily per encounter. That's a stronger houserule, but one I'd be very curious to see how it worked out.