I think we're done with 4E

[Thasmodious]

While this has been an interesting discussion, with a lot of good ideas, I can't say my group has experienced the grind much. Involved, tactically interesting "battlefields" with plenty of terrain, hazards, traps, and environmental options keeps things moving. Which is another thing, I think, keeping the combatants moving, even at the risk of OAs helps both grind down some HP with the extra damage here and there and keeps the fight active so a static exchange of at wills doesn't take over. I've never liked static HP grinds, whether in a 3 round fight or a 13.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I have DM'ed sessions with two different groups and only one group gets the grinding fights. Playing Scales of War, where as the group playing Keep on the Shadowfell do not seem to have the same problem. The group that grinds have played more 3e and fight in a more static fashion.
One idea I have heard here that I might implement is the reintroduction of the swingy critical and I am also thinking of adding an idea I read in another thread that an action point can be spent to recover an encounter power.
For that puropse i would allow the expenditure of two action points in an encounter provided they were spent on different things, i.e on recovering a power or on an extra action.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So far, I didn't experience a lot of grind. Sometimes combats take long, but usually because the enemy nearly got the drop on us and we fight hard to survive, we're out of healing and there is still one of these pesky artilleries firing at-will and a soldier keeping our Striker contained...

 

[Plane Sailing]

If the fight goes on for several more rounds, aren't those several more rounds of the bad guys having chances to land a lucky crit on the PC's? Heck, given that crits are now just max damage, even a few regular hits with decent damage rolls can be threatening. In the few sessions I've run (all at 1st or 2nd level) just one or two crits against the PC's suddenly had things looking very chancy for them. I'm wondering why, in the complaints I'm hearing, the monsters aren't still a threat for those "several more rounds" of combat that seem to be a grind.

Please be assured, I'm not being snarky at all. I'm just not quite understanding this. Enlighten me.

These are some of the grindy aspects I see (I'm running for a party of 4th level characters)

These characters have one daily, two encounter powers and two at-wills. Most fights are lasting 8 or more rounds. The daily and the encounter powers pretty much only count for 3 of those rounds (and they don't always want to use the daily); also with about a 50% chance of hitting we tend to get half a daily and one encounter attack hitting. This in itself is rarely enough to bloody an enemy and suddenly we are down to basically using at-wills for everything else.

The grindy aspect then becomes (for me) not so much that "we are going to win the fight but we just have to scrub off their remaining hit points" as "We only get to do 1-3 really interesting tricks before settling down to the at-will powers". Bull rush is so ineffective that it is rarely attempted (the max 1 square moved aspect of it). Fighters are so effective at tying people down and removing their mobility that fights involving fighters stagnate unless there is a teleporter involved.

3e had combats that zipped through too quickly, so monsters didn't get the chance to use all their powers. 4e has reduced the number of powers they have but also reduced the hit rate against them and improved their hit points. The damage that the monsters do remains pretty small too, relative to PC hit points. The end result means that I'm seeing combats which continue much longer, but which get a bit 'draggy' on both sides.

if the PCs are all above bloodied and the bad guys are all bloodied, it is very likely that the PCs will beat them simply on attrition (people have similar chances to hit and do similar damage) but it takes... time...

Cheers

 

[AllisterH]

I'm curious....

How many rounds of combat does your party need to defeat a standard encounter with monsters of their level (+1)?

8 rounds seems like a LOT to me since in a normal encounter, my players average between 4-6 rounds. I haven't had a 8 rounder unless the players are going up against an Encounter +3/+4 but those are climatic battles where by round 5, it still is too close to call....

 

[Obryn]

Some elaboration is in order. In 4e, you're lucky to see a non-daily attack do 20 points of damage, even at paragon levels. OTOH, hit points often top 100, even at heroic levels. Add into that the rather high whiff factor in 4e, and you've got a recipe for grinding, not brisk three-round battles.

For the PCs, crits are significantly better, by and large, at Paragon level. Minimally, the characters should be doing Max + 3d6 or 4d6, and for some weapons, it will be even higher...

Monster crits never get quite as dangerous, since they're missing the Xd6 magic item kickers.

-O

 

[Nebulous]

I haven't had a real problem with grinding in combat, and i've run all of Shadowfell. There were a few times though where i had enemies die early, and once i had a goblin commit suicide rather than churn through his 25 hit points. There was another time when i told the group that they had been attacked by 6 hobgoblin minions...but i didn't run the fight. I just said you easily defeat them.

In yesterday's session a 4th level character was able to brilliantly convince a Level 13 hill giant to surrender, ending the fight immediately.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

If the fight goes on for several more rounds, aren't those several more rounds of the bad guys having chances to land a lucky crit on the PC's?

What we found was that the combat reaches a point where the monsters have tried the best powers, the pc's have taken the hits and have plenty of healing surges left and now know that they can withstand what is thrown at them. In doing this they have used their encounter powers and possibly some dailies. They don't want to 'waste' any dailies now they know they can take the monster and so both sides resort to 'at wills'. If the monster is lucky a power will recharge. What we found is that by the time the combat has hit this point the monsters have usually lost half their hit points and so we face the same amount of time, or possibly longer with only at wills being used, getting the monsters down.

Yes different things can be tried, monsters run away, surrender, new monsters arrive, etc but it doesn't remove the problem for us.

I think if we return to 4E I'll put a house rule in place that when a monster hits its bloodied value its gonna die very soon. Not sure what the rule would be, possibly if it gets x more hits or whatever.

 

[Nebulous]

I think if we return to 4E I'll put a house rule in place that when a monster hits its bloodied value its gonna die very soon. Not sure what the rule would be, possibly if it gets x more hits or whatever.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) i think a lot of this is going to come down to DM fiat and famililarity with the system. If the grind is coming, shut it down. It's not fun for anyone really. Those boatloads of hitpoints can be really fun sometimes, but not when the end is inevitable.

I THINK that in the 4e FRCG there is a goblin solo boss with over 300 points. This is for like a 1st or 2nd level party to fight. I cannot imagine the complaints from the players. "We've hit this bastard two dozen times! Why is he still smiling? Is he a freaking demigod?"

 

[DandD]

Yes different things can be tried, monsters run away, surrender, new monsters arrive, etc but it doesn't remove the problem for us.

Why doesn't it?