D&D 4E Is Pathfinder Combat As Slow as 4e?

[Shazman]

To me it seems more like shoving metagames aspects right in the player's faces. The way the game world works shouldn't change because it's a 12th level ranger that is fighting the hill giant instead of a commoner fighting the hill giant. Sure, the 12th level ranger can do a lot more damage than the commoner, but not enough to be treating the hill giant as a minion. The minion rules seem to work okay for mook humanoid opponents, but when you have minion giants, and high level minion demons, devils, etc. it starts getting silly.

 

[renau1g]

Once you hit Epic demigods could conceivably be so powerful that some demons could be trivial minions. *shrug*

I'm still not crazy about them as you level up, just a comment.

 

[Celtavian]

Is there a combat Fatigue rule(s) in PF? I must've missed that. Also, don't your players get bored after the first 100 non-challenging foes? I mean, sure it's lots of fun to slay the orcs, but eventually (especially as you mention there's minimal threat) the dice-rolling exercise gets boring. Without any threat of real challenge/risk then who cares?

No. Not a direct rule. I look at fighting like running. You can run for a number of rounds equal to your Constitution. So I figure a party can fight about that long as well without rest. Dodging blows, casting spells, swinging swords, and the like all seem about as strenous as running or swimming or what not.

One thing I remembered about minions is that they aren't minions for everyone. There was an article that stated (paraphrased) that even though a Hill Giant Grunt is a level 13 minion, a level 1 PC (or commoner) wouldn't treat them as such. They suggest that higher level minions start out as lower level Elite foes, then become standard foes as the party becomes stronger, and then finally get reduced to minions. Now that's a great way for the party to feel powerful. The enemy type first start as some of the more challenging foes out there, then become a normal challenge, before finally descending to more "bump in the road" as minions should.

If you feel ok about manipulating the rules in that fashion in 4E and it doesn't take you out of the game, then I'm all for it. 4E DMs can play with the rules as much as Pathfinder DMs to get the feel they want including the feel they want with minions.

It's mostly a question of preference. For myself Pathfinder and 3E did a bangup job of making enemies feel like real individual races or types versus the genericism of older editions of D&D and 4E. I don't feel like giving up that part of 3E. I liked that each type of creature has unique traits inherent to those creature types. I thought that was very creative and interesting game design. I much prefer it over genericism. Makes the entire world feel more real.

To put it in simple terms, the static constant of a 4 hit point kobold and a 60 hit point giant no matter what level the characters are makes the world feel more real to me than say a making a giant tough to a lvl 4 character and a minion to a lvl 20 character.

 

[Festivus]

The action piled on top of other peoples actions does slow 4E down. However, I timed our pathfinder game the other night, level 4 characters and there were 3 players, 4 characters. Entire combat took 45 minutes, and I had to sit and do nothing for a an average of 6 minutes between my turns to take any actions outside opportunity actions, my turn taking an average of 45 seconds. Honestly, after the third round I was bored to tears, flipping though my phone, trying to find something else to engage myself in because I couldn't do anything.

That is something I do like about 4E combats, I feel like I am engaged in the combat and paying a lot more attention to it... the cost of course is duration of the combat overall, but getting to do something every 2 minutes instead of every 6 is more fun to me. But there is a trade off that not everyone likes.

 

[Shazman]

I've had just the opposite experience. The Pathfinder combats had me on the edge of my seat even when it wasn't my turn, and I didn't have to wait too long between turns. The 4E combats I just wanted to be over with after a few rounds, and it seemed to take forever until my turn came up again. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that in 4E the players seem to have to take more time to decide what to do to make sure they use a standard, move, minor, and get as many creatures as possible in that close blast 3. You also have to beat on the monsters for a much longer time before they go down which leads to a feeling of stagnation. The longer the combat goes without anything significantly changing, the more boring it becomes. Then you have all the fiddly interrupts, buffs and conditions that change every single round. You have to make sure you remember to take your ongoing damage, make your saves, etc. It feels more like work than a game. Just my two coppers.

 

[Celtavian]

re

I mostly didn't like 4E combat because I couldn't picture it in my head. Most of the fighter types took this ability called Come and Get It. And it worked against everything within range. Taunt the orcs. I can picture that. Taunt the giants. I can picture that. Taunt the undead zombies? Uhmm, what. Taunt the slimes? Uhmm, what the...

I have people telling me the fighter cuts his arms or screams "brains" to get the zombies to come over. Or can tap his foot to send out vibrations to attract the slime. I'm looking at these people telling me this stuff thinking "Shut up. That's just dumb".

Give me straight power attacks, sunders, disarms, smite evils, and raging. That I can picture in my head easily and imagine happening in a fantasy world. Too many powers in 4E never made sense or any sense why they could only be done once per encounter or once per day when they were supposed to be learned physical skills. 4E was like looking at the computer code of a MMORPG where as 3E/Pathfinder makes me feel like I'm looking at the world and the characters in it. The powers, abilities, and combats don't feel forced and the abilities all make sense within the context of the world.

 

[renau1g]

I've had just the opposite experience. The Pathfinder combats had me on the edge of my seat even when it wasn't my turn, and I didn't have to wait too long between turns. The 4E combats I just wanted to be over with after a few rounds, and it seemed to take forever until my turn came up again. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that in 4E the players seem to have to take more time to decide what to do to make sure they use a standard, move, minor, and get as many creatures as possible in that close blast 3. You also have to beat on the monsters for a much longer time before they go down which leads to a feeling of stagnation. The longer the combat goes without anything significantly changing, the more boring it becomes. Then you have all the fiddly interrupts, buffs and conditions that change every single round. You have to make sure you remember to take your ongoing damage, make your saves, etc. It feels more like work than a game. Just my two coppers.

Just out of curiosity Shazman how many years have you played 3e/PF? How many 4e? I know I've said before that at first 4e took around 45 -75 mins or so as we were learning the rules. 3e came out around a decade or so ago, 4e for around 2.5 years or so?

I know my group is now far quicker (well besides the one player but that's because he struggles with basic math and it takes him forever to figure out his damage... but that is a problem for him in any edition).

 

[ruemere]

[...]Honestly, after the third round I was bored to tears, flipping though my phone, trying to find something else to engage myself in because I couldn't do anything.[...]

There is an easy fix for this.

In my games a player is not allowed to talk during his turn to other players. Browsing books and spell lists is also forbidden... unless they declare that they spend action or delay.
Talking to me, the GM, is free within reasonable limits.

Out of turn, the players are free to freely consult their peers and resources. On the other hand they are not allowed to talk to me, the GM, unless it is something very important.


One of the bothersome happenings of late was that the party cleric enjoyed issuing complex commands to her summons (like "pick me up and fly me away, while your colleagues heal and buff me"). She knows now that she has to use action to do that and that her commands need to fit in six seconds.
By the time her turn arrives, she has everything ready.


Regards,
Ruemere

 

[Votan]

In 3.x, Pathfinder, and 4E, the combat encounter was emphasized much more greatly than in 0e, 1E, and 2E. If you are more interested in getting through an adventure than spending the time in tactical combat, then the eariler editions are much better. If you enjoy the tactical nature of RPG combat, then the later editions are better. However, you can "cheat" in 3.x and Pathfinder by eliminating minis & the battlemat. Combat is much quicker without them. I don't play 4E, so I have no idea what eliminating the battlemat would do to that game.

Hmmmm... We should try that sometime . . .

 

[Votan]

I tried 4e once at a D&D gameday. Combat took 40 minutes for one encounter and seemed to me to be monotonous. Maybe it was because I was a newbie and had to be couched on what to do? In any case, I am wondering if combat in Pathfinder is about the same as 4e, or if it is somehow different, somehow faster or more interesting.

I find many things about monsters to be better in 4E D&D except for one critical thing: the feeling of risk. In 1E/2E/BECMI D&D, there was always the sense that any battle could be the last. If a snake bit a 10th level wizard, she could die from a single botched saving throw. The world felt dangerous.

Pathfinder (and 3rd/3.5 D&D) systematized a lot of things. I currently run PF but might be very reluctant to do so without modules or adventure paths. I find it hard to pull things together quickly and the complexity of the number of moving parts is daunting.

Now 4E had a really cool idea about how to make interesting monsters by focusing on making them distinctive (with signature abilities so fighting different creatures feels different in important ways) but it made them very hard to kill (many rounds to deplete total hit points) and made rescuing a badly damaged PC extremely easy (look at the healing surge rules for characters at negative hit points -- weeble wobble but they sure don't stay down).

As a result, the suspense is gone and combat become slug-fests. Add in conditions and it really gets slow. I rarely feel threatened in 4E, even when I take insane risks. So that tends to make the combats feel slow (whereas in every edition up to that point, a character could be easily killed in the last round of a battle that was trending toward victory).