Length and difficulty of combats

[RangerWickett]

In an action TV series like, say, Human Target, you get 2 or 3 action scenes per episode. The writers usually mix and match easy-medium-hard difficulty, with static-mobile-hazardous location, and solo-group-horde numbers.

I would never try to have three combats in one session any more, though. When I do have action, I try to make it a single high-impact scene. I don't like wasting time with 'fluff' combat.

It's okay in my opinion for a TV show to have a fluff action scene where you know the good guy will win, because they can get it done in 2 minutes. But the time scale is too different between TV and game. My group usually games for four hours, and I don't want to spend half an hour or more on a fight that serves only to 'set the mood' or 'let the audience know how cool the bad guys are.' I'd rather do that sort of stuff through roleplaying and description.

So me, I'll usually have a four hour session with one hour-long combat. (It would be shorter, but we have two controllers, and one of them just won't learn that winging it is not only easier, it's more fun.) And the combat almost always has something at stake other than mere survival.

 

[bennyhobo]

I'm new to 4E, and haven't played D&D since 2E. I thought I might weigh in with my thoughts as a complete n00b who wants to play because I want a fun adventure. I'm a player in one game and a DM of another. In both cases, we've only played 2 sessions, 4 combat encounters in each. So, like I said, I'm a complete n00b.

In the game where I'm a player, our DM has essentially thrown the biggest and nastiest things he can find at us 3 out of 4 times. He sees it as making it exciting. But we the players find it exhausting, and every encounter takes us 2 hours to get through. Now, it's early in the campaign of course, so maybe this'll change. But it's a frustrating way to start.

In the game where I'm a DM, I've started by running the Kobold Hall adventure in the back of the DMG. The battles there are pretty straightforward, and I haven't had to tweak them at all. So I don't have any experience in designing encounters myself. But once we finish this (kill the dragon) I will. And I've been paying attention to what my players like: slaughtering a lot of critters and collecting loot. So I'm totally on board with the original idea presented in this thread. The players (in my game at least) want to feel like heroes, hacking their way through hoardes of monsters and getting treasure. And then occasionally face off against something huge in return for a big payoff. I think doing it this way will also allow for more role playing and story interaction, rather than just taking up all our time in Final Fantasy style boss battles every time.

My 2 cents.

Benny

 

[Felon]

In another thread the issue of grindiness and combat length was brought up. I decided I wanted to discuss this aspect of 4e more so here's a thread for it.

My take on this is that I think a lot of DM's wrongly assume that combat in 4e is too easy. I think a lot of DM's attempt to compensate for this by throwing large and difficult encounters at the PC's, which in turn makes combats far longer than they're generally meant to be.

I don't think most DM's realise that 70% or so of combats SHOULD be easy for the PC's. Combats are a stepping stone in a process of investigation and story building. They should form a part of that process and be obstacles that the heroes need to overcome. They shouldn't, however, dominate the play experience.

Kzach, it isn't just DM's who think that way. The people who designed 4e think that way too.

Has anyone here played Revenge of the Giants? This is a recipe for one big, grindy, endlessly frustrating turd of a product. Here's the checklist of ingredients:

Making players take on more than three encounters without an extended rest (the current record is seven)? Check.

Bypassing the quality/quantity trade-off by making most encounters over the party's level (so monsters can outnumber the party while enjoying high defenses and HP)? Check.

Having two of those above-party-level encounters roll together into one encounter that's six or seven levels over the party? Afraid so

Giving monsters powers that let them heal all the monsters on the battlefield as a minor action ad infnitum? Sho' nuff.

Letting monsters toss out conditions like daze, blind, or dominate at-will (save ends)? Consistently.

Making combat more "dynamic" by throwing out battlefields fulll of difficult or hindering terrain that only happens to affect the players? Shamelessly.

Expressly stipulating that encounters can't be handled through peaceful means, no what the players say or do? Sadly, check and mate.

Bear all of that in mind while noting that this adventure's design is credited to Bill Slavicsek, Mike Mearls, and David Noonan

The real kicker is that I actually bought RotG for a DM who was new to running 4e. I thought it would be a good example of how to design good encounters. Now my party hates me a little. I think many of us are continuing just out of morbid curiosity as to how ridiculous things will eventually get.