Low Damage, High HP ... How is this "Faster"?

[Cactot]

you can´t really predict your actions in 3.e... with 4 iterative attacks, spells which kill or doesn´t harm anyone, you need to plan a lot for each turn. Also you have to pay attention to what happens before your turn or you look really really stupid.

In 4e, planning ahead is easier...

2 different points i want to address:
1) if you can see that you will lose the battle, there is nothing you can do about that in 3.x. the attack/AC and the damage/HP ratio is so unbalanced, that most characters will die anyway.
2) Assassination type characters could be still valid:

imagine a power like:

rogue utility 1:
Ambush
encounter (3 rounds, 5 squares)
target: all enemies in line of sight
Attack: stealth vs passive perception
combat advantage grants +4 to attack vs that enemy and sneak dice are doubled. Lasts until you lose combat advantage.
miss: you are spotted.

rogue attack 2:
Assasins strike
small blade or crossbow
Encounter (1 full round)
target: one enemy with ambush active on him
attack: dex vs AC
hit: you bloody the foe and then you deal your [w]+dex damage (don´t forget sneak attack), receives ongoing damage 5 and is weakened (save ends) and if he fails his first saving throw he becomes unconscious (save ends)
miss: zap...

that first ability would allow them +4 to attack and double sneak attack dice forever if you flanked the guy, by the current way it is laid out. = D

 

[Puggins]

A couple of points relating to the OP:

(1) From the only example of play (ie, 1st level), he is wrong regarding decreased damage.

A 1st level rogue with 18 dex and wielding a short sword will inflict 1d6+4 damage with adeft or piercing strike. Assuming he has CA, the target will suffer 3d6+4 damage. A rogue in 3e can only inflict 1d6+4 damage if he also has 18 strength. Even then, the maximum damage he could inflict on a flanked target is 2d6+4.

A 1st level rogue will also get an encounter power. Tortuous strike, once such power, inflicts 2d6+4 damage on a hit (assuming the 18 dex rogue from above) and 4d6+4 damage with CA. The 3e rogue is stuck at 2d6+4.

The one daily power we know about inflicts similar instant damage to Tortuous strike and adds 5 ongoing damage.

All in all, the 4e 1st level rogue inflicts damage on a much higher scale than the 3e rogue.

(2) the OP is wrong in terms of hit point inflation past the first couple of levels, at least partly. True, low level characters will have more hitpoints, but high level characters will have significantly lower hit points than before.

Look at the 20th level 4e rogue, assuming a 14 con: he has 121 hitpoints.

Now look at a 20th level rogue with 14 con + 4 from amulet of health. Assuming average rolling, he has 152 hit points. Thus, we know that at least a substantial subset of opponents (enemy high level characters) will have lower hitpoints.

We know the spined devil has fewer hit points than before. Basically, any standard creature starts with more hit points, but will slowly fall behind compared to 3e as levels are added, mostly because con is no longer a per-level adder. Elites and Solo Monsters break this rule in a major way, of course.

I just can't help but agree that this conversation is premature Hit Point inflation has been observed in major encounters, but standard encounters show opposite movement, with lower hit points from soldiers and the addition of the ultra-weak minions. Moreover, there's absolutely NO proof that damage has been nerfed- just the opposite has been observed.

Wait for more information, please.

 

[cdrcjsn]

I seem to remember reading on the front page news here that Jason Buhlman (sp) had a 40 round fight during his play test against the black dragon.

FORTY FREAKING ROUNDS.

Color me a skeptic on this one. It might have felt like 40 rounds, but I doubt it was actually 40 rounds (unless he actually kept physical count of rounds).

The dragon inflicts about half of any PC's hitpoints on an average attack. Everyone has a healing surge and the cleric has two ranged healing per encounter. So on average, it will probably take about 2-3 rounds to mow down any single PC after the party blows its healing capabilities (meaning that the first guy will probably fall in 5-6 rounds). Keep in mind that it's doing damage to more than one target per round due to its breath weapon and free OA when someone misses it.

Unless the party spent 20+ rounds hiding from the dragon, I doubt the fight actually took 40 rounds.

I've had several encounters in 3e that felt like 40 rounds myself, but when I actually look at the actions my character took, it was closer to 10 rounds even though the fight took an hour and a half of real time.

 

[helium3]

4E combat will (theoretically) be faster because players have much less options in combat that 3E. What slowed down combat in 3E was not iterative attacks or 1-2-1 diagonals, but players who had no clue what to do (typically the wizard who started to look at his spell list only after his turn already started).
If players planned what to do while others were still taking their turns 3E combat would be quite fast, but as most players don't do this and its not a good business strategy to exclude those people (or tell them not to shut down their brains when it is not their turn) WotC simply reduced the number of combat options in 4E.
Two at will powers, two encounter powers and a daily power (I think). That is all you can do in combat and it takes much less time to decide what to do with that few options.

I noticed that combat sped up noticeably when I put on my "stern DM" hat and started enforcing a faster decision making pace. If 4E allows decisions to be made more quickly I should be able to make combat even snappier.

 

[Stalker0]

Combat speed also has a lot to do with player's enthusiasm and attention span.

For example, let's say you finish your combat move, and now you have a 10 minute wait before you next move in combat (that's a pretty normal time for my group). Because of the long wait, you get involved with conversation with other players, screw around, etc etc. Your mind wanders from the game, and your slower to respond to your next move.

Now if your next move is only 2 minutes away, your likely to stay in the game and think about your next move, because there's no time to waste. Further, because immediate actions are more common now, your going to want to look for those opportunities to use them. Players that stay in the game make moves faster, which speeds up the combat round, which makes players want to stay in the game more. Its a lovely vicious cycle that works both ways....but hopefully 4e will push it towards the positive end.

 

[CinnamonPixie]

Combats might take more rounds, but what really takes a round taking so long are the kind of activities that happen within a single round.
I think the major time consumers are these (system-based. I am not taking into account players that can't decide what to do before it's their turn and then need to read through their spell list):
- 2-5 attacks per round from each fighter. Plus possible extra rolls from critical hits, or lots of sneak attack dice rolling.
- Spellcaster forcing saving throws from multiple targets, and adjudicating the spell effects.
- Recalculating modifiers due to buffs/debuffs.
- Optimizing movement to avoid AoOs and get to the location you want.

If 4E can cut down these 4 aspects, this would significantly reduce the time to resolve a characters turn, and thus also reduce the time needed to resolve a combat round.


In theory, I like a game system to support ambush and knock-outs of foes in a single strike. In practice, this means the game system behaves "erratic" and too much in favor of those winning initiative. (I know, that's the point of ambushed. But if that happens in every fight, it sucks. Unless you really don't like combats and want to get over it quickly.)


If there is such a class, you're definitely correct. But wouldn't this be - some way or another - a "Save or Die" effect, and thus not be a likely part of 4E, according to what the designers tell us?

The down side is they've gone completely power-mad about this. Let's face it after that ONE REALLY powerful spell the wizards gets daily, it'll be "magic missile, magic missile, magic missile, magic missile, magic missile, magic missile, magic missile, magic missile, " until the sun comes up or the cows come home.... *yawn* Talk about boring. "Let's make the game more fun by getting rid of 'boring repetitive action'" they said... And what do they do, replace it with practically thoughtless pair of die rolls (pair is assuming you hit and need to roll damage) and do it over and over and over... Heck, they way these new characters that've leaked from DDXP look you can literally be playing your Playstation or X-Box and turn around to roll your to-hit and damage since that's the ONE OR TWO things you'll do every single round.

As a Wizard in 3.5 I have a TON of options, and I have considerations to be mindful of - like not over doing it too early (just like you see characters in all the truly great stories and movies being cautious and mindful of). But lets face it, what did WotC want? An MMORPG on the table top to sell minis and to strip all things "thinking" out of the game to make it "fun with 'fun powers' and 'more fun abilities'" and to level the playing field in attack/def/save bonuses. Personally I think it's rather silly to have a 10th Level wizard and fighter with the same +5 base attack... that's one bad hand-to-hand wizard or is it one tutu-wearing princess of a fighter?!

Give me a break.... Everything they've put out so far is so heavily propagandized to hype it up as the best thing ever when if you look at what it is compared to what we've got (and look at their stupid inane comments like the comment about the riddle in that one upcoming module "Yes, there is a riddle puzzle in the module. This is exciting and a lot of fun and shows the strength of 4th edition because the previous edition didn't have this sort of thing." (paraphrased). The guys at WotC are morons! You can ALWAYS put in a good riddle or puzzle, "attacks of opportunity are confusing"... NO THEY'RE NOT! Any moron gets that idea that an enemy swinging a weapon at your allies sees you try and slip past him is liable to take a pot-shot at you if he can - it's called a melee for a REASON! And they DO have AOO's in the new system (looking at the character sheets, again) but I don't know how they work. Guess I'll have to go look at the D&D Minis rules to get the gist of it - since the movement, "shift", "Pull", "push", and distance et al. being "squares" is a transparent blatant knock-offs of the minis game(s).

 

[Ulthwithian]

So vociferous, Pixie... can you please show me the 10th-level wizard that has only a few encounter/daily powers?

IOW, you are judging the Wizard by what you see at 1st-level. What _I_ see is that the Wizard in 4E has more options than a 1st-level wizard in 3.X. I also see that we have little to no hard information on how it progresses from there.

 

[Cactot]

I can understand pixies point of view, being a druid lover, I KNOW they are going to get "nerfed" into oblivion. They were the do-it-all class, and 4e really seems like they will probably get rid of that possibility. (I also LOVED shadowcraft mages, yet another do-it-all build that will likely be an impossibility)

That being said, I think pixie is seriously jumping to conclusions and the "anti-wizard" changes (which we have no hard evidence about, all we have seen so far actually puts the wizard at a much higher effectiveness level at first level compared to 3e). Also I will say that I will accept these "negative" changes to my favorite classes and be happy about them because of the overall positive impact on the game as a whole. I would rather the WHOLE party had a good time than have a series of uber-abilities that will allow me to control most situations with little to no outside help. I am a neurotic power-gamer, and I freely admit this, yet this edition looks like finally i will be able to have my cake and eat it too. Before I would power-game and end up playing my character at half-throttle to ensure the other players enjoyed the game also, now I will be able to power-game to my hearts content and still (hopefully) only be 25-50% more powerful than the rest of the team (instead of 200-500%) and not worry about having to down-play myself in order to make sure everybody has fun. (especially with how easy it seems for the DM to change power levels of the encounter up and down without making it a cakewalk or insta-gib TPK)

 

[Plane Sailing]

The guys at WotC are morons!

Now the thing is, some of the guys at WotC are members of the community here. And as you'll probably recall when you joined up, we don't like people calling other community members names.

As a result, you've lost the right to post in this thread. I can understand that you have strong feelings, but read stuff through before you post it to make sure you don't throw insults around.

If there is any problem with this, do feel free to email me.

 

[JesterOC]

Also, combat is streamlined to take less time per round. Everyone will be doing their actions quicker (Presumably), though now HP and damage scales differently so everyone has more time to act in a given combat.

That is similar to what I am thinking. Faster does not mean the combat will end quicker, faster means that you don't have to wait as long for your turn to come up again. Thus the game plays faster but takes about the same amount of time.