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

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Which applies to monsters as well - the 4E Pit Fiend has significantly more HP than the 3E one, and is an "Elite" monster, apparently meant to be faced in pairs, with additionally the capability to summon backup. Overall, the opposition is fielding considerably more HP than before.

This leads me to believe that battles will, if anything, take rather longer. Sure, each round may be faster, more time may pass "in-game", but you're still looking at long, drawn out battles in real-time.

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.

Is that really an improvement? Not so much, IMO - it may lend itself more to drawn-out swashbuckling, but it makes ambushes and assassinations somewhat nonsensical. And at the end of the day, it still takes -ing hours to run a fight.

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.)

Bonus Feature:
My new guess for "Who will be the ___Zilla of 4E?" is "any class that can win/resolve a fight without having to ablate through HP."

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?

 

[Sir Sebastian Hardin]

I think less real-world time is good, and longer in-game time is good too! For example, one of my favorite encounters in the LotR movies was the one with the Cave Troll back in Moria. It was somewhat long, and many, many things happend (many more if you count the earlier goblin-chopping) but it was FUN beacuse everything happend really fast, it really FELT fast.

The problem with 3e is that encounters lasted really long in real world time, but in-game, you had 3 or 4 rounds, and soemtimes, when I was picturing all in my head, it was like 4 guys throwing all their power against a cornernered (slow) bad guy.

In 4e, we will have encounters that may be even longer in-game, but the flow of actions will make everything faster, heroic and (for the ones who like this - like myself) cinematic. Who wants to see a Big Bad Pit Fiend Villain go down easily (quickly) anyway?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Maybe WotC wants 4e combats to last ~5 rounds, but it looks more like 8 (from the extremely limited information we're getting). Not that this is a bad thing. I find 5 round combats to be too short.

The time spent per round seems a lot faster. That's what I'm looking for.

 

[shilsen]

Maybe WotC wants 4e combats to last ~5 rounds, but it looks more like 8 (from the extremely limited information we're getting). Not that this is a bad thing. I find 5 round combats to be too short.

The time spent per round seems a lot faster. That's what I'm looking for.

That's basically my take on things. I have no problem with a really exciting combat lasting an hour or more of real-time. But I'd like that to cover 5-10 rounds of game time, rather than being about 3-5 rounds, which is what it seems to be at higher levels (13+) in 3.5e for my group.

 

[Henry]

So - lower damage + higher HP = larger # of attacks to kill something. Now it doesn't matter how streamlined they made the rounds - you can't make rolling a single attack much faster.

Actually, it can be sped up quite a bit, as I found out in our High-level 3e games. A wizard casting a high-damage spell has to roll anywhere from 20 to 40 DICE for damage; we wound up using computers to do it. The Fighters rolling SEVEN attacks per round (the ones playing two-weapon fighting tempest types) were taking longer and longer, and unless computers were used (a "videogamey" argument to be sure ) then it took ten minutes just to track one person's turn. The DMs were the worst, having to deal with dozens of wizards, monsters will several devastating melee attacks, etc. In low-level D&D, it's quick enough, but the higher it gets, the thing that slows it down is number of dice. Rolling and tabulating dice takes much longer than having multiple turns.

Now, the second complaint Mike Mearls has spoken of is people complaining that fights were done in 2 combat rounds; it's a funny dichotomy that people want QUICKER combats, but MORE rounds. But if they can hit it, like they are claiming in the blogs, then it's a good thing in my opinion. I do look back with fondness in AD&D over combats that did actually last as long as they would in a book or movie -- a good minute to ten minutes of game time, but which didn't drag at the table. I think, ultimately, what's missing from 3e at higher levels is MORE actions from players over the same time span we pick.

Which is better in your opinion (not just you, but others in the thread): A combat that takes 30 minutes real time, but where everyone has only one turn, or a combat that takes 30 minutes real time, but everyone had at least five or six turns? I myself posit the latter than the former.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Maybe WotC wants 4e combats to last ~5 rounds, but it looks more like 8 (from the extremely limited information we're getting). Not that this is a bad thing. I find 5 round combats to be too short.

The time spent per round seems a lot faster. That's what I'm looking for.

I think that's right. Giving players a standard list of "what I can do each round" will probably help them to pre-select their actions, which will speed up combat. Even if they have more options than 3.x's "I attack again," I think it will help to keep players in the right frame of mind and accelerate play.

 

[shilsen]

Now, the second complaint Mike Mearls has spoken of is people complaining that fights were done in 2 combat rounds; it's a funny dichotomy that people want QUICKER combats, but MORE rounds.

I don't think it's really a dichotomy. After all, you've nailed the reason for wanting both of those things here:

I think, ultimately, what's missing from 3e at higher levels is MORE actions from players over the same time span we pick.

Right. Which is why people want more rounds. As you go up in levels, your character, whether a spellcaster or not (especially in 4e, thanks to the system of powers), has a lot more options in combat, and it would presumably be more enjoyable for a player to get to use a lot of those options in a fight.

Which is better in your opinion (not just you, but others in the thread): A combat that takes 30 minutes real time, but where everyone has only one turn, or a combat that takes 30 minutes real time, but everyone had at least five or six turns? I myself posit the latter than the former.

As noted above, absolutely the latter.

 

[Sir Brennen]

A little thought experiment.

Just looking at the Crimson Edge power, I'm seeing a lot of damage potential there.

Assumptions:
• a 25th lvl "brute" rogue with 20 Dex and 20 Str (which I think will be conservative, since it's suspected ability increases will happen more often than 3E)
• short sword does 1d6 damage
• short sword is +3 (again, conservative)
• rogue has combat advantage on his turn

So, a hit with Crimson Edge will do 2d6+3 for short sword, +5 for dex, +5d6 sneak attack, for an average of 32.5 points of damage. The target then begins taking 10 points of automatic damage per round until he saves, and until he does, he's susceptible to at-will Deft Strike Sneak Attacks from the rogue for another 6d6+8 (average 29) points of damage per round.

Even against the 350 hp pit fiend, that's over 70 points of damage over the course of two rounds, possibly much more if there are crits and/or high damage rolls. And that's just the rogue. That's not counting the ranger plinking away or the mage throwing lightning bolts at the target. Nor does it take into account any other, likely more powerful, abilities the rogue might have at this epic level. Or likely additional damage properties of magic weapons.

Given all this, I can see why part of the combat design strategy is to have more opponents per PC.

 

[Betote]

I think the most desirable situation is combats that last more rounds, but less real-life game time. That'd be, a 8-10 rounds combat that could be resolved in about 30-45 minutes.

 

[psionotic]

If Bo9S can be used as any kind of a template, the big damage will come from specific powers. Sneak Attack is, as has been suggested, a 'freebie' for when you can't hit with the big abilities.

A lot of people have problems with per encounter powers, but I think they work really nicely in this context. If, at say at 7th level, you get an ability per encounter that lets a standard action attack do an extra +8d6 damage (like Divine Surge from Bo9S). This allows your strikers to do some nice burst damage and potential killing blows without having to worry about the steakiness of 3.x sneak attack (which was all or nothing, too much damage or too little against any given opponent).

Conceptually, I see these types of powers like I see Sneak Attack, they require the right circumstances to set them up, and can only be used when the perfect situation or opening presents itself.. (its the same reason that The Karate Kid can only pull off his crane kick once per fight, or why Legolas so rarely uses his silly double arrow eye gouge).