My 3 quibbles with 4e

[ProfessorPain]

If you can't kill the party with monsters then IMO you're not trying. If your players aren't scared by things that can kill them then there's not much you can do about that. Maybe they don't care about their characters. If you were able to easily solve the problem by increasing CR then you can do the equivalent thing in 4E. If your 1st level PCs can kill Orcus then I think there's a serious problem. Short of that, I'm not sure where this "so many second chances" thing is really relevant. Give the 1st level PCs lots of second chances against Orcus and see how it goes.

I agree; this is a problem found in every edition (and every game ever made), and it really boils down to the GM understanding how his players operate in combat; and leveling an appropriate challenge at them. The books always have some quasi-mathmatical way to gauge this; but it really takes a GMs gut instincts and understanding of the game system to make combat achieve the pace and level of intensity desired. A well coordinated group of players handles threats differently from a group that uses looser tactics.

 

[gtoasnt3]

1. Each character has their own personal chit to keep track of effects. I keep track of monster HP's and write small single letters next to a monster with an effect. If it requires a save to end, an "s" as well. If it is going to end at the end of a PC turn, I write the PC's name next to the effect letter. Pretty quick and easy, and we have played with 6 PC's before.

2. We've had a TPK already. My guys worry about using dailies until they really need them. We haven't breezed through anything yet.

3. If the fight looks hopeless for the monsters, I stop the fight after they are all bloodied and have them surrender or flee. Why bore everyone with the inevitable?

 

[gribble]

This is all based on my experience playing and running 4e, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt.

1) Running 4e is very different from running earlier versions of D&D. Because, as you say, attacks are no longer just swing for damage, there are a lot of fiddly little modifiers, riders and conditions imposed that need to be tracked. There are lots of methods for doing this, from notes on a piece of paper, to cards, to tokens. The point is that regardless of what system(s) you use to track this information, it has to be done in 4e. I've found you can't get along just winging it with a single piece of paper (as a player or DM) like you could in earlier editions.

I think points 2) & 3) are related - two sides of the same coin. With 4e moving away from swinginess to a more balanced and predictable style of combat, I've found that combat in 4e tends to be inevitable. If the combat is too easy, it quickly becomes inevitable that the PCs will win, at which point the players don't feel challenged and the combat becomes about grinding through the enemy HP and trying to minimise your HP/resource expenditure. If the combat is too hard, it inevitably becomes a player deathfest and/or TPK. In either situation, there is little the players can to to change things, because there is no longer the possibility of a miracle turn which swings the combat back one way or the other.

The problem is the above combined with the fact that determining whether an encounter in 4e is "too easy" or "too hard" isn't as easy as the DMG makes out. Encounter design in 4e is very much an art. Despite everyone's praise for the system, you can't just take the numbers the DMG gives you and expect them to work. A DM also has to take into account the optimisation of their party (in terms of individual characters and the party composition/tactics as a whole). As ProfPain points out - this has been true for every version of D&D.

So yeah - my advice? Take the advice given by others like Mearls and Lancelot and combine that with knowledge about your player's characters and try to create more tailored encounters. It isn't anywhere near as easy as the DMG makes it out to be, but if you manage to do it, it makes for a much better 4e experience.

If that fails for you, try introducing more swinginess into your games via houserules - that should make things more dangerous and less grindy - though be aware of the negative consequences... E.g.: crits do double instead of max damage, rolling a natural 1 on the save makes a condition last until the end of the encounter, etc (note that I haven't personally playtested these options, so they may be horribly broken).

 

[Ktulu]

It may have been mentioned above, but I'll chime in on what we do for these 3 issues:

1.) I got every player to chip in and get every color of Alea Tools - Home of Stackable Magnetic Markers markers. We color-coded as many effects as possible (white is weakened, light blue cold damage, black blind, red bloodied, etc..). This really, really helps track conditions. Since they're magnetic, they dont' get knocked around. They even upgraded the magnets so the sticky issue is all but gone.

As for everyone having awesome powers... I like it. It really shows when the heroes fight some guards. The heroes are heroic now, and everyone has an air of fantastic about them.

2.) A standard fight with standard monsters is just about cake, which should be so. In other editions, standard fights meant using up 25% resources or similar ideas. The big-bad fights are the ones that should be dangerous. Remember, a standard creature can be up to around 5 levels higher than the group and still have some minions/lower level guys to make the fight deadly.

Watch healing. If the party only fights 1 fight per day, they'll almost always win. Push them. Give them reason to push (greater glory, princess is hurt, time running out, competing with other adventurers...) and you'll see that the fights get deadlier and deadlier. By the 3-4th combat in a day, the characters will likely be out of surges, low or out of daily powers, used up magic items, and at least 1/2 the party is bloodied out of combat. That's when it gets deadly...

Don't forget, terrain can be a real pain, too. Height, difficult terrain, aura effects. All of this can really change a fight.

3.) Grind. Yes, it can and does hamper some combats. However, I've found some great ways around it. One, not everything fights to the death. If a creature is getting beat and all its allies are gone, why wouldn't it try to escape? The party still wins, and they have the added bonus of now having a future enemy to deal with/hunt down. Also, creatures can choose to surrender. Not everything wants to continue being beaten to a pulp. Some things may try to bribe themselves out of a situation or agree to be turned in. I mean, if you're only going to jail for stealing/mugging, that's obviously more preferred to dying (for some...)

Don't use solos and elites very often. They should be the exception, and used very sparingly...at least until the party has more than one daily power. Even then, they exist to be the liutenants and Commanders, not the henchmen.

Minions, minions, minions - Even an encounter made up of nearly all minions can be fun. 15 minions and a controller 2-3 levels higher than the party can be a lot of fun. The party will have a hard time clearing out the minions fast enough (if they don't have a controller of their own), and won't be able to get to the controller right away (allowing him to do his controller-y stuff). What's really cool is, when not over done, it provides a challenging yet, ultimately quick combat encounter.


That's my 3cp worth (One for each quibble)

 

[Miyaa]

I'm surprised no one has yet considered a simple electronic spreadsheet that with a suitable laptop computer you could keep track of things relatively easy. I'd still use markers for clarity. While I do agree the PCs should have the responsibility to keep track of their own marks, it should be up to the DM to make sure the results are official, which is why I think a simple spreadsheet would suffice. A print out could be easily done and used if putting a computer on the table isn't feasible.

As for the un-uniqueness of the powers, just a thought: maybe some of the powers just shouldn't be in the player's repertoire? I noticed that in PHB2, there are unique rituals that only bards have. Why not there be something similar for the powers? If there are similar powers for various same power classes, it might be good to pick a type of power that a certain class is only good at and let them have that ability.

 

[D'karr]

I'm surprised no one has yet considered a simple electronic spreadsheet that with a suitable laptop computer you could keep track of things relatively easy. I'd still use markers for clarity. While I do agree the PCs should have the responsibility to keep track of their own marks, it should be up to the DM to make sure the results are official, which is why I think a simple spreadsheet would suffice. A print out could be easily done and used if putting a computer on the table isn't feasible.

As for the un-uniqueness of the powers, just a thought: maybe some of the powers just shouldn't be in the player's repertoire? I noticed that in PHB2, there are unique rituals that only bards have. Why not there be something similar for the powers? If there are similar powers for various same power classes, it might be good to pick a type of power that a certain class is only good at and let them have that ability.

The initiative tracker that comes with MapTool already does something like this. You take the token representing the character or monster and assign a condition to it. This changes the token so that it is easy to identify what condition it has. Since this tracks initiative, you know at the beginning of each character, or monster turn whether something needs to happen.

 

[Ariosto]

Yeah, I can see a lot of potential for folks whose comfort level and practical circumstances make bringing a laptop to the table a viable possibility.

In historical wargaming mode, I can appreciate the Berthier software better in theory than in practice (assuming I'm the GM).

 

[Cadfan]

My system is simple.

I have a sheet. It has the name of each monster. I count damage on this sheet. If the monster has an effect on it other than marking or quarrying or something of that nature, I write it on the sheet then scratch it out when it ends.

I don't write down marking or quarrying because its not hard to remember. The fighter's marked foes are generally amongst the ones adjacent to him at the start of their turn. Cursed or quarried targets are the problems of the players who cursed or quarried them. You can only have one quarry at a time, so that's not a major issue.

The only beads we use are for the cursed enemies, and we only use those because the warlock's player brought them.

It seems to work. We're at level 10.

My wife likes using a laptop, but I really don't see the need.

 

[Plane Sailing]

One of the things I found most annoying in 3e was the multiple overlapping effect of buffs and debuffs which you had to keep track of during combat, especially high level combat. I was looking forward to that being dealt with.

Unfortunately (from my point of view!) 4e ends up with even more condition tracking, with multiple 'save ends', 'to the end of your next turn', 'to the start of your next turn' stuff flying around

At the moment it basically falls upon me (either as DM or when I play as person with best memory) to remember what conditions are on what people, what saves need to be made by whom and so forth. I'm getting tired!

One of the most interesting ideas I've seen so far is the counters produced by Fiery Dragon (is it in their battlebox?). I might restart my software development of a little combat tracker with one-click association of conditions and such (I started it when 4e was in pre-release, but stopped when I realised that the WotC licensing would prohibit it. I think I'll make a generic framework version that could run with any OGL game and then derive a 4e specific one for my own purposes)

I've got nothing to add on the other issues.

Cheers

 

[Plane Sailing]

The DMG's table is a baseline, while many of the critters in the MM have damaged adjusted for other stuff that the critter delivers with the attack. We have some basic guidelines we use to shift a critter's damage up or down based on accuracy and other effects.

If that is the case, it is a shame that those basic guidelines didn't find their way into the DMG too (although I rather think that the epic creatures in particular suffer rather too much from much lower damage than would be expected in many cases - greatly contributing to grindy combats and a lack of a sense of threat).