D&D 4E New to 4e, not sure I like it.

[xenophone]

First off, Hi Enworld!

I played some RPG's growing up (back in the day), but haven't touched them in years. I recently got a bug for some roleplaying, and I picked up some 4ed books and have played some Encounters and LFR adventures.

I have to say that I haven't had as much fun as I thought I would. It seems like the bulk of the time I've spent in these adventures is devoted to combat encounters. Not because there are a lot of encounters in these adventures, but because it tends to take a solid hour to wrap up an encounter. This is at level 1. That strikes me as an insanely long time for a single run-of-the-mill fight. It just doesn't leave much time for roleplaying and skill challenges and such.

Additionally, I don't care for the transition from non-combat to combat. It's jarring, and I lose my sense of immersion in the process. When I think back on a given adventure in my minds eye, I may have some picture painted in my head of a cool skill challenge where we chased a criminal through the crowded streets of Waterdeep (cool!), but when I remember the fights, all I see is miniatures on a battlemap (lame!)

Don't get me wrong, I like tactics and strategy, but if I have to choose between rich tactical encounters and immersive encounters, I'm going with the latter. I can get a deep strategic/tactical experience by playing PC games.

Here is my question. Does Pathfinder solve any of these issues? I know that people frequently use the battle map with Pathfinder, but I've heard that it's not required, and if you don't use it, it can really speed combat up.

I know that there are games out there that move much quicker than either PF or 4e, but I don't have a lot of friends that play, so I'd like to stick with something popular, to facilitate finding a group.

 

[Rechan]

My question is, why are you asking about PF in the 4e forum? You're less likely to have people who played both. Ask how PF plays in the PF forum. Ask how long their combats are and how often minis/grids are used.

I haven't played PF. But I know that PF is just a tweaked 3.5.

In 3.5, fights took about as long as they do in 4e, but that the fights themselves were simply fewer rounds. Between players deciding what they were doing, looking up spells/spell resolution, resolving multiple attacks, referencing monster abilities/spells, dealing with grapples, etc - that fights lasted about as long.

Furthermore, while a map is not required, as I understand it most groups do use grids and minis.

 

[Rune]

First of all, welcome to ENWorld!

Second, This is a better forum for asking how to make 4e do what you want it to, than asking about Pathfinder. There is a Pathfinder forum full of folk who would love to answer such questions.

That said, 4e is a lot more flexible than a lot of people give it credit for (Fourthcore proves that!).

Personally, I usually don't even use minis or a grid for 4e combats (just remember that 1 square=5 feet, and things should work out). I achieve this by running simpler combats (usually skirmishes, often with minions) and only breaking out the big combats when combat is really important. I also provide for other means of advancement (through the adventure and through the levels). Also, I highly recommend that you wrap things up at the point that a combat becomes a foregone conclusion.

As for skill challenges, you may find it helpful to keep the basic framework in your mind/notes as a guide, but, generally, just go with whatever the players come up with. Especially don't limit skill challenges to a series of skill checks.

Finally, the lessons in this thread are not edition-specific, but you may well find some ideas in here that will help you make 4e run the way you want it to.

 

[xenophone]

I'll ask in the PF forum. Thanks for your responses.

 

[Truename]

It tends to take a solid hour to wrap up an encounter. This is at level 1. That strikes me as an insanely long time for a single run-of-the-mill fight. It just doesn't leave much time for roleplaying and skill challenges and such.

Combat length is one of the flaws of 4e. The 4e combat system is great for cinematic set-pieces, but not so good for wandering monsters and other speed bumps.

Also, Encounters and LFR aren't the best showcases for 4e. I haven't played LFR, but Encounters is limited by its new and constantly rotating player groups, so it's short on plot and long on combat.

The good news is that combat length stays pretty much constant regardless of what level you are. My group is 13th level and it takes us about an hour for a fight as well.

Here's what you can do to reduce combat length in your own games:

* Use monsters of the PCs level or slightly lower. Lower level means the PCs miss less, but they still provide a sense of threat.

* Use combat encounters of the PCs level or slightly lower. They're faster but still exciting. 4e combat is beautifully balanced to make the PCs worried even when there's no real danger.

* Don't use Soldier-category monsters. Use brutes, skirmishers, lurkers, and so forth. Soldiers have higher AC and lower damage, which stretches out combat.

* Use monsters with the new math. They're re-balanced to do more damage and die faster. "New Math" monsters are in published in books starting with Monster Manual 3, which includes Dark Sun, the Monster Vault products, Neverwinter Campaign Setting, Dragon #388 and later, and Dungeon #179 and later.

* Have the monsters surrender or run away once the tide of the battle has turned. You can either do it by DM fiat, or by rolling morale checks (10 or higher = success, modified according to the situation) if you prefer a little randomness.

* And, of course, it's good for the players to know their characters, be prepared for their turn, roll damage and attack dice at the same time, and so forth. They should focus fire as well.

Finally, if you just want "wandering monster" style encounters to add flavor to a location, consider using minions rather than standard monsters, and don't use the battle grid. For more meaty wandering encounters, use just one or two standard monsters. To make this more threatening, you can deny short rests (due to wandering monsters or some other time pressure).

Additionally, I don't care for the transition from non-combat to combat. It's jarring, and I lose my sense of immersion in the process. When I think back on a given adventure in my minds eye, I may have some picture painted in my head of a cool skill challenge where we chased a criminal through the crowded streets of Waterdeep (cool!), but when I remember the fights, all I see is miniatures on a battlemap (lame!)

A lot of that has to do with the DM, but I agree that sometimes the grid gets in the way. You can play 4e combat without the grid if your group is willing to accept DM fiat on distances and so forth. I haven't tried it myself, but there was a thread recently about a group that was grid-free and used simultaneous initiative. It sounded like a neat system, and it was said to be faster.

Don't get me wrong, I like tactics and strategy, but if I have to choose between rich tactical encounters and immersive encounters, I'm going with the latter. I can get a deep strategic/tactical experience by playing PC games.

You don't have to choose. Use gridless/very easy encounters for immersion and run-of-the-mill encounters, and break out the grid for the big set-piece battles. 4e does tactical combat very well and it's the most fun I've ever had with D&D combat (and I've played since 1e). You don't have to choose one or the other.

I know that there are games out there that move much quicker than either PF or 4e, but I don't have a lot of friends that play, so I'd like to stick with something popular, to facilitate finding a group.

Wizards seems to be aware that combat length is a problem. You might want to get in on the 5e playtest.

 

[S'mon]

4e combat is always about an hour or so for a standard encounter.

3e/Pathfinder combat starts off a lot quicker, but if you get to very high levels (maybe 11+ or 13+) it actually runs slower than 4e.

 

[Rechan]

Are you Dming or playing?

Also it varies by character complexity. A PHB2 Barbarian vs. an Essentials Slayer. One is, well, much faster.

 

[xenophone]

Those are some great suggestions Truename! I really appreciate it.

I've just been a player so far, but I'm going to try my hand at DMing with some noob friends. I'll probably try some of Truename's tips at speeding things up.

Most people in the PF forum say it's quite a bit faster than 4e, so I think I'll attend one of the Pathfinder Society events at the local shop.

 

[The Human Target]

Encounters and other live events are not really a good gauge of certain aspects of any game.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Most people in the PF forum say it's quite a bit faster than 4e, so I think I'll attend one of the Pathfinder Society events at the local shop.

Of course they do. A lot of PF fans have a hate on for 4e and WotC in general. They want to "win over" as many folks to The One True Way as possible, to prove their system of choice is "better."

They aren't all like this, but a lot of them are.

Encounters and other live events are not really a good gauge of certain aspects of any game.

I'm quoting this because it's true.

Encounters and other organized play options are generally going to be more about the combats, etc. The best way to gauge a system is to play at home with your group and see how everyone feels about it, weigh the pros and cons, and then decide as a group what works best for your playstyle and time commitments. Time is a big sticking point - the combats tend to take an hour to resolve, but 4e is very easy to DM, certainly hands down much easier than PF/3.x, and having played in and run both systems, I'd be suspicious of anyone that tells you different.

 

[Rechan]

If you're financially capable, run them both and compare.

Anyways, there are multiple threads about speeding up combat. A famous tutorial here on the boards is Stalker0''s guide to Anti-Grind, and another is a recent thread about halving hit points.

Although I don't know if Stalker0's guide has been updated to address the New Math, and his advice boils down to the advice [MENTION=78255]Truename[/MENTION] handed out.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Encounters is lowest common denominator 4e and is all about the combats. It's a good way of learning the rules, but a seriously lousy showcase for what can be done with 4e. I'd seriously suggest a homegame - and keep the number of combats down.

 

[Dragonblade]

Most people in the PF forum say it's quite a bit faster than 4e, so I think I'll attend one of the Pathfinder Society events at the local shop.

I call total BS on that. If your players and DM know what they are doing, and are ready to go on their turn, I find that 4e combat is about 50% to 2x faster than PF combat and will go through nearly twice as many rounds in that time, meaning every player gets to go more often.

I play 4e and Pathfinder. In our last PF 4 hours session we had two fights, each one taking up about 60-70 minutes. We have 5 players, all are veterans who know PF well.

In our last 4e four hour session, we had those same 5 players and got through 5 fights, each one taking about 30-35 minutes. We are all veteran 4e players as well.

Both battles were with a party of level 6 PCs vs an appropriate number of foes which makes direct comparison easy.

Here is the rub, though. Because of 4e's combat design, it lends itself naturally to combat. Part of this is because outside of rituals, no powers last more than 5 minutes. In PF, casters have a wide variety of spells and spell durations. PF comes with a lot of other undesirable rules baggage that I won't get into here, but this feeling of openness is one area where it does shine.

I compensated for part of this feel in 4e by house ruling that you can recover an encounter power by expending a standard action on your turn. What this does is make encounter powers that take only a move or a minor action effectively unlimited (by forgoing your standard action every round). Especially when used out of combat where giving up a standard action (which is usually an attack) for a round doesn't hurt so much.

I have yet to find an encounter power that I feel is broken when allowed to refresh this way and it lets my players feel like they can freely use more of their cool utility powers outside of combat.

 

[McTreble]

For what it's worth:

My group and I are taking a slight detour on the way to D&D Next and going back to 2e. (I'm still running a different 4e game) and if I remember correctly, combat in that version was about 20% of 4e's length. According to your wishes, this immersive, but highly abstracted combat might be what you're looking for, at the cost of coolness and tactics. If you're cool with it, give it a shot.

 

[xenophone]

I call total BS on that. If your players and DM know what they are doing, and are ready to go on their turn, I find that 4e combat is about 50% to 2x faster than PF combat and will go through nearly twice as many rounds in that time, meaning every player gets to go more often.

Well, the consensus seems to be that PF is faster.

I played through a 5 hour session of Pathfinder Society the other night. We had at least six combat encounters. I would say they ranged in length from 15 minutes to 30 minutes.

It seems as though you can get 4e faster, but not without house ruling the hell out of it, and making major changes to the monsters.

 

[Dragonblade]

Well, the consensus seems to be that PF is faster.

I played through a 5 hour session of Pathfinder Society the other night. We had at least six combat encounters. I would say they ranged in length from 15 minutes to 30 minutes.

It seems as though you can get 4e faster, but not without house ruling the hell out of it, and making major changes to the monsters.

Every table is different and every experience is different. I have consistently found PF slower than a comparable encounter run in 4e.

That isn't always true depending on the party mix and levels, but I have found that it generally holds true for about levels 3-10. From level 1-3 PF tends to be faster since you generally have fewer options to choose from than a comparable 4e PC. And beyond level 10, too many variables start to enter the picture, though PF tends to be slower for us. Are there more spellcasters? Did half the party fail a save and thus cannot act, are there multiple summoned creatures who all need to take their own turn, that sort of thing.

I'm curious what your party mix is, what level you are playing at, and what opponents the DM was throwing at you? Did you use minis? Was there any fudging, like the DM making ad hoc rulings to avoid the time it takes to look something up in a rulebook etc.? Computer aids used to look up rules, or to track buffs, debuffs, initiative count and so on?

 

[xenophone]

All of the games I've played in both 4e and Pathfinder were organized play/Encounters. I haven't been aware of any fudging, and it seems unlikely considering that we were mostly playing LFR/Encounters and PF Society.

In 4e, I've played with three different DMs. Most of the groups had a fairly balanced class mix, and I don't think I've seen a combat encounter go less than 45 minutes.

I've only played the one PF session. We had four players. Two fighters, a cleric, and a rogue.

We've used minis in every case, and none of the characters in any game have been above 2nd level.

I have heard that the speed of combat for 4e vs. PF can change as you get into higher levels. Specifically, 4e seems to stay about the same (lengthwise), while PF slows down as you level, but I can't speak to that personally.

 

[D'karr]

Encounter lengths at 1-3 level in 4e might be longer, and D&D Encounters are designed to have challenging encounters and are always at those levels so it's not a very good measure. You're having one encounter in the 1.5 hours set for D&D Encounters. That is the showcase.

PF Society scenarios are designed for a longer period of time (4-5 hours). They have variation in encounter lengths based on the adventure.

Comparisons between the two are not representative.