D&D 4E Pemertonian Scene-Framing; A Good Approach to D&D 4e

[pemerton]

[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], that makes sense. And my group has similarly had experiences in which they are doing dangerous stuff on few to no surges and one or more PCs bloodied. But probably not as often as yours.

With 5 PCs, including a Dwarven Durability fighter (14 surges) and a paladin (13 surges), and the other three being mostly ranged (7 surge sorcerer, 8 surge archer-ranger and 7 surge invoker), the party has a reasonable capability to modulate how damage is received and responded to. Or at least more depth in that respect than your group!

 

[Manbearcat]

@pemerton to be sure. With a group such as yours (2 defenders with an extreme amount of surges and the no-doubt extreme ability to dictate NPC target acquisition with that group), its likely that the playstyle that I use for my group (with the implied expectation of routinely reaching resource threshold) would be difficult to pull off. Do you think that if you ran roughly 1 Exploration Skill Challenge (with HS ablation)/3 combats (and my understanding is that your default combat level is similar to my own so that isn't a variable here) that it would affect your game marginally, somewhat, or in the extreme?

 

[Storminator]

Yeah, having 7 PCs has probably colored my perceptions of HS rarity. I've been running with 2 defenders and 2 leaders recently.

PS

 

[pemerton]

Do you think that if you ran roughly 1 Exploration Skill Challenge (with HS ablation)/3 combats (and my understanding is that your default combat level is similar to my own so that isn't a variable here) that it would affect your game marginally, somewhat, or in the extreme?

My guess is "somewhat". It would slightly shift the balance of action away from combat and social encounters towards exploration, meaning that the pacing of encounters -epsecially combat encounters - would be a bit more compressed than it currently is.

This is not likely to be something I try out to confirm, because I'm personally not the biggest fan of exploration challenges, and (partly because of that, partly independently) am not especially good at running them. That said, I do use them on occasion, but instead of bare healing surge attrition will often embed it a bit more directly into the fiction (eg not too long ago, the PCs stumbled into an old duergar mushroom farm that had become overrun with poisonous mushrooms, and one of the PCs took some mushroom spore damage), so as to encourage more leveraging of the fiction by the PCs, and to use theme and stakes as more immediate prompts, with the healing surge depletion in the background (as it typically is in combat).

That said, I will add that - despite the parantheses at the end of the last paragraph - I ran a combat last session with some wight minions who could drain healing surges on a hit, and when the paladin took to hits in a row, and hence lost two surges, that putting of surge loss to the foreground did cause the players to sit up and take notice. Which perhaps suggests that, in the right circumstances, surge loss of itself can be more dramatic than I've been giving it credit for in this thread.

 

[Manbearcat]

Beyond all other variables, its assured that the average change in the diminished value of a single Healing Surge per additional unit (PC) added is an upward trend that tapers off probably somewhere around 8 (when you have 2 controllers, 2 defenders, 2 leaders, 2 strikers). Cut @Storminator group down from 7 to 5 and they would feel it. Cut the Paladin out of your group and you would feel it. This is for a number of reasons including monsterC ratio, the atrophying of the ability to dictate target acquisition to foes, the ability for foes to more easily access combat advantage and its potential riders, the inability to potentially cover all roles and/or synergize. Conversely, as all of those grow further in the PCs favor, the inverse is true (such as in the 8 person group).

Not having a dedicated Defender in a group has a lot of implications, up to and including having to synergize harder to dictate enemy target acquisition. For instance, the Bladesinger is effectively the group's Defender and has zero problems performing that role from the damage soak angle. His AC and Reflex rival defenders and he has an array of activatable powers to exceed classic Defender AC and Reflex for about 80 % of combat. Couple that with Stoneskin and his survivability is extreme. His only problem would be his Fort save but its buffed by 2 separate feats to around Defender levels. He has very good single target control (and damage) but when there are a considerable number of non-minion enemies in the combat, things can get hairy. As such, the Rogue is built to be able to raise his AC dramatically on command (Duelist build) and the Druid has a sub-build to help the Bladesinger have better multi-target "stickiness" (Call of the Beast primarily).

Point being, a smaller group has to diversify their individual repertoires rather than focusing them toward one specific end, diluting their primary function; another disadvantage that steepens the amplitude of diminishing Healing Surge value per additional unit.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Beyond all other variables, its assured that the average change in the diminished value of a single Healing Surge per additional unit (PC) added is an upward trend that tapers off probably somewhere around 8 (when you have 2 controllers, 2 defenders, 2 leaders, 2 strikers). Cut @Storminator group down from 7 to 5 and they would feel it. Cut the Paladin out of your group and you would feel it. This is for a number of reasons including monsterC ratio, the atrophying of the ability to dictate target acquisition to foes, the ability for foes to more easily access combat advantage and its potential riders, the inability to potentially cover all roles and/or synergize. Conversely, as all of those grow further in the PCs favor, the inverse is true (such as in the 8 person group).

Not having a dedicated Defender in a group has a lot of implications, up to and including having to synergize harder to dictate enemy target acquisition. For instance, the Bladesinger is effectively the group's Defender and has zero problems performing that role from the damage soak angle. His AC and Reflex rival defenders and he has an array of activatable powers to exceed classic Defender AC and Reflex for about 80 % of combat. Couple that with Stoneskin and his survivability is extreme. His only problem would be his Fort save but its buffed by 2 separate feats to around Defender levels. He has very good single target control (and damage) but when there are a considerable number of non-minion enemies in the combat, things can get hairy. As such, the Rogue is built to be able to raise his AC dramatically on command (Duelist build) and the Druid has a sub-build to help the Bladesinger have better multi-target "stickiness" (Call of the Beast primarily).

Point being, a smaller group has to diversify their individual repertoires rather than focusing them toward one specific end, diluting their primary function; another disadvantage that steepens the amplitude of diminishing Healing Surge value per additional unit.

IME it becomes less of a difference at high levels. Epic PCs can already do so much that adding another PC to a group of 4 doesn't matter much. Role becomes less tactically important as the defender can dish out huge damage, the striker can debilitate an enemy for a round or two, the controller can put out massive area damage, etc. Straight up fights tend to become pretty silly affairs and the game revolves much more around story elements and DM generated special situational things. HS can remain an interesting pressure point, but I tend to move more towards disease-track sorts of things or just narrative plot pressure when needed. It really needs to take a more existential and strategic form though to really do Epic service.

So, I think Epic PSF is a bit different process. Much of what the DM needs to be thinking about is building up an overall EPIC storyline and narrative. It isn't so easy to recast everything in the super dynamic way you could in a level 1 adventure where you can afford to work out things over the long term. The EPIC characters are working towards their apotheosis, there isn't going to be a big reprise after a certain point. More structure becomes important. Or alternately you can hand narrative control pretty much into the group and worry less about the whole concept of pressure except in a more abstract sense.

 

[Manbearcat]

@AbdulAlhazred I agree WYE. The prevalence of game-changing status effects, and pervasiveness of outright action denial, is and outright...errr game-changer at the epic tier. This happens while length of combat doesn't really change much so control per action deployed and per round moves at a steep trajectory upward. There is a point of diminishing returns there; eg you don't need to weaken or immobilize something that is stunned or dominated...now you can just kick its face in.

 

[D'karr]

@AbdulAlhazred I agree WYE. The prevalence of game-changing status effects, and pervasiveness of outright action denial, is and outright...errr game-changer at the epic tier. This happens while length of combat doesn't really change much so control per action deployed and per round moves at a steep trajectory upward. There is a point of diminishing returns there; eg you don't need to weaken or immobilize something that is stunned or dominated...now you can just kick its face in.

IME the biggest problem with Epic is that the game remains the same, but with bigger numbers. There should have been a paradigm shift with Epic. The 'stories to be told' could be, and should be different. But the game at that point is simply one of escalation. I could have seen Epic as a transitional tier. The first level is escalation, second adds breadth, third adds scope, and from there on it's all story driven. Possibly new mechanical artifacts needed to be created specifically for Epic play (dominions, spheres of influence, etc.)

As it stands it is just heroes with bigger guns.

Epic destinies have so much potential, but they fall flat because what they need is a complete new metagame at that point.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

IME the biggest problem with Epic is that the game remains the same, but with bigger numbers. There should have been a paradigm shift with Epic. The 'stories to be told' could be, and should be different. But the game at that point is simply one of escalation. I could have seen Epic as a transitional tier. The first level is escalation, second adds breadth, third adds scope, and from there on it's all story driven. Possibly new mechanical artifacts needed to be created specifically for Epic play (dominions, spheres of influence, etc.)

As it stands it is just heroes with bigger guns.

Epic destinies have so much potential, but they fall flat because what they need is a complete new metagame at that point.

I can see why people have issues with it. Personally I ran a rather foreshortened Epic, just hitting the high points and maintaining pacing instead of slogging through 10 levels of 6-10 encounters each. I think Epic gives you the needed tools, mechanically, but there isn't really a good discussion of what to DO with it and how to make it different. The incredible stupendous toughness of the PCs can be built on to do interesting things, and it clearly indicates that the focus is no longer on the technicalities of combat, but there's no hand-holding on where to go with that. I'm GOOD with the fact that there are no RULES for what Epic means, 4e to me is all about freedom to do different things, but the lack of the much vaunted epic focused DMG3 definitely shows.

 

[D'karr]

I can see why people have issues with it. Personally I ran a rather foreshortened Epic, just hitting the high points and maintaining pacing instead of slogging through 10 levels of 6-10 encounters each. I think Epic gives you the needed tools, mechanically, but there isn't really a good discussion of what to DO with it and how to make it different. The incredible stupendous toughness of the PCs can be built on to do interesting things, and it clearly indicates that the focus is no longer on the technicalities of combat, but there's no hand-holding on where to go with that. I'm GOOD with the fact that there are no RULES for what Epic means, 4e to me is all about freedom to do different things, but the lack of the much vaunted epic focused DMG3 definitely shows.

I agree. I can understand the "heroes with even bigger guns" paradigm. I don't disagree with it, but I think that Epic needs more. Like you said support in a DMG3 that covered the actual change of scale would have been welcome.

Another thing that I absolutely agree with you is that the standard 10 level tier has the potential to be just the same. I would not have minded an Epic Tier that covered only 3-5 levels.