Please define 'swingy'

[Kraydak]

On the other hand, luck can sometimes render even the best tactical play meaningless in a "swingy" system.

To use your 3e giant example, it's still possible that even if you tumble back to avoid a full attack, the giant will charge, crit for double/triple damage, and kill you anyway. Chance can prevail over the use of sound tactics.

Note that I'm not saying I think a "swingy" system is inferior or any such nonsense. IMO, "swingy" isn't objectively better or worse than "grindy"; it's just different.

In 4e, the difference between good, medium and bad tactics is about 1 resource unit (1 daily, AP or a few HSs over the party). Yes, adequately bad tactics will cost more, but that takes work. Yes, it is possible to adequately balance combats so that good tactics are vital, but it is hard. Good tactics, in general, just aren't that important. You have a brief moment with a tactical advantage, and then you are returned to your regularly scheduled grind.

In 3e, the difference between good and bad tactics is can easily be one of going from "if we are very unlucky, someone will die, it would take epic bad luck for a TPK" to "unless we are very lucky, someone will die, and we have good odds of a TPK". Yes, if the giant charged and critted, someone could die with good tactcs, but the party still had reasonable odds of victory. On the same roll however, with bad tactics he would have Critted, Cleaved, and then continued his iterative attacks into a secondary target, setting up a rapid TPK. In this scenario, good tactics made a loss-less victory probable, and even in the event of bad luck, prevented a brutal TPK.

 

[Garthanos]

Tactics can indeed be another source of situational boosts resulting in swing
which are cool but real easy for them, once they are mechanically hard wired to become readily repeated combos which are just ho hum power creep and not really imaginative at all.

 

[Blackbrrd]

To me swingy combat is something that is out of player control. It is dangerous and something you want to avoid.

For me 4e is an ok compromise - after 2-3 rounds of combat you can see that it isn't going your way and that it's time to try to nova/flee/retreat/surrender. In 3.5 the party would have been 50% dead going for a TPK.

(Regarding 4e balance, it can quickly go from ok to grindy with a low DPR party, I am assuming a Defender+Leader+Controller+Multiple Striker party with optimized but not cheesy characters)

(Some of the nastiest encounters in 4e I have run started out as looking fairly manageable affairs, but turned out to be real bad as they progressed. This typically happened because the players didn't KNOW that it was a bad encounter to begin with and therefore didn't Nova. Going Nova in round 3 is much less valuable than in round 1.)

 

[ExploderWizard]

Swingier combats are generally more dangerous and the uncertainty might be an incentive to use the charge in and fight solution as an option of last resort rather than plan #1.

If combat is a fairly reliable means of overcoming obstacles then it will become a more favored approach. This can be a desirable factor or not depending on the type of game the group wants.

 

[Fanaelialae]

In 4e, the difference between good, medium and bad tactics is about 1 resource unit (1 daily, AP or a few HSs over the party). Yes, adequately bad tactics will cost more, but that takes work. Yes, it is possible to adequately balance combats so that good tactics are vital, but it is hard. Good tactics, in general, just aren't that important. You have a brief moment with a tactical advantage, and then you are returned to your regularly scheduled grind.

In 3e, the difference between good and bad tactics is can easily be one of going from "if we are very unlucky, someone will die, it would take epic bad luck for a TPK" to "unless we are very lucky, someone will die, and we have good odds of a TPK". Yes, if the giant charged and critted, someone could die with good tactcs, but the party still had reasonable odds of victory. On the same roll however, with bad tactics he would have Critted, Cleaved, and then continued his iterative attacks into a secondary target, setting up a rapid TPK. In this scenario, good tactics made a loss-less victory probable, and even in the event of bad luck, prevented a brutal TPK.

Those resources are essentially just "safety nets" to either preemptively swing a combat in your favor, or to swing it back in your favor when you have tactical mishaps or bad luck.

3e had them too though, in the form of spells. A single Web or Entangle spell could easily end a combat before it truly had begun. Spells like Heal (and particularly Mass Heal) could allow you to essentially reset the encounter for your entire party.

The biggest difference that I can see between the two is that 4e grants everyone "safety net" abilities, whereas in 3e not every class really had them (ie., the fighter's only "safety" is having more hp than most classes, which is hardly on the same level as Heal). That said, I think saying that in 4e the only difference between good and bad tactics are a few resources is misleading. Death may be easier to avoid in 4e because it can't normally surprise you, but the risk is still present, particularly if you engage in poor tactics (the fighter's low on hp but I'll just wait a round so I can heal him from negatives since it's more efficient; oops, the enemy rolled well to hit and he passed negative bloodied).

The main difference is the amount of time the players have to decide whether a resource must be expended or not. In 3e you usually need to decide in the first or second round whether or not to bring out the big guns or conserve. Any longer and you may have a TPK on your hands. In 4e, I find the decision must usually be made by the third or fourth round, so you have more of a chance to assess the situation you're in.

Again, IMO neither is better or worse, it really just comes down to a (subjective) style preference.

 

[pawsplay]

And how does that exactly work on the dice rolling aspect? That's the part I'm questioning.

Now the death ward thing that another poster mentioned to cancel the death abilities, that to me isn't 'swingy' combat. That's being prepared for a potentially huge fight and praying that they don't successfully dispel your magic (which I believe Pathfinder put the nerf on.)

Well, it works like this. A spell that kills people is a pretty swingy effect. Death ward is a way of preparing for it. Thus, preparation is very important for such a battle.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I agree that prep is more important in a swingy system than a grindy one.

The swingiest system that I can conceptualize is one with 0 rounds/turns, where the combat is decided before it has even begun (for example, with a coin toss). The grindiest system would involve infinite rounds (for example, combatants heal without limit and damage cannot outpace healing).

If you can use an ability before the combat (such that allows taking the best of two flips), the swingy system rewards you significantly. Obviously, it doesn't matter what you do beforehand in the grindy system because the combat will never end, hence you have no means to influence the outcome.

As a more realistic example, take a more swingy system that averages 3 rounds per combat and a less swingy system that averages 6 rounds. If you have 2 rounds of prep time in the first system, you've effectively received a total of 5 turns in 3 rounds of combat. In the second system, you'll have 8 turns in 6 rounds. 5/3 > 4/3 and, as such, "prep turns" are more heavily valued in the first system than the second, assuming everything else is equal.

This isn't to say that players in less swingy systems cannot benefit from prep. If you lure a dragon into a tiger pit, dealing high expression damage rather than insta-killing it is still certainly valuable. The reward is technically less in the first case, though if you are looking forward to fighting a dragon you might find the insta-kill anti-climactic (and thus overall less rewarding).

IMO, neither 3e nor 4e are extremes on the swingy/grindy scale. 3e is definitely more swingy while 4e is less, but that just means that each appeals to different preferences.

 

[Garthanos]

I agree that prep is more important in a swingy system than a grindy one.

The swingiest system that I can conceptualize is one with 0 rounds/turns, where the combat is decided before it has even begun (for example, with a coin toss). The grindiest system would involve infinite rounds (for example, combatants heal without limit and damage cannot outpace healing). .

What if non-swingy always takes 5 predictable rounds and Swingy takes any where from 5 to 30, because of all defnesive swing.

 

[Fanaelialae]

What if non-swingy always takes 5 predictable rounds and Swingy takes any where from 5 to 30, because of all defnesive swing.

I'd hazard to say that the "Swingy" game is actually being less swingy than the "Non-swingy" game in that case. I'm not certain what you mean by defensive swing though.

If you mean that both opponents prepare all their defensive buffs and whatnot, and that therefore combat drags because neither team can harm the other, I'd say that you're using the elements inherent in the Swingy game to make it less swingy.

One way that prep can help you is by making the system less swingy for your side (casting Death Ward before fighting a necromancer). Another way is try to swing factors in your own favor (luring the dragon into the aforementioned tiger pit).

In the (IME) unusual scenario where both sides have the foresight and resources to make things less swingy, the result is unsurprisingly a less swingy encounter.

 

[Garthanos]

I'd hazard to say that the "Swingy" game is actually being less swingy than the "Non-swingy" game in that case. I'm not certain what you mean by defensive swing though.

If you mean that both opponents prepare all their defensive buffs and whatnot, and that therefore combat drags because neither team can harm the other, I'd say that you're using the elements inherent in the Swingy game to make it less swingy.

Oh its still swingy and quite unpredictable ... whether it will take 5 or 25 or 12.... the point is non swingy does not intrinsically take longer... you loose N hit points per round and your adversary loose X hitpoints around has zero swing. Tie those damage to to hit rolls and attack failures will make it take much longer.

People have been presuming since 4e has a heartier buffer for the heros and also reduced swing elements ... that these are intrinsically connected.