Tension in combat

[NewJeffCT]

I'm not trying to belittle the experiences or difficulties of others. However, it seems an unreasonable expectation to just be able to throw any proper xp budget together and call it a good encounter. Especially for a home campaign, the DM should know the tendencies and capabilities of his players and be able to design good encounters based on that knowledge. A DM should not say, "My players always alpha strike and ruin combat tension; my hands are tied." He should instead say, "My players always alpha strike and ruin combat tension; what steps can I take to add it back in?"

Because despite AbdulAlhazred's excellent explanation, I'm just not convinced that this is a phenomenon experienced equally at every table. It's true that saying "Be a better DM" is typically less than useful advice, but it's also true that expecting to get great encounters without a lot of experimentation and trial and error and customization is less than reasonable. Encounter building has always been more of an art than a science; the fact that 4E requires a little less art doesn't mean it doesn't require any.

Agreed - you can't just fill out the XP budget and consider it a good encounter. A DM needs to know his players and adjust any encounters based on the party. A party of five that is a leader, controller, striker and 2 defenders is a lot different than a party that has 2 strikers & one defender or 2 controllers and one defender, etc.

The current makeup of my group is the second combo above - one of each role, plus an additional striker. So, they can dish out a lot of damage in round 1, and then continue to dish it out via the two strikers (especially when the rogue has flanking). So, I've already found that a Solo monster needs some support in order to be a realistic threat: I had one Solo supported by a Swarm, and another by two "pet" shadow hounds to provide the Solo their own flanking. However, they also bought the Solo some time to hopefully recharge their big bang power. (That certainly added tension, as the players were pretty spent in terms of dailies & encounters, and if the bad guy was able to recharge, they easily might have lost the combat...) If my group had two defenders instead of two strikers, they could suck up a lot of damage, but not dish out quite as much. Or, if they had two controllers, they'd be great against the ravening hordes of goblins, zombies, orcs, etc. However, not quite as good against solos.

It is really is something of an "art" in terms of encounter building, as chzbro says

I think you need to ask, "What is a good & interesting challenge to my party?" I got to be very good at it by the end of my two and a half year long 3.5E campaign that ended a year ago. I'm still developing things for 4E, but I'm getting better at it.

 

[Chzbro]

A 14 yr old DMing for the first time, or probably for quite a while, isn't going to be working at a high level of theory in encounter design. MAYBE a few of them might read a DMG and really get it. Most are going to benefit from the family sedan kind of performance of good old Basic D&D where most encounters worked at some level. Hand them 4e and it is hit and miss.

I agree with this to a point, but I still think a newbie DM has a better chance to build a good 4E encounter than in older editions. Old school encounters could easily be totally short-circuited by a timely sleep, web, or even fireball. Even if you do have some 4E combats with front-loaded tension, at least there's some tension in those first couple rounds. I remember a lot of older edition encounters that only had tension until the first time the wizard had a chance to act.

I also want to emphasize that I don't really disagree with what you're saying, but what I don't agree with is the assertion by some that the "lack" of combat tension is a flaw inherent to the system. D&D has always encouraged trying to end a fight as fast as possible. A DM who decides this is not to his liking has all kinds of tools at his disposal to change this. I don't think the proper response is to change the rules of the game; I think the proper response is to change the way you design encounters.

Every DM is a young DM at some point. It's good to recognize as a young DM that not everything you do as a DM is automatically "right." Your first reaction to something you don't like shouldn't be to "fix" the game mechanics; it should be to alter the way you interact with the game mechanics to achieve the result you want.

When you don't get the results you want at work, you don't get to change the job. You figure out how to get those results within the framework you have to work with.

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

This is all in the DM's control. Mix things up. If the characters almost always unload in round one. Then have any intelligent monster should unload thier alpha defense abilities. Then in round two comes the alpha strike. The players are either going to be thinking they're in for a rough fight or that they need to beat feet. Either way, there the fear should be back. Or change up the scenery, make seperate avenues of approach so the PC's can't present a unified front and alpha strike. Each person may be able to, but they won't be able to focus and when their surrounded they'll start to worry. There are so many things that can be done. They won't all work, but if you don't try then there's no room to complain about how things are.

This is an interesting point. Generally speaking, monsters don't _have_ alpha defense abilities. When they do have defensive abilities, they're generall auras and such, or are of such minor consequence their impact is lost in the noise.

But instead if they had an encounter ability that say, rose a fire shield around them, such that melee attacks against them would cause damage back, until some trigger occured (say, cold damage, or such)...or raised one of their defenses significantly (say AC) for one turn, etc...would also make the PCs hold off on alpha striking.

I think that mechanics dealing with monster defenses on a temporary basis are not used nearly as much as they should be.

 

[Ahrimon]

It kind of sucks that monsters don't have defensive abilities. But throw a few encounter abilities like shield or a defensive teleport on a few monsters here and there and you're players may back off of the alpha strike a bit. Sucks to have daily attack ruined by the creature teleporting away. Or the hit turned into a miss because of a sheild.

I don't think it should be done too often. The players don't have much fun beating thier head into a wall, but if it makes them mix it up a bit, then it serves it's purpose.