D&D 4E The 4e Pit Fiend Revisited

[DandD]

It's Think very hard, if you want to make it enjoyable, without it being either a ridicoulus 1-round hack-fest, or a total party kill.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It's Think very hard, if you want to make it enjoyable, without it being either a ridicoulus 1-round hack-fest, or a total party kill.

Actually, "Hard Thinking" might be the wrong word. Very often, it is applying mechanical aspects one after another and comparing numbers. Time and time again.

It is only "hard thinking" because it becomes repetitive - add HD and class levels, adjust ability scores, recalculate skills, assign feats. There is nothing that makes this inherently interesting.

It can get interesting if you add an unusual ability - maybe some new magical effect, a racial quality. For example, how do you create a mind-controlling incorporeal creature that uses living beings as host. How can such abilities work in combat? That's interesting, because you're doing new stuff. And it forces you to think hard to figure out how to balance this ability in combat, thinking what other powers you could use as a guideline.

 

[The Little Raven]

Just FYI, Step 2 is "Think".

Actually, Step 2 is "Spend more time prepping than playing."

 

[ThirdWizard]

Just FYI, Step 2 is "Think".

I started doing 2 things, depending on how much time I have available:

Option 1: Pick 3-4 CR equivalent monsters at the PCs, and trust that the massive wealth I've given them evens things out.
Option 2: Just make up a bunch of stats for homebrewed monsters based on the PCs' stats.

Both options have actually worked out just about as well as this so called "thinking."

 

[hong]

Just FYI, Step 2 is "Think".

You say this like it's a positive thing.

 

[mmu1]

Actually, Step 2 is "Spend more time prepping than playing."

...see, if I had those sorts of issues with 3E/3.5, I never would have waited around for 4E. I'd just have gone play something else years ago.

Frankly, I still have no clue what most people who have trouble with 3.5 encounter design are doing to feel that way, because it never caused me any problems. (and I'm hardly a patient guy)

 

[DandD]

...see, if I had those sorts of issues with 3E/3.5, I never would have waited around for 4E. I'd just have gone play something else years ago.

Some people did that. Others don't even bother to moderate a game anymore, and only play D&D as a player, not as a gamemaster, because they don't want to bother with the mathematics of that game.

Frankly, I still have no clue what most people who have trouble with 3.5 encounter design are doing to feel that way, because it never caused me any problems. (and I'm hardly a patient guy)

Nah, you're just borgified enough to not feel anymore.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

So.... Because you don't have enough time you've taken on more responsibilities than you have time for, you'll settle for cookie-cutter filler?

Naa, even when I had time, I refused to actually spend it preparing. Well, that's not entirely true. I want my game to be fun. I just really hate crunching numbers. I'll spend 2 hours reading through an adventure to make sure I have it down pretty well before running it. I enjoy reading.

I just don't enjoy it when I have to do a lot of thinking to prepare. For instance:

"Alright, so the PCs are going through a cave of hobgoblins. They are level 6, though and therefore the hobgoblins in the MM aren't powerful enough to pose a challenge. They'd likely need class levels. Hobgoblins are militaristic, so they'd likely be mostly fighters. Won't it be really boring for the PCs(and me, while running them) to fight 5 battles in a row against endless hobgoblin fighters? It's much more interesting if there are some clerics or wizards amongst them....

Well, time to start the process of making up them as NPCs. *pulls out DMG, PHB, PHB II, Spell Compedium, Complete Mage, Complete Champion, MM, MIC* (Have to have a full selection of spells from every available source. Don't want the encounter to be over too quickly due to poor spell preperation or using only PHB spells while the players have better ones. Plus, without decent magic items he'll be too easy) An hour later, I have a decent wizard.....now, on to the cleric...."

...and so on. Then only to find out that a hobgoblin wizard's spells are too weak against the party since he can't be too high level of a wizard because his CR would be too high for the PCs due to his racial abilities. And have the wizard die in the first round of combat without casting a spell.

And rather, my experiences with 4th have been the exact opposite:

"I need a wizard like hobgoblin? Good, there's already one in the book. He's too low level for the party? I'll just apply the leveling rules in the DMG. I don't even have to write down the new stats, just remember that he has +2 to hit, defenses, +1 to damage, and some hitpoints from the 2 levels I added. I can apply those on the fly."

And have that monster actually be a challenge.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

I guess I don't understand what's so uninteresting about a monster like the pit fiend. He's got:

- a mace
- a tail sting
- a damage aura
- summoning
- the ability to blow up minions
- teleportation
- other interesting tactical stuff

I don't need much else in an encounter.

What's more, I don't think we've seen anywhere near the potential for new 4e monster design. There is plenty of stuff we don't know about in the core rules, and plenty of people are already coming up with their own interesting and unique designs. I've started experimenting with 4e monster design myself, and personally I love it. Monsters are quick to create and I think exception-based design has a lot of potential.

Did I have tons of problems with 3e? The occasional forgotten ability, a mismatched EL here and there, but overall no I didn't. But I like what I see in 4e, and I suspect what we know is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[AllisterH]

Heh

We were just talking about the Angel of Valor and now we can see for ourselves what the WOTC designer was talking about with regard to how boring combat would be.

Against a SINGLE 1st level PC, there's no question that the angel of valour will smash the unlucky PC into the ground but it won't actually do this in one round.

I think the economy of actions is what makes this fight BEATABLE for enough 1st level PCs. Note: This is all speculation and simply looking at the numbers and NOT backed up by actual playtesting.

The defenses on the Angel of Valor are HIGH but say you use the 6 DDXP 1st level characters. The Angel can't oneshot a PC into death (on average, the Angel does 19 pts of dmg per round. Certainly more than enough to bloody ANY of the 1st level PCs) however, since it only can act once per round, when the 6 other PCs have their turn, two PCs use actions that involve a healing surge (negating the dmg from the Angel's turn). Which then leaves 4 PCs wailing on the Angel of Valor. As the designer pointed out, the Angel's defenses are so hgih and its HP as well that basically the PCs are only hitting on an 18-19 and it will take a LONG time to get it down to 0. However, the PCs should evenutally be able to get it down.

Which is what you expect from what the numbers tell you. A 350 xp encounter for 6 1st level PCs _IS_ a beatable encounter.

Reduce the number of PCs in half and it gets a hell lot more dicey. Not only did you lessen the number of healign surges among characters in half, but the Angel of Valour is now only facing 1 attack per round (given that 2 PCs are using their actions to negate the damage that the Angel of Valor does).

You can actually see where this is a change from 3E. When the 3E designers created the "Cure X" spells, they basically left them as is from earlier edition (CLW in 2E = 1d8, CLW in 3.x = 1d8 + 1/caster level), however, damage from attacks went up at a much faster rate. They didn't do the math which looking at the Angel of Valor and other monsters, you can see they actually did this time. Not only did the monsters pure damge go down, but healing surges always heal a 1/4 damage meaning that they are properly scaled.

This is also why we saw the birth of CoDzilla since it made tactical sense NOT to heal since this was basically wasting an action on the part of the healer (CSW heals 3d8 + 1/caster level but even at level 5, many monsters can easily dish out more than 13 pts of damage per round) but rather to use their offensive spells to kill the target faster. Then use the wand of CLW at the end of the battle.