D&D 5E The Adventuring Day has nothing to do with encounter balance.

jgsugden

Legend
...Your one anecdotal example does not prove a general principal. Neither do mine, so the issue remains open for exploration...
One anecdote does not disprove something generally being true. However, in this instance, my example proves his statement wrong. Read his argument.

We're all open to express our opinions (within the constraints of the message boards). However, that does not mean that a factually false statement should be respected as if it were valid.

A statement that a non-deadly encounter is GOING to be a TEDIOUS SLOG and WILL NOT MATTER (which he stated and then restated) is proven false if anyone can show one example of it not being true - and I can point to a plethora of counter examples from games I've run, games I've played in, games I've observed, Critical Role, Dimension 20, and other situations. Even if you were to say he was just generalizing - it doesn't hold up as it isn't generally true that non-deadly encounters are both tedious slogs and do not matter. Calling them tedious slogs is kind of odd all by itself as these tend to end faster than deadly combats given the relative power advantage ofthe PCs. And if you look at his argument, he openly expresses that he does not understand why you'd have non-deadly encounters (supposing that it is merely to meet a number of combats per day requirement) despite explanations that provide options and merits to different non-deadly encounter options in the posts to which he is responding.

And if you want to go there, I can point to published adventures from Morrus and Enworld that use non-deadly encounters to advance the story and provide alternative challenges other than surviving a threat to life - and do so in a very engaging way.
 

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billd91

Not your screen monkey (he/him)
One anecdote does not disprove something generally being true. However, in this instance, my example proves his statement wrong. Read his argument.

We're all open to express our opinions (within the constraints of the message boards). However, that does not mean that a factually false statement should be respected as if it were valid.

A statement that a non-deadly encounter is GOING to be a TEDIOUS SLOG and WILL NOT MATTER (which he stated and then restated) is proven false if anyone can show one example of it not being true - and I can point to a plethora of counter examples from games I've run, games I've played in, games I've observed, Critical Role, Dimension 20, and other situations. Even if you were to say he was just generalizing - it doesn't hold up as it isn't generally true that non-deadly encounters are both tedious slogs and do not matter. Calling them tedious slogs is kind of odd all by itself as these tend to end faster than deadly combats given the relative power advantage ofthe PCs. And if you look at his argument, he openly expresses that he does not understand why you'd have non-deadly encounters (supposing that it is merely to meet a number of combats per day requirement) despite explanations that provide options and merits to different non-deadly encounter options in the posts to which he is responding.
You DO understand that tedious slog is an OPINION here? And for him, that may be true. In any event, it's impossible for you to prove it false just because your opinion is different.
 

Enrahim2

Adventurer
You don't need a megadungeon to have attrition matter; I never use classical dungeons and attrition matters all the time when I DM. It just takes a different approach.
No doubt, but I guess you might not folow the encounter encounter boss formula either?

The reason I brought up that is that it not only is almost everywhere in computer games it is also from what I have seen extremely common in published adventures for table top RPGs. As such it was intended to contrast one common pattern where I think it is generally accepted that attrition is essential (and of historic importance), with one pattern where there seem to be strong indications attrition might inded be detrimental to that pattern.

There are of course any number of other patterns that can be employed, and for many of them atrition might be critical. If you were mainly thinking of my secondary rant regarding the more complex systems, i can add that combat with meaning do not exclude combat with attrition as a secondary effect, and that there are ways to generate attrition that is not combat.

Hence I do not advocate for instance removal of attrition, but rather to raise awarness that attrition should never be a goal by itself, but rather be a tool to achieve something. Moreover being aware of situations where presence of attrition is detrimental might inform DMs about when they might want to provide players "cheap" restoration options, like a timeless pocket dimention they can rest one night before facing the big bad boss.
 

ad_hoc

(they/them)
No doubt, but I guess you might not folow the encounter encounter boss formula either?

The reason I brought up that is that it not only is almost everywhere in computer games it is also from what I have seen extremely common in published adventures for table top RPGs. As such it was intended to contrast one common pattern where I think it is generally accepted that attrition is essential (and of historic importance), with one pattern where there seem to be strong indications attrition might inded be detrimental to that pattern.

There are of course any number of other patterns that can be employed, and for many of them atrition might be critical. If you were mainly thinking of my secondary rant regarding the more complex systems, i can add that combat with meaning do not exclude combat with attrition as a secondary effect, and that there are ways to generate attrition that is not combat.

Hence I do not advocate for instance removal of attrition, but rather to raise awarness that attrition should never be a goal by itself, but rather be a tool to achieve something. Moreover being aware of situations where presence of attrition is detrimental might inform DMs about when they might want to provide players "cheap" restoration options, like a timeless pocket dimention they can rest one night before facing the big bad boss.
I only play published adventures and this is not my experience with them at all.

I see all encounters as "story important" because everything at the table is the story.

Random encounters are sometimes the most memorable part of a session.
 

Oofta

Legend
No doubt, but I guess you might not folow the encounter encounter boss formula either?

I don't follow any particular formula. I do what I think makes sense for the ongoing campaign story and what the players enjoy.

The reason I brought up that is that it not only is almost everywhere in computer games it is also from what I have seen extremely common in published adventures for table top RPGs. As such it was intended to contrast one common pattern where I think it is generally accepted that attrition is essential (and of historic importance), with one pattern where there seem to be strong indications attrition might inded be detrimental to that pattern.

There are of course any number of other patterns that can be employed, and for many of them atrition might be critical. If you were mainly thinking of my secondary rant regarding the more complex systems, i can add that combat with meaning do not exclude combat with attrition as a secondary effect, and that there are ways to generate attrition that is not combat.

Hence I do not advocate for instance removal of attrition, but rather to raise awarness that attrition should never be a goal by itself, but rather be a tool to achieve something. Moreover being aware of situations where presence of attrition is detrimental might inform DMs about when they might want to provide players "cheap" restoration options, like a timeless pocket dimention they can rest one night before facing the big bad boss.

There are several goals that are achieved through attrition. Off the top of my head
  1. Balance out class capabilities, the fighter can't keep up with a wizard that goes nova every round at higher levels (although at lower levels they typically excel even then). It's not a perfect solution, but the structure of 4E where everyone had the same AEDU pattern of play just didn't click for a lot of people.
  2. It's a common trope in movies and other fiction, the protagonists must fight their way through wave after wave of enemies before finally facing down the BBEG.
  3. It helps build the tension of the final moment.
  4. It's also about people having to push themselves to their limits, that tension that arises when you're down to your last spell slot or two and if this doesn't work your party will likely fail.
  5. It's about forcing people to think tactically and whether to use their big guns now or wait because you're not sure if you'll need it later.

But not every adventuring day has to be attrition based. Just like not every encounter needs to be a fight to the death. Sometimes I'll set up an encounter and let people know that this is the big fight and they shouldn't hold back. Having to go all out to win can be just as much fun as pushing to the limits over several encounters.

But I guess I don't do "filler" fights just to have fights. They're establishing and reinforcing the overall narrative and advancing the story. If you're going through a forest called "The Really, Really, Bad Evil Wicked Forest Full of Monsters" then you probably should run into a few monsters along the way. Unless of course it's a Scooby-Doo situation where someone just wants scar people off. ;)
 

James Gasik

Pandion Knight
Supporter
Apologies for quoting twice, but I glossed over this at first and have come back to it.

I'm... skeptical, to say the least, about your claims regarding Lolth. I crunched the numbers* and this doesn't add up unless the DM changed things, a lot. So how, exactly, did this level 21 party "stomp all over" Lolth without massively deviating from the expected math?

* I won't bore you with the details unless you want them, TL;DR is "they can only hit her on a crit and she can hit them 100% of the time," with ongoing poisons doing a quarter or more of a typical char's HP.
Was this the infamous Ranger abuses Daily Power so it had to be nerfed incident? I can't remember the name, but there was this Ranger Daily where they could keep shooting until they either A) missed, or B) ran out of arrows. Tactical Warlord attack roll buff basically meant the Ranger fired like 17 times and killed a super powerful enemy; the power got an errata to something like "or until a maximum of 5 attacks".
 

James Gasik

Pandion Knight
Supporter
As an aside, when I was playing a high level character in the Scales of War adventuring path, the DM basically gave up by level 22. We obliterated every solo we came across with action denial and massive damage (ironically, my Ranger was doing most of the denial, as I had a fun combo of "hit enemy = slow, hit slowed enemy = prone" thanks to a few feats and a few powers that let me daze or stun foes -my favorite being a triple hitter Daily- hit once the enemy is slowed (save ends), hit twice, the enemy is also dazed (save ends), hit three times the enemy is also stunned (save ends). One time a solo actually failed the stun save, and that fight was basically OVER.

We once showed up missing two players and had to fight a solo (actually a solo and an elite) that was way overpowered, and was a puzzle boss, where you were meant to weaken it in an ongoing skill challenge. We flubbed all the rolls, powered it up, and...still muddled through and won out of sheer stubbornness.

The only solos that ever really challenged us did so by using their own action denial, or goofy "legendary actions" that gave them multiple turns. The hardest fight we ever faced was actually when we were level 19 and started running into level 21 regular enemies, so the math had us missing more often; once we got our epic destinies, epic weapons and armor and stat buffs, we were fine.

And I say this as someone who really enjoyed my 4e experience- but I'd be lying if I didn't say having more actions than your enemy is worth way more than the enemy having bigger numbers.
 

Stalker0

Legend
So I'm just lying about an edition I don't care about any more. Good to know.

My point is that solos have never worked whether you believe me or not.
With respect, they pulled out the exact stats for the monster and showed that even a super optimized level 21 group would need 20s to hit. That’s just the math.

So did your group have a super buff going or were you all rolling 20s like candy? Because if not, the evidence does suggest it was an altered monster.
 

Stalker0

Legend
Was this the infamous Ranger abuses Daily Power so it had to be nerfed incident? I can't remember the name, but there was this Ranger Daily where they could keep shooting until they either A) missed, or B) ran out of arrows. Tactical Warlord attack roll buff basically meant the Ranger fired like 17 times and killed a super powerful enemy; the power got an errata to something like "or until a maximum of 5 attacks".
Even if it was, again the players should only be hitting on 20s, so that power isn’t going to get a lot of hits off
 

James Gasik

Pandion Knight
Supporter
Even if it was, again the players should only be hitting on 20s, so that power isn’t going to get a lot of hits off
When you're getting a massive hit buff for spending an Action Point in a turn while you've got a Tac Lord in the party, it's probably more like hitting on 15's at that point, and that's not including Dice of Auspicious Fortune, Combat Advantage, or even crazier things like the Eladrin Tactical Warlord Paragon Path that can increase that attack bonus to like +10 for a turn.
 

James Gasik

Pandion Knight
Supporter
When you're getting a massive hit buff for spending an Action Point in a turn while you've got a Tac Lord in the party, it's probably more like hitting on 15's at that point, and that's not including Dice of Auspicious Fortune, Combat Advantage, or even crazier things like the Eladrin Tactical Warlord Paragon Path that can increase that attack bonus to like +10 for a turn.
Oh, or the original Orb of Imposition Wizard who can force even solos to routinely fail saves against debilitating daily powers.
 

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog
When you're getting a massive hit buff for spending an Action Point in a turn while you've got a Tac Lord in the party, it's probably more like hitting on 15's at that point, and that's not including Dice of Auspicious Fortune, Combat Advantage, or even crazier things like the Eladrin Tactical Warlord Paragon Path that can increase that attack bonus to like +10 for a turn.
Yea, 4e had tons of ways to buff allies, debuff enemies, and cause auto damage.
 

James Gasik

Pandion Knight
Supporter
Ah, found it. 3 days before 4e was actually released, people realized that the Ranger's Blade Cascade (it was melee not ranged, sorry) could let a Ranger SOLO Orcus in one round....here's boring math stuff:

How this guy does it

"Assuming a maxed +46 attack bonus (after Imperiling Strike), we have a Blade Cascade chain with an average number of hits equal to 19 times the number of rerolls plus one (if somebody bothers to do the math and finds it's wrong, please tell me so and why.) Now, Imperiling Strike, with a +40 attack bonus, has a 50% chance of hitting with a regular attack, so half of the time we will start our Blade Cascade with less than four rerolls. In particular, we should note that our racial reroll has a +2 bonus, so that's the one we'll use first, since any extra bonus on the Cascade are wasted.

Considering all this, we have a 50% chance of having 4 rerolls when starting Blade Cascade, 30% of 3 rerolls, 10% of 2 rerolls, 5% with one, 2.5% with none, and a 2.5% of losing all rerolls and failing to land Imperiling Strike (this, as you already know, means you are already dead). The average damage values of each are 3752.5 (4 rerolls), 3002 (3 rerolls), 2251.5 (2 rerolls), 1501 (1 reroll), 750.5 (no rerolls) and 59.25 with no IS.

With 39.5 average weapon damage, this gives a final average damage of 3097.29 hit points, enough to kill Orcus twice. To that we could add an average 33 damage from Imperiling Strike and a maxed 6d8 from a critical sneak attack done when Orcus is bloodied. If we added Raise the Stakes, these numbers would improve a bit, but the point is already made."

Note, this was done with the PHB1, and one Ranger, no assistance from Leaders or stuff from later books. Of course, Blade Cascade got quickly nerfed, but it just goes to show high level play has always been, and always will be, busted.
 

EzekielRaiden

Follower of the Way
Of course, Blade Cascade got quickly nerfed, but it just goes to show high level play has always been, and always will be, busted.
It does not show the bolded. I'm not even sure it shows the previous point either.

Particularly since such shenanigans were extremely rare in 4e, as opposed to being pretty much the point of 3.5e optimization. To the extent that games today make a distinction between "practical optimization" (getting to solid, useful benefits with no exploits or strained interpretations) and "theoretical optimization" (doing whatever you can, so long as there's some kind of RAW argument that it works), with specific callouts for excluding "nigh-infinite" shenangians.

Because getting "nigh-infinite" shenanigans as a 3.5e character is pretty easy. Especially if you're a full caster, but it's not strictly required.
 

James Gasik

Pandion Knight
Supporter
It does not show the bolded. I'm not even sure it shows the previous point either.

Particularly since such shenanigans were extremely rare in 4e, as opposed to being pretty much the point of 3.5e optimization. To the extent that games today make a distinction between "practical optimization" (getting to solid, useful benefits with no exploits or strained interpretations) and "theoretical optimization" (doing whatever you can, so long as there's some kind of RAW argument that it works), with specific callouts for excluding "nigh-infinite" shenangians.

Because getting "nigh-infinite" shenanigans as a 3.5e character is pretty easy. Especially if you're a full caster, but it's not strictly required.
I only played in one epic tier 4e game, but my experience was that there were quite a few shenanigans you could engage in to make characters stronger than they ought to be. One of the big problems of the ranger was multiple attacks with lots of sources of static damage; Twin Strike tried to address this, but they kept printing stuff like the bracers that gave you +1d6 damage if you attacked twice or +2 damage to weapon attacks, and your Cleric might make all enemies vulnerable all/7 with their encounter power, and so on.

One of the better nukers I saw in play was a Sorcerer/Acolyte of the Skin, because Demon-Soul Bolts hits three times and you got all your damage mods on each bolt; not only was this an encounter power, but thanks to Pearls of Power, you could arrange to use it multiple times in a big encounter. Items that broke the math totally existed, like the Goggles that gave ranged attacks a bonus to hit, multiclassing and hybrid rules could create bizarre combinations of abilities. I keep mentioning Dice of Auspicious Fortune, which were used a lot in the groups I played with; at the beginning of each day you roll 3d20 and log the results, then you can use one of those results in place of a d20 roll later that day (there was a Theme with a similar ability, as I recall). So oh hey, I rolled a 17? That's one daily that is absolutely going to hit later today!

And saying that high level play is never busted? Come on, we know high level abilities aren't playtested with any real rigor, the sheer weight of all options available make it impossible to create a "standard level 16 party" for any kind of encounter or adventure design. High level characters have ways to actually decide whether or not they have full resources for an encounter and the only way around that is to design every adventure to not allow the use of such abilities.

I don't mean this it's not possible to run a good high level game, or that high level games can't be fun, but it takes a lot of experience and work on the DM (and perhaps gentleman's agreements on what things to use/not use) than is fair for the average DM.

4e might not have Locate City bombs, but it does have Feywild Boles and Dimensional Knives and ways to generate unbalanced numbers. You can cheat healing surge attrition by shuffling the amount of surges the party has with a ritual, and build a Striker that can one shot Solos starting at level 1 and never really changing.
 

Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
I like the concept, but I think your still in the same fundamental bucket.

A Tier 2 monster would heavily challenge a Tier 1 party (levels 1-4 lets say). But a Tier 3 monster isn't going to be nearly as threatening to a Tier 2 party. The game just fundamentally changes around 5th level in a way that it never does again for the rest of the game.
So make tiers logarithmic. There’s no rule that says every tier needs to be the same number of levels, and if levels have diminishing returns, maybe there should be more of them between each successive tier.
 

EzekielRaiden

Follower of the Way
4e might not have Locate City bombs, but it does have Feywild Boles and Dimensional Knives and ways to generate unbalanced numbers. You can cheat healing surge attrition by shuffling the amount of surges the party has with a ritual, and build a Striker that can one shot Solos starting at level 1 and never really changing.
Well...that's sort of my point.

We went from locate city bombs and the Wish and the Word to...dealing 40% more damage than expected, or having an attack you could potentially juice up so it could kill a god in one blow if the stars aligned.

That's ENORMOUS progress in terms of getting busted-ness under control. Being "busted" is both a matter of degree and a matter of kind. Your statement pretty much implies "never, ever bother trying to balance. You'll never make ANY progress, whatsoever, no matter what you do." And that's objectively untrue. A single example of a broken power certainly does not indicate that high-level gameplay is always busted, still less that it is always horrifically busted rather than just a little wonky.

You'll also note that I did not say--and certainly did not mean to imply--"that high level play is never busted." I was, in fact, specifically trying to avoid saying that. Because I absolutely agree that you usually can finesse and finagle and push and prod and tweak and shift, and enough of those stacked together can lead to weirdness in much the same way that a stack of identical books can remain balanced despite having books arbitrarily far from the table...if the stack gets tall enough.*

What I am saying is:
(A) We can do better than we have in the past. We can learn from past mistakes, and improve.
(B) Different kinds of "bustedness" exist, not just different degrees, and fixing the worst kinds is worthwhile even if the lesser kinds remain.

*Each book is balanced so long as the center of mass of the stack remains above the table. The maximum distance you can push things for N books of unit length is half of the sum of the first N harmonic numbers, (0.5)(1+1/2+1/3+...+1/N) This is a divergent series, so you can get distances arbitrarily long. However, it converges with a logarithmic growth rate, meaning you need only 4 books (because half of the sum of the first 4 harmonic numbers is 1.041666...)
 

James Gasik

Pandion Knight
Supporter
Well...that's sort of my point.

We went from locate city bombs and the Wish and the Word to...dealing 40% more damage than expected, or having an attack you could potentially juice up so it could kill a god in one blow if the stars aligned.

That's ENORMOUS progress in terms of getting busted-ness under control. Being "busted" is both a matter of degree and a matter of kind. Your statement pretty much implies "never, ever bother trying to balance. You'll never make ANY progress, whatsoever, no matter what you do." And that's objectively untrue. A single example of a broken power certainly does not indicate that high-level gameplay is always busted, still less that it is always horrifically busted rather than just a little wonky.

You'll also note that I did not say--and certainly did not mean to imply--"that high level play is never busted." I was, in fact, specifically trying to avoid saying that. Because I absolutely agree that you usually can finesse and finagle and push and prod and tweak and shift, and enough of those stacked together can lead to weirdness in much the same way that a stack of identical books can remain balanced despite having books arbitrarily far from the table...if the stack gets tall enough.*

What I am saying is:
(A) We can do better than we have in the past. We can learn from past mistakes, and improve.
(B) Different kinds of "bustedness" exist, not just different degrees, and fixing the worst kinds is worthwhile even if the lesser kinds remain.

*Each book is balanced so long as the center of mass of the stack remains above the table. The maximum distance you can push things for N books of unit length is half of the sum of the first N harmonic numbers, (0.5)(1+1/2+1/3+...+1/N) This is a divergent series, so you can get distances arbitrarily long. However, it converges with a logarithmic growth rate, meaning you need only 4 books (because half of the sum of the first 4 harmonic numbers is 1.041666...)
(This is kind of cynical; usually I give WotC a fair shake, because I believe these decisions are really made by suits who don't care about D&D players, they just want money. But it really doesn't matter- whether you have integrity as game designers or you're held hostage and forced to churn out easily digestible junk food that's slowly killing the people that eat it, the end result is the same. So here I am, live and uncut. People are going to either disagree or agree, I don't think anyone is actually going to change their opinion now. But here's my rant anyways, because I can't just say nothing, even though I am but a voice crying out in the wilderness...or an old man yelling at clouds).

No, it's not that you can't achieve balance. But not only are there issues with achieving balance because (forgive me for using italics, but I need to stress this) not enough people can agree on what balance is, nor are enough people interested in balance in the first place- either because they don't see any imbalance in their personal games, they think they have it covered, or, the position I understand the least (but tried to at least explain), they believe that the game is better without it.

Specifically with regards to high level play, it will remain busted until the company that makes the game cares enough to balance it. They don't. That's obvious. There's not enough money in it.

They are building the game for some "sweet spot" that they feel most games are run in. They want you to quickly fly past the first couple levels, which they feel are the least fun and hard to balance, since they are incredibly swingy- but are kept around because enough people insist that is when the game is the most fun; I remember how this went in the playtest, where it was felt that what 4e called level 1 was a great place to start campaigns, and WotC initially was going to keep it that way, but a lot of people called for the game to "start" at an earlier point, with less resources...for reasons.

Reasons I don't get. I don't run games at level 1, and I haven't since 1994, simply because I got tired of people making characters, then having those characters die any actual threats, from a random goblin throwing a spear, to kobolds, to effing tasloi (there's this fluffy low level adventure in Dungeon where some tasloi are keeping a faerie dragon hostage because they are...problematic now, I'll grant...addicted to it's breath weapon. I thought it was cute. It was a bloodbath).

3e proved to only be marginally better at handling level 1, and when 4e was like "hey, why don't we start with 20-30 hit points" I was like "THANK YOU".

But some people are really attached to the "zero to hero" loop, and want death to lurk around every corner and for players to feel cautious and meek- and you know what, that's fine, I don't think it's very much fun to run or play at those levels, but if it works for them, I can start at higher level, that's fine...except...

At a certain point, WotC stops really caring. Past level 10 is this vaguely defined zone of super powers and too many resources and enough of a hit point buffer that any reasonably decent group is going to cakewalk all but the most unfair encounters. Casters gain tons of "I win buttons", non-casters gain very meager abilities; in the case of the Fighter, just more of what they had before.

The CR system falls apart because it's based on largely nothing, monsters were never designed going "but what if they have 90% resources? 60%? 20%?" because they likely assumed that any group that gets too weak will stop adventuring for the day. They never say "what if the group has a Paladin instead of a Fighter? Or two Clerics? Or no Clerics?". They claim "oh no, it doesn't matter what classes you play"...so someone might get the idea that all classes are balanced against one another.

Haha, sorry suckers, that's code for "we didn't even take any of that into account". Your team has four Wizards, sufficient to blow past Legendary Resistance in one turn? Eh, maybe the next fight will challenge them more. Who knows? If they die, well, you can say it was supposed to be hard. If they win, well, you can say "but each subsequent battle will be harder because they have less spells, see?!".

When Crawford is talking about Epic Boons and capstones in the playtest, I'm like, dude, you're polishing the brass on the Titanic, the ship is going down, man! You don't give a damn about high level play! Your "marketing research" shows that most games are over by like, level 7!

Which is obnoxious when you realize that the game is really only balanced for like 4-5 levels, and all the rest of it, your "bounded accuracy" which is meaningless with options in the PLAYERS HANDBOOK, and never takes into account group composition (because you don't care about actual to hit and AC, you only care about HIT POINTS, you lazy bums!), you are fine with Four Elements Monks coexisting with Twilight Clerics because, well, tables will police themselves right? It works for MtG Commander!

I've watched the same decisions get made with regards to high level play for decades. To go on with the MtG analogy, D&D is a turn 7 format and they're fine with that.

All of this New and Improved Flavor 5e? Window dressing, man. So far, they haven't really addressed any actual concerns; it's another 3.5. Some updates, some things people will point to and say "see? This makes the game better!", some nerfs, some buffs, but the end result won't really be any different. They just want to sell you another three core rulebooks at 50 bucks a pop (ha, what am I saying, they'll probably up the price count).

Games Workshop has been treating their fans this way for decades, seems to work for them, and even if you jump off the train, they still got the most popular seating around.
 

Oofta

Legend
As an aside, when I was playing a high level character in the Scales of War adventuring path, the DM basically gave up by level 22. We obliterated every solo we came across with action denial and massive damage (ironically, my Ranger was doing most of the denial, as I had a fun combo of "hit enemy = slow, hit slowed enemy = prone" thanks to a few feats and a few powers that let me daze or stun foes -my favorite being a triple hitter Daily- hit once the enemy is slowed (save ends), hit twice, the enemy is also dazed (save ends), hit three times the enemy is also stunned (save ends). One time a solo actually failed the stun save, and that fight was basically OVER.

We once showed up missing two players and had to fight a solo (actually a solo and an elite) that was way overpowered, and was a puzzle boss, where you were meant to weaken it in an ongoing skill challenge. We flubbed all the rolls, powered it up, and...still muddled through and won out of sheer stubbornness.

The only solos that ever really challenged us did so by using their own action denial, or goofy "legendary actions" that gave them multiple turns. The hardest fight we ever faced was actually when we were level 19 and started running into level 21 regular enemies, so the math had us missing more often; once we got our epic destinies, epic weapons and armor and stat buffs, we were fine.

And I say this as someone who really enjoyed my 4e experience- but I'd be lying if I didn't say having more actions than your enemy is worth way more than the enemy having bigger numbers.

Epic level play in 4E was an interesting experiment, but it was very difficult to set up appropriate challenges. Player's capabilities to shut down or bypass challenges altogether abounded. I played in the LFR (the public play for 4E) campaign that went to 30th and one of the biggest complaints was that the modules constantly came up with some fabricated reason we couldn't use our powers. Especially the first few modules in the series were "Ha ha! You can't use all those toys you've worked so hard to get!"

It took me a while to figure out how to handle it for my home campaign and I'm not sure I ever really succeeded. Battlefield control, totally nerfing the opponent, was just built in to the DNA of 4E. When the PCs did it, games became boring because there was no real challenge. When the monsters did it it was boring because players had no choice but to sit and wait. Still can be an issue in 5E of course, and about the only solos I've found that work are creatures like dragons that can fly out of sight on their turn (which can have it's own frustrations) but for me it's been easier to find the right balance. Of course I get to stop at level 20 now and that helps as well.
 

jgsugden

Legend
You DO understand that tedious slog is an OPINION here? And for him, that may be true. In any event, it's impossible for you to prove it false just because your opinion is different.
Again, no.

When he says it is going to be a tedious slog and left no room for exception, that took it out of his perspective and made it a generalization.

Further, his statement goes beyond that to say it will inherently have no merit.

Stop and look at what what he said with a critical eye.
 

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