D&D 4E The grindyness of 4e combat: anyone tried a solo monster yet?

[Agamon]

Assassin's Point (Rogue 29 Daily, Standard)
7W & x2 Sneak Attack & Critical damage.

Meditation of the Blade (Rogue 12 Daily, Minor)
Dagger's size increases to d6 for the encounter.

Critical Hit Assumed:
-Daggermaster’s Action: Spend an action point to reroll an attack using a dagger.
-Sly Fortune’s Favor: 3x/day you can reroll an attack.
-Dagger Precision: Daggers critical on roll of 18+.
-(or there's always Knockout: Rogue 9, goodnight)

+42 (7d6 maximized) (d6's instead of d4's due to Meditation of the Blade)
+9 dex
+6 dagger (magic item)
+72 dagger (magic item critical 6d6) (x2 with Assassin's Point)
+24 frost dagger (magic item, daily power, free action 3d8)
+3 Weapon Focus (feat)
+5 Lasting Frost (feat)
+80 Sneak Attack (d6->d8 with backstabber) (x2 with Assassin's Point)
+10 Belt of Giant Strength (magic item, daily power, free action)
=251 damage

Can regain Assassin's point with Tickster's Control or Devine Trick
Critical Opportunity (Rogue 11, minor) for extra damage.
The total can be as high as 388 damage in one turn.

Thank you for reminding me to not take my games to Epic level.

 

[Felon]

Focus fire with all the curses, hunters quarries, and sneak attacks on the same target more than makes up for that.

No, those things would do their damage once per round focused on one 600 HP solo just as it would spread around on five 100 HP standard monsters (assuming defenses were equivalent across the board). There's a slight benefit because you don't lose excess damage after achieving a kill, but that's kind of nominal.

Also, any save-ends effects are severely impaired against a solo. That takes the starch out of DoTs and debuffs.

 

[Anthony Jackson]

A +12 or +13 to hit at level 10 won't be uncommon, and may be more common than your +15.

The lower reasonable minimum for a character built on the default array, which is about as bad as characters should get, is +13 with a weapon attack (+4 from an 18 stat, +5 from level, +2 from weapon, +2 from enhancement). Add +1 if you have a racial attribute bonus. Add +1 if you have a class attack bonus (rogue dagger, ranger prime shot, fighter weapon talent). Add +1 if you use a sword. Add +1 if you have a weapon above your level, which is a modest chance. Add +1 if you had a basic attribute of 18 due to point build. Thus, the plausible range is +13 to +18 with weapons, +11 to +14 with an implement. Anything lower than that requires actively inefficient character generation.

 

[Jack99]

Nevermind.

You seem to be working under the assumption that the game is at fault, but without further information, I do not see how we can clarify what it is that causes your problem.

 

[Leatherhead]

No, those things would do their damage once per round focused on one 600 HP solo just as it would spread around on five 100 HP standard monsters (assuming defenses were equivalent across the board). There's a slight benefit because you don't lose excess damage after achieving a kill, but that's kind of nominal.

Also, any save-ends effects are severely impaired against a solo. That takes the starch out of DoTs and debuffs.

It takes a bit more work to maintain the positioning for sneak attack when you have 5 monsters as opposed to one. Save-ends powers may not last quite as long (one round as opposed to two) , but powers with conditions that last for a fixed period of time (i.e. target is dazed until the end of your next turn) are significantly more crippling against a solo than multiple monsters.

 

[TheNovaLord]

We've had 2 "solo" fights,.... the second against a white dragon(when we were at level 3). The dragon took full daily/encounter spam and lasted 3 rounds.

Party: Dragonborn healing/melee cleric, elven bastard sword/longbow ranger, halfling dagger rogue, half-elf fey warlock.

each person did an average of 16.5hp per round??

seems very lucky?

 

[Iron Sky]

each person did an average of 16.5hp per round??

seems very lucky?

The warlock did crit with flames of phlegethos + hunters quarry + curse + 2d6 from his rod(53 damage).

Our halfling rogue was averaging 20-22 damage with Sly Flourish and CA at level 3... it's more now.

Also, when it only lasts 3 rounds:
Round 1: Daily, AP, Encounter.
Round 2: Encounter.
Round 3: At-wills.

First round at least double average damage, second round more than average due to encounters, third round averae damage.

 

[LostSoul]

When I finally get around to running a solo, I am going to spend a lot of time focusing on the descriptions the characters take.

I am hoping that clear, detailed descriptions will allow players to come up with interesting moves instead of using at-wills over and over again.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I was going to respond to FadedC until Valhalla GH made my point for me. But just to re-iterate, not everyone is going to dump an 18 or 20 into a single stat. And while not accounting for magical weapons, I was considering it as a reasonable attack bonus for all the characters in the party. And if my numbers do skew low, it makes that much more of a point for how things may turn out in practice.

I think I can see what happened to Felon, however. If the party split its attention between the Bulette and the Galeb Duhr, and the Galeb Duhr was attacking, then burrowing, then resurfacing and repeating, taking it down could have taken a very long time. Even in that situation, I do not see 4th Edition combat feeling quite that 'grindy'. Each player has some choice in which at will attacks it will use, and at 10th level, there are also utility powers to consider. The characters also have 3 encounter power each, and 3 Utility powers to draw on, even if they were planing on saving the Daily abilities for a later encounter.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[FadedC]

I was going to respond to FadedC until Valhalla GH made my point for me. But just to re-iterate, not everyone is going to dump an 18 or 20 into a single stat. And while not accounting for magical weapons, I was considering it as a reasonable attack bonus for all the characters in the party. And if my numbers do skew low, it makes that much more of a point for how things may turn out in practice.

END COMMUNICATION

Well as has been pointed out by others as well, the numbers you gave were not remotely reasonable. Even Valhalla's numbers were significantly higher then yours, and he went out of his way to play a weak character. All the numbers I gave assumed a standard point array, and did not involve excessive min/max or assinging base 18s to a stat.

So no there should be no way that the numbers could turn out that way in practice. If they do something is very wrong.