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

[Iron Sky]

Here's what would have happened in my group:

Round 1: Natural 2, AP, Natural 1.
Round 2: Miss.
Round 3: At-will crit, followed by normal rolling.

In the last 9 sessions, that happened more often than it didn't, it was actually getting really old. You can't blame the system for awful rolling, though.

It definitely helps that our group seems to have above-average luck.

Our warlock seems to miss about once a fight. Our cleric tends to roll low, as does our DM. I roll a bit above average to hit, but spent the last session dealing about 5-8 damage a round on 2d10+1d8+1. At the same time, the rogue rolls a 4, hits due to his +15 to hit, then rolls low for damage and says "aw, that's only 20 damage with Sly Flourish."

Nothing like watching your ranger roll all ones on three dice and do 4 damage and the rogue roll all ones on three dice and do 17.

 

[DM_Blake]

Sounds like you're presuming that I haven't run five solo encounters since June 8th in a standard party.

I'm not surprised your experience differs with a party of three. What classes did you say they were, again? No strikers?

Do the math. If 5 characters take 90 minutes to take down a solo, wouldn't 3 characters take nearly twice as long to do the same job?

Doing the math.

As I see it, the answer is no.

I think what you meant to ask was, "wouldn't 3 characters take nearly twice as many rounds to do the same job?" in which case the answer is (almost) yes.

Suppose that said solo takes 10 rounds to kill. For 5 characters, that's 50 man-rounds. And the monster gets 10 rounds as well, for a total of 60 man-rounds. Assuming 90 minutes, that's 1.5 minutes for each character's action. Probably not realistic, but it makes the numbers easy.

Now, assuming just 3 characters, they should only require about the same 50 man-rounds, assuming their average-damage-per-character remains similar to the first group. That means (almost) 17 rounds per character, a 70% increase (not quite "twice as many rounds" but close enough for government math). But now the monster gets 17 rounds instead of 10, for a total of 68 man-rounds. Assuming the same 1.5 minutes per round, we have gone from 90 minutes to 102 minutes.

Not a huge difference between 90 minutes and 102. About a 13% increase - far from "twice as long".

Sure, give the monster 7 extra rounds, 70% more rounds, to beat up the PCs and it's reasonable to assume that the monster will do 70% more damage, and the PCs will need 70% more healing, so either they need healing magic/surges that do 70% more healing per use, or they will spend extra rounds healing - which means it will take even longer to kill the monsters (which means the monsters get even more rounds to do even more damge which requires even more healing...).

 

[Dausuul]

Doing the math.

As I see it, the answer is no.

I think what you meant to ask was, "wouldn't 3 characters take nearly twice as many rounds to do the same job?" in which case the answer is (almost) yes.

Suppose that said solo takes 10 rounds to kill. For 5 characters, that's 50 man-rounds. And the monster gets 10 rounds as well, for a total of 60 man-rounds. Assuming 90 minutes, that's 1.5 minutes for each character's action. Probably not realistic, but it makes the numbers easy.

Now, assuming just 3 characters, they should only require about the same 50 man-rounds, assuming their average-damage-per-character remains similar to the first group. That means (almost) 17 rounds per character, a 70% increase (not quite "twice as many rounds" but close enough for government math). But now the monster gets 17 rounds instead of 10, for a total of 68 man-rounds. Assuming the same 1.5 minutes per round, we have gone from 90 minutes to 102 minutes.

Not a huge difference between 90 minutes and 102. About a 13% increase - far from "twice as long".

True, except for one thing. All man-rounds are not created equal. PCs get a limited number of "power rounds," when they use their encounter and daily powers.

We're talking 10th level here, so I think it's reasonable to figure each PC should have about five "power rounds." Say a "power round" is on average twice as effective as a normal round, which I find to be generally the case. And we'll also figure that one round of attacks for the monster takes twice as long as one round of attacks for a PC, since solo monsters usually have a lot of special powers.

If it takes 10 rounds for a team of 5 PCs to kill a solo, that means the PCs have to inflict a total of 75 rounds' worth of damage (5 power rounds plus 5 normal rounds for each PC). So, you're looking at:

5 PCs versus one solo: Each PC takes five power rounds and five regular rounds, for a total of 50. The solo takes ten rounds, each one counting double, for a total of 20. The combat takes a grand total of 70 rounds.
3 PCs versus one solo: Each PC takes five power rounds and fifteen regular rounds, for a total of 60. The solo takes twenty rounds, each one counting double, for a total of 40. The combat takes a grand total of 100 rounds - an increase of nearly 50%.

It still isn't double, but it's significant. Moreover, it's much more likely to get boring, since the PCs will run out of encounter and daily powers and then have a lot of hit points still to chip away with at-wills.

I have noticed that when I've played with only three players, combat feels draggier than when we've got four or five. Possibly that's the problem.

 

[baberg]

5 PCs versus one solo: Each PC takes five power rounds and five regular rounds, for a total of 50. The solo takes ten rounds, each one counting double, for a total of 20. The combat takes a grand total of 70 rounds.
3 PCs versus one solo: Each PC takes five power rounds and fifteen regular rounds, for a total of 60. The solo takes twenty rounds, each one counting double, for a total of 40. The combat takes a grand total of 100 rounds - an increase of nearly 50%.

Five PCs shouldn't be fighting the same solo monster that three PCs are. The smaller Solo should have fewer hit points and should do less damage, freeing up the Leaders to strike rather than heal.

 

[Dooks Dizzo]

It seems to me that the whole conversation really boils down to party composition doesn't it? If you're running a small party (and 3 is small to my mind) then you might need to 'beef up' the characters a bit or do as others have suggested and make the monsters a tad weaker.

I knwo when we very first started playing, 30hp goblins seemed unbelievable. Fights took forever, and we have 6 players. (Pal, Warlord, Rogue, Wiz, Ranger, Cleric).

Then it dawned on us they were were fighting like idiots. Once we got together and the leaders started buffing the Strikers and the rest focused fire, we were easily dropping an enemy per round, sometimes 2.

A solo monster would get his butt kicked if he came up against our well oiled machine. Now we're only a 2nd level party, but by 10th, we'll be monster badasses.

So I guess in closing, no 4th ed doesn't seem 'Grindy' to me. It did at first but learning how to fight as a team really sped things up. And we're playing with basic stat lines and 2 magic items total in our party of 6.