Trash mob fights

[Rolenet]

One daily power, some encounter powers, warlord support, and most of the team is strikers. At level standards, and fewer of them than the party, arent hard to take down in 1 round.

Not that it matters if it's 1 round or 2.

Well, it does, doesn't it? If it's two, the archers ring the alarm! Even if it's one, the whole party still has to make their stealth check AND win initiative to launch the 10 or so attacks that are required to take 3 monsters down before any one starts its turn... and rings the alarm.
(Also, due to damage vs. hp scaling, this stops working at mid-parangon levels.)

So I gather the PCs are basically alpha-striking. But that ought to be a very minor encounter, because pitting 3 low-level monsters vs. 5 PC (in a single wave, even without a rest afterward) is MUCH easier than 5 at-level monsters.

So maybe the challenge for the players is to prevent the monsters from regrouping. If the player do this, and alpha-strike each sub-group, they will prevail. If they don't the monsters regroup and they'll be toast.

But that makes protracted fights something they will have to avoid at all costs. This, in turn, disqualifies pretty much every power except damage-dealing. Defensive powers, in-combat healing, and very notably, defenders (marking a creature that's dead in two turn is pointless) and control (save ends and action forbiddance is useless if they're already dead) are useless.
It's not too surprising that all your PCs are strikers and -I presume- a taclord!

Is this really what D&D4 was designed for? Games with a simpler combat model, and long-term attrition, such as OD&D, would seem much more appropriate?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Is this really what D&D4 was designed for? Games with a simpler combat model, and long-term attrition, such as OD&D, would seem much more appropriate?

That's the advantage of a game with more robust balance, you can use it to do things it wasn't designed for and it doesn't break in 7 places. You can pace your campaign to a 5MWD or have 13+ encounter death marches, and everyone still has something to contribute...

For instance, I've run Temple of the Frog, straight out of Blackmoor, in 4e, using techniques something like the ones above. Skill Challenge for dungeon-delving, minions for low level monsters, swarms for large numbers of them, etc..

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, it does, doesn't it? If it's two, the archers ring the alarm! Even if it's one, the whole party still has to make their stealth check AND win initiative to launch the 10 or so attacks that are required to take 3 monsters down before any one starts its turn... and rings the alarm.
(Also, due to damage vs. hp scaling, this stops working at mid-parangon levels.)

So I gather the PCs are basically alpha-striking. But that ought to be a very minor encounter, because pitting 3 low-level monsters vs. 5 PC (in a single wave, even without a rest afterward) is MUCH easier than 5 at-level monsters.

So maybe the challenge for the players is to prevent the monsters from regrouping. If the player do this, and alpha-strike each sub-group, they will prevail. If they don't the monsters regroup and they'll be toast.

But that makes protracted fights something they will have to avoid at all costs. This, in turn, disqualifies pretty much every power except damage-dealing. Defensive powers, in-combat healing, and very notably, defenders (marking a creature that's dead in two turn is pointless) and control (save ends and action forbiddance is useless if they're already dead) are useless.
It's not too surprising that all your PCs are strikers and -I presume- a taclord!

Is this really what D&D4 was designed for? Games with a simpler combat model, and long-term attrition, such as OD&D, would seem much more appropriate?

So, first of all, I've no need or desire to justify the validity how I run a game to you. So, maybe tone that down, if you want a discussion.

Second, defender marking and control is quite useful in this mode of play, because denying actions and trapping opponents in a catch 22 is always useful. Esp when nearly every power also deals damage. Also, if the enemy survives round one, the defender becomes even more useful, because they can punish an enemy for trying to get away to get back-up. Swordmages are really good at preventing escape. And you have to get to an alarm to ring it.

And the Monk and Assassin actually ended up taking some control powers, to make up for lack of a controller, because sometimes you need an enemy locked down more than you need to kill it a little faster.

Lastly, a lot of stuff stops working without DM intervention in mid paragon. Ya learn to deal with it, or you focus on Heroic and low paragon play.


Sorry if you don't get how it works, but your assumptions and questioning the validity of what I'm doing don't exactly make me want to help you understand it.

 

[Rolenet]

So, first of all, I've no need or desire to justify the validity how I run a game to you. So, maybe tone that down, if you want a discussion. .

I do want one, and by answering, you did explain to me something I didn't get, for which I am grateful. I did not initially see how your initial description could actually run that way within the rules in my experience.

Sorry, indeed, if that came up as some form of comment, or abrasive - I could not just tell you "I don't get it" and needed to detail the issues I saw.
In any event, it obviously works for your table, so any critic would be pointless! And I think I see better how that would work now. I would even try, if I hadn't just ran my last game as a DM for the next year or so...

 

[Tony Vargas]

Lastly, a lot of stuff stops working without DM intervention in mid paragon..

Hadn't noticed - but then intervention may be second-nature to me after running AD&D for so long...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I do want one, and by answering, you did explain to me something I didn't get, for which I am grateful. I did not initially see how your initial description could actually run that way within the rules in my experience.

Sorry, indeed, if that came up as some form of comment, or abrasive - I could not just tell you "I don't get it" and needed to detail the issues I saw.
In any event, it obviously works for your table, so any critic would be pointless! And I think I see better how that would work now. I would even try, if I hadn't just ran my last game as a DM for the next year or so...

Fair enough. Sorry I came back so aggro.

Just ran a session like this in 5e tonight, and it works...fairly well. The hiccups comes when it's time to build the encounter, and when awarding xp. In 4e, i can look up how much xp a level+2 encounter should be, assign at level xp for enemies, and the rest for skill challenge, or whatever. I can look up the expected difficulty and complexity of a skill challenge, break it into parts like breaking a fight into enemies, and mix and match that within a budget.

 

[Rolenet]

In 4e, i can look up how much xp a level+2 encounter should be, assign at level xp for enemies, and the rest for skill challenge, or whatever.

So now I want to try it in a one-shot or something. If you prepare a "split-encounter", I would think you assign more xp/monsters than a "single pack" encounter (esp if some of that XP comes for SC): how much more seems appropriate? For example, would a level+2 encounter still be considered routine or rather hard?

As for 5e, I am puzzled by their changing the enc. building rule. The 4e system I always found so straightforward and much easier than 3.5.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So now I want to try it in a one-shot or something. If you prepare a "split-encounter", I would think you assign more xp/monsters than a "single pack" encounter (esp if some of that XP comes for SC): how much more seems appropriate? For example, would a level+2 encounter still be considered routine or rather hard?

As for 5e, I am puzzled by their changing the enc. building rule. The 4e system I always found so straightforward and much easier than 3.5.

I pretty much go by the xp value for the enemies, plus the complexity of the skill challenge when taken as a whole. But remember that 2, and 2, and 3, at level enemies, is easier than 7 of them at once. So, I don't try to award extra xp when I do this.

For 5e, it's a little harder, because the challenge system is bunk.

My session last night went better than I worried it would. There were only 2PCs, and a companion character.

There was a skill challenge involving magic circle that the wizard had to "hack" to get them out of, and the paladin used Lore (I added a couple skills) and her divine sense to help, and a couple times her Athletics came into play, and then break open a door, then Sneak up on some baddies to figure out their plan, and finally sneak up on different enemies guarding a prisoner, convinced two of them to go away, then a fight with a giant spider and her ranger, and then a bonus minor challenge/fight to chase down and stop the ranger, who had used an amulet to turn into a helmed horror, and flew off with the prisoner.

It was really fun, but judging the right challenge for them was definitely....challenging.