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<blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 5115528" data-attributes="member: 32164">I derive my definition partly from the way it's used by my friends in MMOs, where it generally involves having to slay hordes of low-level monsters just to get to the next quest. Basically, when combat becomes boring, it's a grind. So here's the definition I use.&quot;Grind is when an encounter has become predictable and player victory is obvious to everyone, but the PCs just have to keep pounding on the monsters until the last monster loses its last hit point.&quot;By contrast, if the monsters are winning, the situation would not usually be considered in the least bit, grindy. That's where the players are hoping for a miracle comeback. And since the PCs have much more ability to &quot;bounce back&quot; from adversity than their adversaries do, this can make for a truly memorable encounter when it happens. It's like a Rocky movie, provided it ends with a bang and doesn't degenerate into futile whacking.If the PCs pull out all the stops, use their dailies to hit, and then have the damage dice turn ugly and leave the hard-to-kill bad guy with a few hit points, the combat's still over. And the bad guy, at that point, is either dead or running away.Sometimes, I miss morale checks. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="JohnSnow, post: 5115528, member: 32164"] I derive my definition partly from the way it's used by my friends in MMOs, where it generally involves having to slay hordes of low-level monsters just to get to the next quest. Basically, when combat becomes boring, it's a grind. So here's the definition I use. "Grind is [i]when an encounter has become predictable and player victory is obvious to everyone,[/i] but the PCs just have to keep pounding on the monsters until the last monster loses its last hit point." By contrast, if the monsters are winning, the situation would not usually be considered in the least bit, grindy. That's where the players are hoping for a miracle comeback. And since the PCs have much more ability to "bounce back" from adversity than their adversaries do, this can make for a truly memorable encounter when it happens. It's like a Rocky movie, provided it ends with a bang and doesn't degenerate into futile whacking. If the PCs pull out all the stops, use their dailies to hit, and then have the damage dice turn ugly and leave the hard-to-kill bad guy with a few hit points, the combat's still over. And the bad guy, at that point, is either dead or running away. Sometimes, I miss morale checks. ;) [/QUOTE]

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