Why do 4e combats grind?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

There are mechanics for recharging powers - but they only appear at Paragon Tier and Epic Tier, via the Paragon Path or your Epic Destiny. They don't follow a consistent mechanic, and for some, you need to look "close" to see it. Some require action points, others are inherent to the power.

Some also come through magical items (Veterans Armor).

Of course, it now seems desirable for some to have such mechanics available beginning at the Heroic Tier and be integrated in the core concept of power. But I am not yet convinced that this would be necessary. I certainly had fights where I would have liked a particular power back, but I've not experienced enough "grind" to make me feel that this is required.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think this was a good juncture at which to borrow some more notes from WoW--namely, copy the warrior and rogue's combat styles, which in WoW consist of using baseline attacks (i.e. at-wills) to build up and empower their more potent attacks (i.e. encounters and dailies). The effect would be that the player is either feeling the tension and anticipation of building up to his Sunday punch, or the pure pleasure of cutting loose; it's dynamic resource management. D&D 4e copies the hotkey bar, but left out the resource management.

An interesting idea.

I guess there are several ways it could be implemented. The simplest one would be to give Encounter and Daily powers a boost against Bloodied foes (thus making them better as 'FINISH HIM!' moves rather than opening moves). This would give an element of building up to the Sunday punch. Whether this would give an extra dice of damage, or double the damage, or give an automatic critical hit or something would require appropriate thought. (are there some powers which already have a bigger effect on bloodied targets? Maybe those could be a cue?)

In fact, spitballing some ideas, maybe something along the lines of a 'FINISH HIM' attack gaining benefits as follows:

• anything that does slow -> immobilise -> restrain goes one step up the line.
• anything that does fire, acid or necrotic damage gains ongoing 5 (or +5?)
• anything that does [W] gains +1 [W]
• anything that does CA -> daze -> stun -> KO goes one step up the line
• anything that does push, pull or slide moves an extra 1

stuff like that?

A more complex one would be to use tokens like Iron Heroes, gaining tokens with each successful hit which can be used to power up encounter powers in some way.

 

[Felon]

I have no problem imagining that an ooze is knocked prone. The ooze is cut in half/hit very hard, and splatters everywhere, requiring a move action to pull itself back together. An ooze can be moved by sticking his weapon into the bulk of it and hurling it in a general direction.

Same with a swarm; all the entities inside of it 'scatter', and need a few moments to pull themselves together.

Just use your imagination.

I have been hearing this response consistently. It seems to be almost commending such rationalizations as an act of creativity. My feeling is this: using one's imagination to explain why everything's homogeneous so you can accept that we're stuck with what you've got is a poor substitute for the designers using their imagination to give the game some much-needed diversity and flexibility. Think of someone you know who's always making elaborate excuses for not doing things that should have been done; is his use of imagination a source of consolation? That's what this feels like to me.

For the sake of argument, let's say we're allowing for rationalizations like those you ably provided. Even if we're not totally throwing out the idea of knocking an ooze prone or sliding a swarm around, shouldn't it still be harder to do than sliding Joe Blow around? Shouldn't it be a greater challenge for the hero?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I have been hearing this response consistently. It seems to be almost commending such rationalizations as an act of creativity.

It certainly is.

My feeling is this: using one's imagination to explain why everything's homogeneous so you can accept that we're stuck with what you've got is a poor substitute for the designers using their imagination to give the game some much-needed diversity and flexibility. Think of someone you know who's always making elaborate excuses for not doing things that should have been done; is his use of imagination a source of consolation? That's what this feels like to me.

I can get that. But I just have to say that I think the designers decided to err on "let the players be creative" then "Let's create some more exceptions that make the game even harder to design and use!". Easy way out some might say. I say it's the only rational thing to do. Some might believe there is always a better way to do things, but I think at some point, there are just different ways to do things, and each come with their own drawbacks. It is an optimization problem in design. This is common in engineering (both "physical" and software engineering") and very often expressed in triples.
Like "Speed, Reliability, Cost - pick any two" for software development. In RPG design, it might be "Usability, Balance, Believability, pick any two." The "pick any two" is of course always a simplification - you can have something of all three, but just not the "maximum" imaginable or desirable. Just as it that it's always triples. Software might have Cost, Reliability, Completeness, Learnability, Time to Market, Performance and more, Game Design probably has Balance, Believability, Completeness, Cost, Extensibility, Usability, Time-To-Market and more.

For the sake of argument, let's say we're allowing for rationalizations like those you ably provided. Even if we're not totally throwing out the idea of knocking an ooze prone or sliding a swarm around, shouldn't it still be harder to do than sliding Joe Blow around? Shouldn't it be a greater challenge for the hero?

I don't know? Maybe it's just as easy, but requires a different process in-game.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Thinking about recharging dailies, what about spending healing surges to recharge a daily, 1 for the first recharce in an encounter, 2 for the 2nd and so forth.
As an aside I am also thinking about burning off healing surges to speed cast a ritual. That is the caster puts more of his personal energy into the ritual to reduce the casting increments. Except here it would be in the temprorary reduction of the available number of surges as well as remaining surges.

 

[Phaezen]

Thinking about recharging dailies, what about spending healing surges to recharge a daily, 1 for the first recharce in an encounter, 2 for the 2nd and so forth.
As an aside I am also thinking about burning off healing surges to speed cast a ritual. That is the caster puts more of his personal energy into the ritual to reduce the casting increments. Except here it would be in the temprorary reduction of the available number of surges as well as remaining surges.

One major problem is that this system would encourage players to nova through healing surges in an encounter and enable the 15 minute day again.

Phaezen

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Thinking about recharging dailies, what about spending healing surges to recharge a daily, 1 for the first recharce in an encounter, 2 for the 2nd and so forth.
As an aside I am also thinking about burning off healing surges to speed cast a ritual. That is the caster puts more of his personal energy into the ritual to reduce the casting increments. Except here it would be in the temprorary reduction of the available number of surges as well as remaining surges.

Use Second Wind instead, but instead of spending a healing surge, you just get your (encounter) power back - and you might also give out a +2 bonus to your next attack instead of a +2 bonus to defense.

In the house rules forum is a thread on removing magic items from the game. One thing I was concerned about was "what happens to daily item use"?
My idea is to introduce a new mechanic as a replacement:
Heroic Effort
Spend a Standard Action to recover one Encounter Power you have already used during this encounter. You also gain a +2 bonus to your next attack roll. (Possible Limitations: You can recharge only a power you have not already recharged this encounter OR you can do this only once per encounter.)
You can use this ability once per day at heroic tier, twice at paragon tier, and three times at epic tier. For each milestone you gain one additional Heroic Effort.


An entirely different approach might be to define "mini"-milestones in each encounter. For example:
- First Bloodied Ally
- First Bloodied Enemy
- First Dropped Enemy
- First Dropped Ally
At this point, the PCs get to recharge one of their encounters. (You could rule that "Bloodied Ally" and "Bloodied Enemy" only apply to the ally being bloodied or the character bloodying the enemy)

 

[UngainlyTitan]

hmm, really like heroic Effort rule.

 

[LostSoul]

For the sake of argument, let's say we're allowing for rationalizations like those you ably provided. Even if we're not totally throwing out the idea of knocking an ooze prone or sliding a swarm around, shouldn't it still be harder to do than sliding Joe Blow around? Shouldn't it be a greater challenge for the hero?

Why? I don't know how oozes work, but maybe it should be easier to slow them down a bit if you hit them in the right way.

It's a simple enough fix either way - the DM feels like they should be easier or harder to "knock prone", so he adds the +/- 2 modifier to the attack roll.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

An interesting idea.

I guess there are several ways it could be implemented. The simplest one would be to give Encounter and Daily powers a boost against Bloodied foes (thus making them better as 'FINISH HIM!' moves rather than opening moves). This would give an element of building up to the Sunday punch.

THere was a thought in another 'grindspace' thread about granting a flat +1 per round... meaning that eventually all attacks are guarenteed to hit. While I think that is too much, perhaps grant a +1 per bloodied/downed opponent {+2 for Elites, +4 for Solo's}...

The 'Finish Him!' moves would come later in the combat when the opponents are on thier last legs, so to speak. The combat momentum would build towards a climatic finish...

Not sure this is my games style as I am one of the players who like down to the wire, 2 to 3 PCs are possibly dead and the BBEG's are still looming...

YMMV!