Why do 4e combats grind?

[Felon]

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.

As far as exceptions making the game harder to design and run, I suppose one could argue that facilitating a rut of predictable copy-paste tactics makes for a game that's easy to design and run. However, that's putting makeup on a pig. Given the option between challenging players to be creative in selecting tactics and challenging them to be creative in how they execute the same tactic ad nauseum, I think I can put my finger on which sounds more appealing.

As far as removing those special defenses from 4e being the most rational course of action, that is true given the edition we've been handed. Now characters have a few powers mapped to hotkeys and don't have any recourse for when a power fails other than to fall back on at-wills once they've shot their wad. Essentially, monsters have lost qualities that are both traditionally inherent and intuitively inherent to accommodate the limitations of the class powers system.

As far as deeming a rationalization to be a commendable exercise in creativity, I deem that a rationalization in and of itself. It's making excuses for a lapse in ingenuity on the part of the designers to come up with a robust system that allows for mindless automotons and amorphous blobs to retain their distinctive defenseive qualities.

Even coming up with the most clever rationalization in the world for why a horde of zombies is no more immune to fear or charms than a bunch of ordinary bandits, the simple reality is that the chief reason for a DM to toss out a horde of zombies has been largely nerfed. Like many monsters, their immunities were a big part of what defined them.

 

[Felon]

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.

Here's the thing: the design of 4e doesn't even make generous allowances for ensuring that a daily or encounter power pulls it weight the one time you get to use it in a fight, so that really needs to be addressed prior to devising ways to recharge powers. Is anyone else somewhat dumbfounded that the "reliable" quality was applied in such a limited fashion? Something that would improve the game immensely was basically reduced to being no more than a niche asset of a single class.

If the intent is that powers are supposed to be mostly hit-or-miss, then what I'd like to see are some ways to use basic attacks to achieve different effects--essentially, some minor powers free for all to use.

 

[Rechan]

=
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 think so, no. Because I think simulation should die in a ditch.

If you must, then tack the dwarven resistance to forced movement/knocked prone to swarms/oozes/whatever. Me, I think it's adding more complexity and, for instance, making swarms more powerful than they all ready are.

 

[LostSoul]

As far as exceptions making the game harder to design and run, I suppose one could argue that facilitating a rut of predictable copy-paste tactics makes for a game that's easy to design and run.

Could you give us a detailed example of predictable copy-paste tactics from your own game?

 

[Rechan]

On the topic of Encounter recharging/dailies/etc, I just had an interesting observation.

I was creating a 7th level character for a game. I noticed that, with my encounter, utility, daily, racial, and magic item powers, I likely will not even be able to use them all in a given encounter. This isn't counting watching for the best opportunity to use these powers (I'm playing a leader, so many of my powers supplement others/grant saving throws/moves, so I need to wait to use them).

I wonder how many people that complain of grinding encounters with nothing to do are in the lower-heroic tier, compared to upper Heroic/Paragon (where you have 4 Encounters and multiple dailies, not to mention PP stuff)?

 

[Felon]

I don't think so, no. Because I think simulation should die in a ditch.

If you must, then tack the dwarven resistance to forced movement/knocked prone to swarms/oozes/whatever. Me, I think it's adding more complexity and, for instance, making swarms more powerful than they all ready are.

I suspect that most folks have certain basic expectations of simulation: they expect birds to have the quality of flight, fish should be able to breathe underwater, horses should be able to outrun humans. I guess it could be argued that ensuring that creatures have these qualities could be deemed as adding complexity, but I think it's reasonable to say that having creatures work they way people expect them to is worth it. And those expectations don't suddenly stop when people are dealing with fantastic creatures: intuitively, mass should directly impact how hard it is to shove something around, and non-solid things are tough to get a grip on. The level of complexity added is minimal because there's not much of a learning curve when it comes to things behaving the way pretty much everybody expects they should. So, why object to added complexity here, but not to all those 4e monsters that have an array of heterogeneous powers at their disposal?

That said, my primary concern isn't simulation. It's monsters doing the job DM's want them to do. A medusa that doesn't have a gaze attack, but rather just attacks with a sword, is kind of pointless--it's a snake-haired orc. A rust monster that isn't a threat to metal weapons is just a weird-looking dog. Likewise, a zombie that reacts to everything almost exactly like a living person is rather pathetic--I'd basically be sicc'ing a wave of homeless people on my party. If an ooze is as easy to brawl with as a humanoid, why not just use a humanoid? It's not just about simulation, but also signature. The signature of some monsters is an offensive ability, which 4e does a great job of handling. For others, the signature trait is defensive, and that's where 4e phones it in.

 

[Felon]

Could you give us a detailed example of predictable copy-paste tactics from your own game?

Sure, although I don't have every power's name memorized. For the ranger, it's pretty straightforward: Most encounter attacks get burned right away for maximized damage at the lowest resource cost. If Dire Wolverine Strike or something similar is on-hand, it's saved for when the most targets are on-hand. After those are burned, Twin Strike is spammed since it's generally the best all-purpose attack at-will. Jaws of the Wolf, Two-Wolf Pounce, or something similar is reserved for brutes or other heavy-hitters.

For the warlock, spam Dire Radiance if enemies still need to close, spam Hellish Rebuke if he's pulling aggro, spam Eldritch Blast if the other two aren't ideal. Wait for monsters to cluster, then use Diabolic Grasp to swat an outlying monster into the huddle, then burn an AP to blast with a multi-target attack like Fiery Blast or Avernus Eruption or whatever power he's currently cribbing from his wizard multiclass (followed quickly by enduring the scathing look from whichever melee character(s) got burned).

Is that enough? Not sure what you're looking to hear.

 

[Rechan]

And, for the sake of that same argument, how can swarms be dazed by a single attack? Let's mark that one out. How can a single attack stun a swarm? That one's out. Same with blinded, and slowed. Doesn't make sense how a rogue can sneak-attack a swarm either! Well! So really, any effect that isn't delivered by a spell makes no sense how it can affect hundreds of tiny insects at once. Swarms are nigh-invulnerable (except against area effects).

Part of the problem, Felon, is that PCs have few resources (powers). If monsters just have 'well, this is x, so y power doesn't work on them', the PC who selected power y is now out in the cold.

Yeah, it may seem to facilitate that feel, but it also buggers the player. I am firmly in the 'rogues should be able to sneak attack every damn thing that moves'. So the player who chose various slide/knock prone powers are now pretty much boned, when facing oozes.

This is even moreso when battling swarms. Melee characters are all ready buggered, doing half damage in the first place. And you're suggesting they be even more over a barrel, and utterly useless against a swarm, because the effect doesn't make narrative sense?

In that environment, I'd refuse to play any martial class, because I'm being gimped for ease of disbelief suspension.

 

[LostSoul]

Is that enough? Not sure what you're looking to hear.

I wanted to know why you think players don't have any choices to make in 4e combat.

If I'm reading you right, all anyone would have to do is write a script like you've provided and they should be good for 80%+ of encounters.

 

[Felon]

And, for the sake of that same argument, how can swarms be dazed by a single attack? Let's mark that one out. How can a single attack stun a swarm? That one's out. Same with blinded, and slowed. Doesn't make sense how a rogue can sneak-attack a swarm either! Well! So really, any effect that isn't delivered by a spell makes no sense how it can affect hundreds of tiny insects at once. Swarms are nigh-invulnerable (except against area effects).

Part of the problem, Felon, is that PCs have few resources (powers). If monsters just have 'well, this is x, so y power doesn't work on them', the PC who selected power y is now out in the cold.

Yeah, it may seem to facilitate that feel, but it also buggers the player. I am firmly in the 'rogues should be able to sneak attack every damn thing that moves'. So the player who chose various slide/knock prone powers are now pretty much boned, when facing oozes.

This is even moreso when battling swarms. Melee characters are all ready buggered, doing half damage in the first place. And you're suggesting they be even more over a barrel, and utterly useless against a swarm, because the effect doesn't make narrative sense?

In that environment, I'd refuse to play any martial class, because I'm being gimped for ease of disbelief suspension.

Well, first point of order: it sure seems like you missed a lot of stuff I was saying in my posts, otherwise you wouldn't be explaining to me why granting monsters their signature defenses is problematic in 4e, as you're basically just paraphrasing stuff I've already said. All that stuff about classes offering few powers, all that stuff about a player with effect X being "buggered"--that's all stuff I said. Really. Go back and check it out.

If powers were a little more robust, then they might have more than one possible effect. You'd pick a power knowing that not everything under the sun can be shoved around or knocked over, so you aim for a different effect. But powers aren't like that flexible, so we get to shove everything.

Secondly, I'm left wondering if you abjectly refused to play previous editions. The rules for swarms were very much as stiff as what you described: believe it or not, no monk worth his tofu expected his stunning fist to send a swarm of killer bees reeling. Pretty much no spell or effect that targeted a single creature would affect a swarm. Weapons did half damage against some swarms, no damage against others. AoE's were the main form of offense, but there were some tactics that non-spellcasters could use: you could light a torch or use a similar weapon, for instance. But for certain, they were hard if not impossible to fight using straightforward attacks.

Sounds pretty rough, huh? Well, here's the question you migh want to ask yourself: why throw a bunch of killer bees at a party in the first place? Is it so the ranger pulls out his bow or the rogue pulls out his dagger and proceeds to kill the swarm like it was a goblin? The 4e solution that you seem to condone is just that: homogenize monsters to ensure that whatever weapon a player uses will work against anything they fight so they don't have to ever feel "boned". My spin on it is this: if a swarm is an inappropriate monster for an encounter, then use the goblin or some other monster. There are plenty of monsters that die to cold steel. Personally, I know when I want to use a swarm and why.

As to your refusal to play a martial class because you feel "gimped", "boned", "buggered", and so on--well, there were certainly plenty of monsters that put spellcasters in a bind, and encouraged them to rely on the boys with big swords. If a player has a sense of entitlement that precludes his hero ever being in a situation where he really has to think "ho-lee crap, what am I going to do now?", then I can certainly see why he would feel monsters should be sufficiently watered-down that he never need worry that his sense of total empowerment is slipping away.

Diatribe against all of that as badwrongfun if you wish, but you have to do so in the face of D&D working that way for a long, long time and lots of people having tons of fun sweating as they endeavored to deal with it.