Why do 4e combats grind?

[Uruush]

When an encounter sputters like that and the NPCs have no chance of turning things around but won't run or give up you should absolutely say "Everyone hand over a healing surge and describe for me how you dispatch the remaining soldiers."

Easy peasy. You don't have to play it out.

 

[Odysseus]

I don't believe grind is related to combat length at all. But more to do with finishing a battle that the party are confident of winning, but takes a few rounds of hacking away.
Ways I avoid this.
I use a critical hit/wound system. So the longer combat the more chance of rolling a critical and getting wounded.
I think carfeully how I use solos and brutes. As the they seem to be the grindest. Especially with regard to tactics.
If I do get into a grind. I'll end the combat early, by reducing the monsters hit points, and having the monsters running away.

 

[Felon]

We got a loooooooootta threads on this topic floating around. Can't we merge them or something?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Why do 4e combats grind?

Because of this.

Short story: You need to have all the parts of a narrative to have a good combat.

"Grindy" combat doesn't have a climax. Right around the time that the first person drops below 0 hps, something cool should kick in. Monsters should use big abilities. PC's should use dailies. Traps should be sprung. Cool stuff should happen.

 

[Minigiant]

If you look at PC damage vs Enemy health ratio, to can see that party optimization is needed.

At the first level most monster take 3-5 hits to die depending on role. The amount they get from levels is huge though. A brute or soldier gains a whole at-will hit worth of damage EACH level. Encounter and daily powers can count as 2-3 at-will hits of damage. So a 6th level brute takes about 10 at-will hits from a non-strike to kill. So if you aren't a striker, have a little more than a 50% chance of hithing, and you're the only one hitting it; it'll take 10+ rounds to kill that brute.

The game assumes that each enemy is being hit by:
1) at least 1 encounter or daily power per tier (2 per tier if elite, or 5 per tier if solo).
2) At least 1 critical hit per tier (2 per tier if elite, or 5 per tier if solo).
3) extra striker damage
OR
4) attacks with boosted accuracy from leaders, CA, or some other attack roll bonus.

If you don't does this, you will likely grind.

 

[Zustiur]

From watching my group, I think a lot of the grind comes down to the dice.
If your players (like mine) are consistently rolling 8-10 on the d20, the battle will grind because you're missing far more than you should.
In our last session (2 combats) I recall the wizard hitting once. With an at-will power. After all his better powers had failed. One of our two strikers wasn't doing much better. Poor guy rolled five 4s in a row for his attacks. There's just no amount of good tactics or party composition that gets around this issue.

I think this is a feature of 4E - now that the numbers have been balanced so much, unbalanced rolls make the combats go too fast or too slow. Previously there was a much more obvious range of 'to hit' rolls required, so some monsters went down quickly, even to those of us who consistently roll low. I think this did a lot to prevent the 'grind' feeling.

 

[Stalker0]

At the first level most monster take 3-5 hits to die depending on role. The amount they get from levels is huge though

This is an interesting point. In 4e, the numbers tend to scale as levels go up. A party's attack bonus increase is countered by a monster's AC bump, etc.

However, a party doesn't gain a lot of damage with the addition of a level, at least not consistently. They gain +1 damage every 6 levels from magic items, and they gain a point or 2 along the way due to feats and stats. Encounter and dailies cause the biggest increase in damage, but those tend to be more sporadic.

I wonder if part of it is that monsters just gain hitpoints faster than a party gains damage?

 

[gribble]

I think generally speaking, it is combat length that creates the sensation of grind. For me at least, it's basically when my character is down to only having at-will and basic attacks as an option - basically the point where the combat becomes just ablatively removing a bunch of hp.

If you look at the numbers, you can see this will start to happen around the 5th round. PCs will usually have no more than 4 encounter attack powers, so once these are all expended your options are to use dailies or at-wills. By this point, the monsters will have probably also used any per-encounter powers as well, and be down to a cycle of alternating recharge and basic attacks.

I.e.: IME, any combat lasting much more than 4-5 rounds will probably start to grind (climactic fights where PCs are likely to burn more dailies can probably handle a few more rounds).

Further, I think 4e monster hps are based on some sort of "average party" damage output, such that they will last about 5 rounds against this "average party". Where your particular party isn't dishing out this average damage, whether regularly (due to sub-par party composition, builds or magic items) or just for a single combat (due to poor rolling or tactics), you're a prime candidate for the next train to grindspace.

I guess it's also possible they got the scaling math a bit wrong and monster hp scale faster than the "average party" damage output, but I think most grindy combats are caused by the above.

 

[CleverNickName]

I don't think the problem is unique to 4th edition. I've experienced this "battle grind" phenomenon in all editions I've ever played, even the much-acclaimed BECM rules. Combat has always slowed our game down. Adding a battle-mat and a half-dozen movement rules might help or make the problem worse, depending on the players.

Really, the only way I have found to keep combat from bogging the game down is to have less of it.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I wonder if the following aspects make the grind more prevalent for parties:
- No or at least unlucky Striker
- Leader focusing on healing (look at the difference between Tactical and Inspiring Warlord)
- Defender with a Leader focus (Paladin, Shielding Swordmages)

I noticed, particularly looking through Martial Power, that a Warlord can grant a lot of extra attacks, sometimes even to multiple characters. Maybe trick to less grindy combats is just increasing the number of attacks and damage dealt out. Sneak Attack, Warlocks Curse and Hunters Quarry might be only usable once per round, but the characters don't hit every time, so a free extra attack can increase the chances for extra damage counting.

I think one of the biggest difference between 3E and 4E might be that focusing on defense in 4E is actually a valid tactic. Healing comes usually in very large chunks - larger chunks then an individual attack typically deals.
But not focusing on defense increases the length of combat.


Well, that's my theory - now, looking back at your "grindy" encounters - what was your party setup?
My Personal Experience:
Yesterday, we had a party with an Inspiring Warlord, a Paladin, a Swordmage (the defensive kind) and a Wizard. No Strikers.
Combats definitely took longer. And while we took a lot of damage, the Warlord just could keep the party up. The Paladin healed himself, and the Swordmage negated damage. But it took a long time to take down two Soldier, leaving Artillery the chance to hit us hard.

Look at this party compensation - A Paladin that can use Lay on Hands to heal himself. He barely used his Divine Challenge (and never to deal damage). A Swordmage reduced damage to the party (that's pretty close to healing). A Warlord giving out Healing Surge triggers as if there was no tomorrow.
But nobody that could deal decisive amounts of damage, and there were very few ways to increase to-hit chances.