Why do 4e combats grind?

[Herschel]

For good or ill, 'Damage Per Second' is the de-facto measure of all kinds of things in modern MMO's, WoW being the one I play and know about.

Curmudgeon on:

There's your problem. What's this "MMO" stuff? Frazzin' Bumblin' wippersnappers with your nin-ten-does and beep-beep-badeep nonsense. Time is relative. Lunch time, doubly so. Real time does not equal game time. In my day we enjoyed imagination and a good story, not some accounting exercise to a moving picture show.

Curmudgeon off.

 

[Skallgrim]

Well, here's my short list of how I avoid (and how I screw up and endure) grinding:

The last enemies standing start making different decisions. If most of the bad guys are down, the last few guys start doing something else. This may be running away, surrendering, or suicidal attacks, depending on their psychology. This changes up the fight.

When something cool happens, roll with it. I've forgotten this one too many times (and I am embarrassed to admit it). If the rogue unloads a cool daily, couples it with backstab damage, and takes the big baddy down to 1 hit point, just LIE! She killed it, OK? She's a bite-sized badass. Let her have the glory, and don't make someone else pick him off with a plink attack. Can you tell I forgot about this one recently?

Try to get the party to use their cool stuff as a group. If someone is unloading a can of whoop-ass in turn 2, suggest that others might hold off till turn 3. If everyone unloads their dailies early, the cool factor gets muted by the quantity. If one person is cool every round or so, it seems like each round is very cool.

Recharge powers. If the combat is getting less dramatic, I don't care if you didn't roll a 5 or 6. The cool power recharges, OK?

Spread out or bunch up. Don't let your villains move around in predictable ways. Cluster some together to pile on the hurt (and let the area effect attacks mop them up). Move some bad guys to one end of the room, and the others to the other end. Make the party move around to deal with them (even just one sniper on the opposite side can be cool).

I think the danger in the grind is when all you are doing is spamming at-will powers. Move around, stealth some, bull-rush somebody or grab them. Don't get in the trap of thinking that all you do in combat is unload some damage each turn. That's the real grind.

 

[LostSoul]

Sometimes it was avoided by trading grind for swinginess. Other times it wasn't avoided at all. Does it matter?

I think so, because if you can say why 1e combats did not grind you can help figure out why 4e combats do.

 

[frankthedm]

Sometimes it was avoided by trading grind for swinginess. Other times it wasn't avoided at all. Does it matter?

Of course it matters. You have to look at the previous ways of doing things to know which ways are better.

 

[Felon]

How was this avoided in earlier editions of D&D?

Off the top of my head:

• Lots of stop and go traffic. Fight fewer monsters at a time, with an individual battle just being a two or three-round speed bump before looting the room and moving on. It seemed so natural back then yet so inefficient now...
• Obscene amounts of damage possible. No more rolling 20d6 for the wizard, no more rolling 12d6 four or five times in a row for the rogue. No power-attacking FB critting and obliterating the universe. Note that this doesn't just alleviate grind by killing the monsters quicker, but there's the added thrill of rolling all those dice. Balance is nice, but excess excites.
• One-shot-shutdowns. Fighting kobolds? Cast sleep. Down they go. Got a pesky big bad? Cast a hold on it. Coup de grace. Fighting a monster with a big nasty weapon? Disarm.

I neither condone or condemn here, but in general, 4e's emphasis on balance has a cost. It means there are far fewer shortcuts to eliminating a problem.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I think so, because if you can say why 1e combats did not grind you can help figure out why 4e combats do.

Lower overall hit points for most things (especially at lower levels)

Fight ending abilities (sleep, hold, paralysis, petrification, sudden death) that could possibly come into play at any point in the struggle (if such abilities were present)

When considering the swing factor remember that Basic D&D and 1E didn't have official rules for critical hits. High spikes in melee damage were less common than say 3E. The lower hp totals combined with spike damage potential from magic/special abilities helped keep fights a bit shorter.

 

[Scribble]

I think so, because if you can say why 1e combats did not grind you can help figure out why 4e combats do.

I think the answer is that they did, we just didn't notice.

When we (we as in my group) played 2e we didn't use minis. We just handled everything in our heads, and occasionally drew stuff out. It was esentially the grind game of who drops who to 0 first, but since it was all in our heads, I think we imagined more stuff happening.

When we played 3e, we started using the grid. It kept things more organized, and let people be more tactical, but then since a lot of what always happened happened (people standing next to eachother slugging it out) it was a bit more apparent. Not only are the mechanics showing it, but now there's a visual representation of two people standing there doing nothing.

Enter 4e, and we have the minis moving around a bit more causing the visual representation to match up to our heads a little more... But alas, if the encounters run out... we start to see the two people standing next to eachother slugging it out minis not moving thing...

So I think the "grind" was technically always there... You just notice it more.

My answer:

More interactive scenery, and training your players to use it. Put more "scenery" that can function as a make shift attack option. Tempt players by making the damage around that of an encounter power, or something that syncs up nicely with an at-will.

 

[AllisterH]

Actually it was possible to have a grind in 2e (don't remember it occuring with 1e)

Giants and Dragons got their HP increased somewhat significantly, but their THACO wasn't as lowered so I remember running AotG in 2e without a blaster (wizard or psion) and there were combats where the giants literally couldn't hit the melee guys but the damage output was relatively low and there were so many giants that it took a while to clear the encounter even though we knew at least halfway the battle was in our favour....

 

[Dausuul]

I think so, because if you can say why 1e combats did not grind you can help figure out why 4e combats do.

That depends. My perspective on the subject is that 1E combats were unlikely to grind because they were insanely swingy and arbitrary. 4E attempted to remedy this, and occasional grind was a side effect of the remedy chosen.

As I see it, therefore, the 1E "solution" is not really helpful from a 4E point of view. It's like trying to reduce the side effects of a medication by not taking the medication. Sure, the side effects go away, but then you're left with the exact same disease you originally wanted the medication to cure.

 

[Odysseus]

I think so, because if you can say why 1e combats did not grind you can help figure out why 4e combats do.

I remember some 1E combats grinding.
The difference IMO is with 4E you get a combat you know the outcome of, but still takes you 3 or 4 round to finish.