Why is 4E so grindy?

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Grindiness

1E was also more grindy than 3E, because PCs did a lot less damage.

I don't mind long combats, but a combat where the PCs exhaust all their cool options in round 3 then just roll dice until round 10 sounds problematic. Was letting PC encounter/daily powers have recharge times within a combat ever considered?

Also, it strikes me as odd that you can do something like halving monster HP in 4E without having all kinds of unintended consequences. Doesn't doing so skew things hugely in favor of the PCs?

Ken

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

1E was also more grindy than 3E, because PCs did a lot less damage.

I don't mind long combats, but a combat where the PCs exhaust all their cool options in round 3 then just roll dice until round 10 sounds problematic. Was letting PC encounter/daily powers have recharge times within a combat ever considered?

Also, it strikes me as odd that you can do something like halving monster HP in 4E without having all kinds of unintended consequences. Doesn't doing so skew things hugely in favor of the PCs?

Ken

It does. I've found it does skew things towards the PCs, because that first monster goes down quicker, to the point that it might only get off one action. This is especially true for Artillery monsters, which I found the strikers could actually bloody with one blow.

This results in a very quick numerical advantage that just continues to escalate through the encounter.

That said, the poster above who increased the numbers to start, might be on the right track of balancing that issue.

Just a simple 2x damage, 1/2 hp isn't enough.

 

[Votan]

I've forked this thread because it seemed appropriate. S let's here people's thoughts on if 4E combat is too much of a grind/time sink and what can be done about it.

I think grindy combat is a natural extension of the modern tendency to have long term characters in D&D. Swingy (and lethal) combat leads to either rapid character turnover or deliberate avoidance of combat. Rolemaster, for example, has a very intuitive and very swingy combat system -- here there are old warriors and bold warriors but no old, bold warriors.

So I am betting on a trade-off.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

My experience as a 4E player was that we'd burn up our encounter powers in the first couple of rounds, and then spend the rest of the fight hitting at-wills until the monsters finally ran out of hit points. The weird bit was that our strikers never seemed able to hit anything (we called our party "The Missed-By-Ones"), which didn't help. Playing a warlord, I was constantly moving the strikers into position, only to have them completely unable to do anything once they were there.
-The Gneech

The biggest complaint I have about WotC pubished adventures is that they tend to write encounter for level X and use monsters of level X+3. This is what I find as the cause of the worst of the almost hit / missed by 1 type problems.

As a DM, I have found that the best way to deal with players who burn off all the encounter and daily abilities early is to attack in waves. Throw half the encounter into the open, then throw the other half. Or if I am going to run a fight with 30 monsters (mostly minions, sure but still), I am inclined to add 3 or 4 to the fight each round rather then start with everything in the open.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Dausuul]

Encounter difficulty does not correlate strongly enough to encounter length.

The designers of 4E were explicit about wanting monsters to stick around long enough to do their "cool moves." So they made damn sure the system kept the monsters around for that long. They succeeded, but at a cost; even if the monsters are being stomped flat, the system ensures they stick around for almost as long as they would in a desperate, white-knuckled, win-by-the-skin-of-your-teeth showdown.

 

[TerraDave]

As some have said, its a design feature to make combats less swingy (clearly one of the big goals of 4E), to give more tactical options, and to let players use their powers, which can become pretty numerous by paragon level.

It does make every encounter feel like a big encounter, and this can throw off pacing, and does take some time.

Still, I would add that I have had plenty of encounters that did not feel grindy, but felt about right, including with elites and solos. Some of the house rules floating around are pretty radical, and would seem to have consequances beyond cutting 30 minutes of real time from a fight.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I think the main difference in 4e is that there aren't any "minor" combats. I'm finding that fights take about the same time as they did in mid-level 3.5, overall, but that there's less variability in their duration. I don't consider it a grind most of the time, though - that's a rather loaded term. I do think it's fair to say that if you like short, random encounters you'd be better served by OD&D, RC, or 1e.

-O

Heh. So awesome that you had to say it twice.

Grind is something that you can let happen or do something about. When we first started playing 4E (KOTS with rules as written) the grind was very apparent and seeing this at level 1, paragon tier play was suspected of being full of never-ending battles.

Then when getting ready to start running my own campaign, I thought about ways to keep the slog factor down. Using the rules as a toolkit rather than THE RULES helped a lot.

1) I cut down HP to anywhere from 50-85% depending on the monster.

2) At-will monster damage output was increased by a die.

3) I play with defenses and attack bonuses on individuals as it suits what they are supposed to represent in the campaign.

4) Semi-minions were added to the mix. These guys do damage as a normal monster and require either a certain number of hits to drop or a single significant hit.


For example I used some gnoll semi-minions with HP: 3/12. These guys could take 3 hits but would drop on any hit doing 12 or more points of damage. I still didn't have to track individual hp and it made players familliar with the standard rules plenty nervous when a 8hp AOE attack
didn't drop any of them.

Fights have been quick and nasty. The crushing amount of at-will damage being pumped out (bugbears hitting for 2d12 will knock the second wind right out of you) leads to rapid surge expenditure. When in kill things mode we can do 5-6 combats in a 5 hour session and still have time for exploration, and sitting around deciding what to do next.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I don't think 4e combat is grindy but fast-paced and tactical. (I am comparing it to level 10+ dnd 3.5 combat). Each round is much faster, but we have a lot more of them. In addition we have much less rules-lookup because the rules are printed with the powers. Last time we played I don't think we used a single book during the whole 4e session.

I can see that 4e combat takes time and that other rpg systems have faster combat systems, but I really like 4e's tactical combat.

Now, I might bring something constructive to this discussion instead of just my opinion based on my games.

We do the following:
a) If it's your turn you say what you do or ask some relevant question, if not, you get skipped
b) when I say who's players turn it is, I mention who is the player after that
c) optimize the party for dps (no cheese)

The result is that combat goes quite quickly, some odd things happen due to the time constraint and people bother to learn their characters properly.

 

[S'mon]

Also, it strikes me as odd that you can do something like halving monster HP in 4E without having all kinds of unintended consequences. Doesn't doing so skew things hugely in favor of the PCs?

Ken

No, what I do is take say eg 2 Worgs (120 hp 400 XP), halve their hit points (to 60), reduce their XPV to 2/3 and add 50% to the number encountered - so it becomes 3 Worgs, half hp, still worth the same XP as the original 2 Worgs, but they start with 50% higher damage output and have 75% of the original hit points between them.

I find it works perfectly.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The minion system of ExploderWizard is like i would have done:
(A hit that deals 5+1/2 level kills a minion outright, otherwise bloodies it)


You can also adapt monsters on the fly:

- gaining a +8 bonus to hit and defense while doing minimum damage and be killed on a single hit.

- gain a +4 bonus to hit and defenses, deal minimum damage twice and be killed in 2 hits.

- take a -4 penalty to hit and defenses and attack twice

-take a -8 penalty to hit and defenses and attack 4 times