Why is 4E so grindy?

[keterys]

And how - I'm quite used to not getting to take turns with some creatures due to focus fire, nevermind any theoretical hp inflation.

 

[jbear]

The fights that we've had that one might consider them 'grindy' are by far the exception to the rule.

Saying that there are 7 players in my group so combats aren't fast. But they are highly entertaining and my players enjoy the tactical nature of them.

Some elements I have added to the game may contribute to this:
I give pc +7 points to distribute at character creation, so characters are more powerful than usual, and as such more accurate.

At 4th level as a reward for one of the quests they completed they recieved Expertise Feat as a boon. All the pcs are highly accurate.

During they course of the adventure certain events in game have given them other minor powers.

As far as magic items, they have each received a special magic item from a major quest with slightly superior powers (Encounter powers replacing daily powers). I don't apply the milestone rule to magic item use. Also I've worked with each of the pcs to create a magic item that they carry with them from their past with a power (providing me with lots of plot hooks and inspiration for adventures) that began to awake at level 5.
So they always have loads of options.

Once per encounter they can play their 'Do something that rocks' card and augment one of the existing powers in a way that is fun and cool.

Even thay they all have some pretty neat at wills... to say the least combat is never boring.

I try and keep terrain very interesting and relevant. If the fight is lost monster retreat or surrender... I don't always play all creatures to their maximum defensive tactical capabilty in so far as avoidng opportunity attacks and marking penalties unless i consider them hihlt trained or organised creatures. My brutes with massive amounts of hp are quite prepared to wade through 3 opportunity attacks to charge the sorcerer if there is a decent reason why. Actually, achieving cAdv is often reason enough. This way they tend to hit more accurately, harder, and where it hurts but they get hit a lot more and so go down faster themselves. This also gives players lots of stuff to do when its not their turn, keeping their attention on the game.

Some of the most memorable combats had a concrete goal to achieve success other than kill everything that moves. Once that point was achieved, combat ended.

I guess each person finds their own solutions to play the game they want to play. I've never limited my adventures to strictly adhering to the rule set. I love that my players characters are powerful, strange and caught btween the fine lines of what is right and wrong in their quests for power and fame. And so I prefer to bend the game to suit that. I think 4e is a marvellous base to do that from.

 

[MerricB]

Before the conversation goes much further: could the people saying "our group doesn't find 4e grindy" please put an actual time figure on how long it's taking you to clear level-appropriate fights? The baseline we're working with here is "hour-long combats on trash, two-plus-hour combats on solos/big fights, are too much". So is "not grindy" like half-an-hour, or is it still an hour and just a matter of word choice/differing tastes?

Scott; you might find this thread of interest:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/272050-combat-length.html

I've been posting combatants, time taken and rounds taken from my recent sessions of 4e.

Cheers!

 

[MichaelSomething]

A very easy solution is to have an all striker party. They'll either win quickly or die quickly

 

[Ourph]

Same here.

Once the party is familiar with everyone else's powers at the table, and has had some experience working together to take down foes, the grind seems to go away for us. It's only when people do not know how to effectively use their powers, and how to use them in conjunction with the other players, that grind seems to set in for us.

I noticed in the other thread, the one this discussion was forked from, that someone was complaining about grindy combats in RPGA events. This doesn't surprise me at all, since most of the organized play events I've experienced with 4e have had a mix of people who have never played together before, plus the group usually includes one or two new players who haven't played before period. Such a group isn't likely to be able to develop tactical synergy on the spot. This problem tends to go away if the same PCs play together for 2-3 sessions.

:edit to add:

@ScottS - I'm not sure grind really depends on real-world time. To me, grind sets in when the PCs are reduced to at-wills but there is no real danger of anyone dying, so the combat goes on for another 3-4 rounds but no longer holds any real interest. That can happen irrespective of the actual RW time the combat takes. That said, most of my group's combats are completed within 30-45 minutes. A rare combat will go over an hour. You might expect the long ones to be grindy but I find the longer RW times are often the most exciting and the least likely to be grindy (these are usually the ones where the PCs pull out all the stops, so there are dailies and action points going off throughout the encounter). The occasional grindy combat is usually in the 45 minute range.

 

[MerricB]

Also--focus fire.

The difference between PCs who are static and each swing at their own unique enemy and those who move into position to gang up on single enemies and eliminate them one by one is massive.

Very, very true. You have always been encouraged in D&D to concentrate on a single enemy; it's even more true in 4e.

The brilliance of my group is that they'll isolate most of the enemies so they can't participate, and then focus on the one that can reach them.

Cheers!

 

[S'mon]

I have 7 players, PCs level 3-4, I think fights average an hour but the big finale fight last session was around 2 hours+, partly because the PCs didn't Short Rest after the previous fight so their Encounter powers were mostly expended, partly because the level 7 elite Grell was really hard to kill - in fact it eventually escaped.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

this isn't as big of a deal as you might think, so long as you don't go too far out. The math behind monster values is that a monster of level n+4 is worth twice the XP as a monster level n, in fact the same amount of XP as an elite of level n. if you're using something like an n+3 monster for a level n encounter you are using close to (dependant on level) 2/5th's of the encounter's XP budget.

for simpler math let's use the level n+4 example, along with brutes (the most notorious offenders of "grind" along with soldiers)

...

next compare AC. the base assumption is that, on average, you'll hit something of your level on a roll of 10 or better. for brutes this is a bit lower, ... 60% of their swings will hit, and the accurate hitter will net a 70% hit rate. go up for levels and you essentially lose 20%, so 40% and 50% respectively.

...

Those are all averages of course. Your encounter and daily powers do many rounds worth of at-will damage

A few counter points / comments.

First, fewer monsters with more HP is a bit of a wash. Fewer monsters will just get dogpiled. But the to hit difference is what matters most here. Missing with your encounter / daily powers is a big deal, not only for raw damage output, but also due to the potential follow on effects. Success might inflict a Stun or Daze or Ongoing damage. Failure is often nothing, or just half damage.

You also need to consider the knock on effects of taking longer to kill something. It is not only a case of "target X will live longer". It is also a case of "target X will inflict more damage. It means that for however many more rounds the players must split their attacks among multiple targets. It means that a single round of combat requires more attack rolls to resolve.

In any case, the effect of a 2 point shift in to hit bonus has the largest effect at the extreme ends of the scale. There is not a substantive difference to a player between hitting on a 10 and hitting on a 12. But if you can hit a target on 17 and then need a 19, your chance of landing a hit drops by half. And if you have a higher level enemy that can inflict those small penalties to hit or gain a small bonus to AC, it skews things that much more.

An AC from X+4 wont matter to much to the guy with the most optimized character (18 base stat, +3 from weapon, etc). It will hit hardest for the guy who spread his stats around a bit more and likes Axes or Hammers more then Swords. When your Leader and Controllers stop hitting as often, your still losing a great deal of your offensive capabilities.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think there's a lot of reasons.

It's grindy because the designers wanted monsters to hang around long enough to use their powers, and tactical situations enough time to develop in interesting ways. They wanted to get away from the 3e 3-round fight towards more of a 6-round fight as standard.

I think this works well for big set-piece battles, but can be a problem in conjunction with 4e's emphasis on having several fights in an adventuring day.

I definitely think that's part of it.

Though it is support for my "we need stuff to do when not in combat" position. If, out of your 30-some-odd powers, only a quarter of them were attacks or combat utilities (with the rest being abilities to use in social situations, or in exploration), that would be fewer things to do in combat.

Fewer things to do = fewer rounds are OK.

Fewer rounds = shorter combats.

Shorter combats = more stuff (and less grind)

More stuff = a faster pace for the game.

a faster pace = a game that can be played casually, or a game that can be "stacked" onto itself for longer sessions.

more casual play = a game that can serve a broader audience.

So you can see that limiting options in this instance provides a better experience for more people.

The powers sections of 4e makes me think no one there was familiar with [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-Why-More-Less/dp/0060005688"]Barry Shwartz[/ame].

So many different kinds of blue jeans, all doing the exact same thing.

 

[Stormtower]

Grind can be solved by changing party role composition, I've found. In my 4E campaign I specifically asked my 4 players to adhere to a striker-heavy composition: Controller-Defender-Leader-Striker-Striker. The players ended up choosing Wizard (companion NPC), Paladin, Shaman, Rogue, Ranger.

Fights are fast and furious. The party does huge piles of damage quickly but their healing reserves are only average (the Paladin helps, of course). Damage mitigation is high with the Shaman's companion and granting temp HPs.

If your party has multiple leaders or not enough strikers, you may find the ugliness of grindspace rearing its head. Some have suggested reducing monster hp by 25% also helps.