Why Must I Kludge My Combat?

[Fanaelialae]

This, I believe, is because they don't really care about how the consequences of their actions affect other people.

Like crocodiles; both live in de Nile.



RC

Every day, countless players are denied basic necessities such as grids and minis by harsh, tyrannical DM overlords. However, for less than a dollar a day, you can sponsor a player, granting him not only a miniature but a sense of spatial orientation within his game world. Won't you please think of the players?

I accept cash or checks.

 

[Stormonu]

After having read through a good bit of the replies, I've organized my thoughts a bit and thought I'd present them:

I think what bothers me about the 4E combat system "kludges" is not so much the use of a grid; I've been using gridded combat and minis since I got into D&D. Its the changes like reducing monster hit points by half, increasing character damage output, not using monsters above the character's level +2, using egg timers to limit character's turns and those sort of tricks to get combats down to a "reasonable length" that irk me. Overall, the RAW combat of 4E simply takes too long to resolve, grid or no grid. If I had to pull the same stunts in my 3.X game or Vampire game to get a combat under 30 minutes, I'd be highly annoyed.

The 4E combat system, overall, annoys me because it is built like a mini-game within the game. If the base combat rules ran more along the level of detail of a skill challenge (say, a 12 success skill challenge; at-wills, encounter and daily "powers" would be akin to different skills) with the option to add deeper detail to the game (perhaps in its own splatbook), I don't think it would bother me so much*. Running combats that are the length (and appearance) of other wargame tournament rounds (such as Mechwarrior: Dark Age or WH40K games I used to play in or a DDM game), simply does not appeal to me, or several of my gamers.

* In fact, I've made several stabs at trying to convert 4E's combat system into a skill challenge. I just haven't had the energy to sit down and slog through it; there's other games that do what I want without having to rewrite so much of the system.

 

[Shazman]

After having read through a good bit of the replies, I've organized my thoughts a bit and thought I'd present them:

I think what bothers me about the 4E combat system "kludges" is not so much the use of a grid; I've been using gridded combat and minis since I got into D&D. Its the changes like reducing monster hit points by half, increasing character damage output, not using monsters above the character's level +2, using egg timers to limit character's turns and those sort of tricks to get combats down to a "reasonable length" that irk me. Overall, the RAW combat of 4E simply takes too long to resolve, grid or no grid. If I had to pull the same stunts in my 3.X game or Vampire game to get a combat under 30 minutes, I'd be highly annoyed.

QFT. I totally agree with you. This boils down the whole thread into one succinct post. 4E combat is slow by default. So slow, in fact, that the RAW game is nearly unplayable for many. This is a huge flaw of the system. It simply doesn't work for more casual gamers (or even hard core gamers) that don't have 6 or more hours to devote to a game session on a regular basis. In fact,the unreasonable length of 4E combat along with annoyance with neverending rules updates (PC nerfs) has seriously diminished LFR play in my area. There a some that want to play, but cannot devote the 6 or more hours to play an LFR mod. If the mods actually only took 4 hours to complete like they are supposed to, I am confident more people would be playing, but 4E's slow combat system makes the time investement too steep for many adults with busy lives. I think it's perfectly okay for a nice setpiece "boss" fight to last an hour and a half or more, but it is not acceptable to have every single fight that is supposed to be even remotely challenging to the PC's to take that long. A nice long, epic fight with the BBEG is fine, but I don't want to spend an hour or more fighting Bob the pig farmer and his four sons turned bandits or a bunch of kobolds. There should be an option in 4E's RAW to have quicker fights for non setpiece encounters.

 

[D'karr]

In fact,the unreasonable length of 4E combat along with annoyance with neverending rules updates (PC nerfs) has seriously diminished LFR play in my area. There a some that want to play, but cannot devote the 6 or more hours to play an LFR mod. If the mods actually only took 4 hours to complete like they are supposed to, I am confident more people would be playing, but 4E's slow combat system makes the time investement too steep for many adults with busy lives.

Interesting that you should mention LFR. We've seen just the opposite in our area. We have a huge influx of new people, and now with D&D Encounters we are seeing even more. The "nerfs" that you mention have been a good thing, IMO. You have to try to keep a level playing field for something like LFR which is global, and some of the changes have been to keep the items and powers in check and from being abusive, which once again IMO is a good thing.

I've been running and organizing LFR games since the campaign started, we routinely run well over 30 sessions in a month across several locations. We have encountered very few LFR adventures that took longer than the "advertised" time, usually the ones that did are the ones that have multiple paths to arrive at the conclusion. "Night I brought out the undead" is the only notoriously long adventure we've found.

So our experiences are completely different. A handful of adventures out of well over a hundred adventures does not seem like a bad ratio. YMMV, of course.

 

[Shazman]

If the rules updates actually fixed serious imbalances in the game, they would be a good thing. What they actually end up doing is trying to shut-down theoretical char-op builds, while people playing even moderately optimized characters have to watch sadly as their PC gets nerfed repeatedly. IMHO, that is the wrong way to do things. I have never seen a 4E character that was "broken" even if they were using some things that were deemed "broken" and got nerfed. I have seen many PC's that simply can't do enough damage to end fights in a reasonable amount of time. If having thngs like half elf twin-strikeing avenger/daggermasters and ranger/fighter/pit fighters is what it takes to do enough damage to end combats in a reasonable amount of time, then I say let them stay.

 

[Mallus]

I have seen many PC's that simply can't do enough damage to end fights in a reasonable amount of time.

My experience is quite different. All our group's PC's are current-errata compliant and they have no problem dishing out the pretend violence. They're frighteningly good at, in fact. And this from a group of inveterate storytellers.

This all cycles back to: some people use the 4e rules more effectively than others (both players in terms of builds/tactics and DM's in terms of encounter design/opponent selection).

 

[Neonchameleon]

After having read through a good bit of the replies, I've organized my thoughts a bit and thought I'd present them:

I think what bothers me about the 4E combat system "kludges" is not so much the use of a grid; I've been using gridded combat and minis since I got into D&D. Its the changes like reducing monster hit points by half, increasing character damage output, not using monsters above the character's level +2, using egg timers to limit character's turns and those sort of tricks to get combats down to a "reasonable length" that irk me. Overall, the RAW combat of 4E simply takes too long to resolve, grid or no grid. If I had to pull the same stunts in my 3.X game or Vampire game to get a combat under 30 minutes, I'd be highly annoyed.

I think the MM3 has the best fix yet. Beef up the monster damage. Meaning that a L5 monster is effectively a significant threat to a L5 PC (the way it always ought to have been). This means that you are effectively dropping from a L7 to a L5 in the fight; a drop of 15 (ish) hit points and 2 from all defences - meaning that it goes down much faster. This seriously reduces grind on its own.

 

[Shazman]

That will only work if they also give a boost to the exp value of the monsters. Otherwise, you have to use more monsters to "spend" your exp budget. More monsters that do a lot more damage, means PC's have to take more time doing defensive actions like using second winds, drinking potions, and using standard action heals or PC's go down more often and can't do damage. That means more rounds of PC's doing less damage, so grind can still happen.

 

[MichaelSomething]

In the odd event this 30 page thread isn't enough for you to read, here's a thread on the Paizo boards that discuss playing without minis as well.

 

[Mallus]

That will only work if they also give a boost to the exp value of the monsters. Otherwise, you have to use more monsters to "spend" your exp budget.

Err... exp budgets are guidelines. Use as many opponents as you need and no more. You seem to be inventing a problem where one doesn't exist -- or am I missing something?