Why Must I Kludge My Combat?

[ExploderWizard]

As I've said on more than one occasion, the goal of 4e wasn't to speed up all combats. It was to make combats last a more predictable length... and (especially) speed up high-level combat.

This one thing that I don't want any part of-combats that last a relatively predictable number of rounds. Nothing screams yawnfest like a ring announcer stepping out and saying " This combat will be a single fall with a 60 minute time limit!"

IMHO predictable sends both barrels into the face of exciting.

Meanwhile, at very low levels, combat would last a very short time with a great deal of swinginess. One hit and your PC was dying. One set of unlucky rolls and your character was dead. There was one infamous combat I ran between a 1st level orc and a 3rd level ranger in a gladitorial arena. First round, the orc won initiative, charged the ranger, critted, and did over 50 points of damage, killing the ranger stone dead.

Problem? Combat is risk.

I find it amusing - with a touch of sadness - that the DDM line has failed in 4e rather than in 3.5e.

Cheers!

Well, a large number of players had a ton of minis from 3.X already and the quality of the minis was slipping. I don't think it was edition related at all.

 

[tuxgeo]

I find it amusing - with a touch of sadness - that the DDM line has failed in 4e rather than in 3.5e.

"The DDM Line is dead. Long live the DDM Line! "

More to the point: the minis-skirmish game is dead, but minis are still coming out -- targeted more toward the RPG, however, rather than being targeted toward the random-draft skirmish game.
We won't see the overall effect of this until the Essentials line has been out for a while. ("Always in motion the future is.")

 

[Raven Crowking]

No.

As I've said on more than one occasion, the goal of 4e wasn't to speed up all combats. It was to make combats last a more predictable length... and (especially) speed up high-level combat.

Is your name listed on the design credits? If not, then what is your source?

Mine is the design announcements and blogs I read. It is certainly possible that I misread them, or misremember them now. However, someone unrelated to the design process saying something on more than one occasion isn't sufficient to make me believe I have done so.

After all, it was only the early comments about speeding up combat and making a more sandbox-friendly game that interested me.

Moreover, since higher-level combats (past 6th level) were the ones people were complaining about being too slow in 3e, it makes no sense to claim that it was a design goal to speed up high-level combat, but not to speed up combat based upon complaints about 3e.

Dungeons and Dragons 4 - DnD, the Dungeons and Dragons Wiki - D&D, 3.5, Characters, and more includes the note "Some other combat rules changes will also speed up the play", but I note that the reference for this seems to have been removed.


RC

 

[MerricB]

Problem? Combat is risk.

Add this rule to all of your combats from now on:

Roll a d6 at the beginning of combat. If you roll a 6, you can participate in the combat. On a 1-5, your character is dead.

Now your combats have *more* risk. Does that make them better?

Cheers!

 

[xechnao]

Add this rule to all of your combats from now on:

Roll a d6 at the beginning of combat. If you roll a 6, you can participate in the combat. On a 1-5, your character is dead.

Now your combats have *more* risk. Does that make them better?

Cheers!

Was there some risk for entering the arena or not? Usually PCs are expected to figure out how to set up fights in environments where they could withdraw if things were turning no good. But the arena?

Anyway, I agree PCs should be able to survive more than one round.

 

[MerricB]

RC, you're probably right: I'm overreaching.

Mind you, what we certainly got was a lot of talk about extending the "sweet spot" of 3e to all levels of 4e.

"One of our goals in designing 4th Edition was to extend the "sweet spot" across all 30 levels of play. There's a general sense among 3rd Edition players that the game hits a sweet spot around level 5 and stays good up to level 12 or so. Below level 5, characters are too fragile, and above level 12 they're too complicated. But I contend that another reason for that sweet spot is that, utterly by coincidence, that's the range of levels where a mostly arbitrary system of damage, hit points, and attack and saving throw numbers align to make the game work reasonably well. One of the ways we extended the sweet spot across all 30 levels was by replacing that arbitrary math with a system that's consistent and coherent throughout the whole game.

"And some of that math is reflected on this table. We have a pretty good idea what character ability scores look like across 30 levels. Every character uses the same progression of attack and defense bonuses. We have targets for monster attack and defense numbers, based on what we have found is a good hit rate for character and monster attacks. And we've done the same math for character and monster hit points. All that math lets us build a table showing target DCs and damage numbers for improvised challenges." - James Wyatt

The jump from that to a more "standard" length - especially with having experienced 4e in play - is not a particularly hard one to make. Exactly if it was a goal or side-effect I won't comment further on, though I have my suspicions.

Cheers!

 

[Raven Crowking]

Obviously, combats should have the right amount of risk -- neither too much, nor too little. And, the "right amount" is going to be determined by the people at the table, not the manufacturer of the game.


RC

 

[MerricB]

Was there some risk for entering the arena or not? Usually PCs are expected to figure out how to set up fights in environments where they could withdraw if things were turning no good. But the arena?

The incident happened about 9 years ago - wow, where did the time go? As part of my Greyhawk campaign, there was an arena in which gladiatorial combats took place for profit. One PC - the 3rd level ranger - enrolled himself into a fight which was (IIRC) until unconsciousness or yielding. His opponent was the 1st-level half-orc, and the PC didn't get an action before he was dead.

I mean, looking at the risk to the character before entering the arena, you were talking about 27 hit points to 5... even with weapon damage for the orc at 1d12+5 or thereabouts, you'd expect to survive a hit. Yeah, good old criticals and swingy combat.

Yes, it is an extreme example, but that basic form of swingy combat applies to all low-level pre-4e combats. Characters are fragile as anything, and if the dice go against you, despite preparation, you're likely dead.

(The sad thing in 3e is that even higher level combats could occasionally run that way. )

Anyway, I agree PCs should be able to survive more than one round.

You'd hope so.

I mean, I'm not against risk in combat. I'm not against unwinnable combats. I just like having the PCs have the option to make a decision that the combat can't be won and get out of there... rather than suddenly going from "I'm fine!" to "I'm dead!"

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Obviously, combats should have the right amount of risk -- neither too much, nor too little. And, the "right amount" is going to be determined by the people at the table, not the manufacturer of the game.

Erm...

Not quite sure what your point is, RC. Sorry about that.

It seems to me that every edition of D&D has had a level of risk determined by the manufacturer (and then modified by playing groups).

Cheers!

 

[Gimby]

Obviously, combats should have the right amount of risk -- neither too much, nor too little. And, the "right amount" is going to be determined by the people at the table, not the manufacturer of the game.

I think the point is that predictability actually helps with this. If the participants of the game want high risk, they can use the guidelines based on the predictability to build a high risk game. If they want low risk, they can do the converse. If your guidelines are not good, then it's far more difficult to be sure if something you thought was high risk actually will be high risk or not.

-edit

Perhaps I'm thinking of a different definition of risk - in general, encounters of a higher level than the characters will be more difficult than those of lower levels, but it will be predictably more difficult.

A simple example would be a high level party vs a Bodak - the characters can easily defeat the creature and are likely to be totally unaffected by it's gaze, but there remains a risk that it will randomly kill someone despite their good saves. This is an easy encounter, but a risky one. Is this more what you are after?