You make the call: Spreading the Pain

[ArcaneSpringboard]

I've been playing the last couple of months, but will be returning to DMing this week. However, something occured in our last session that has raised a good question.

For context, please look at:

Arcane Springboard: House Rule: Stunned

Now, beyond extenuating circumstances where the DM is new to DMing, so did not realize that the players were in over their heads with a 4-man party, no Defender, with a Level +3 Solo, plus 6 minions who when killed healed the Solo to the effect of 90 hp.

The key part of the discussion the DM and I are having is whether or not the DM should always make the tactically correct move, even if that results in the player getting knocked out of the combat repeatedly.

Additional context that I didn't go into for the blog post: the solo had earlier been doing dominate powers but not being effective with them. She then turned to her 3-attack basic attack that did a whole lot of damage.

During this combat she attacked my sorcerer, and knocked him Unc, only a couple hp from death. The Artificer then healed me, making me concious but still prone at the feet of the Solo. So the DM attacked me again. Unc, a few hp from death. The Artificer then got me to use my Second Wind, so I was again concious at the feet of the Solo, but prone. Wack. Unc again.

So the question is this...even though it is tactically smart to try to kill the character, is the right 'game' move to do that? Effectively I spent the last four rounds of the combat not able to do anything, and compeletely unable to improve my condition.

A similar situation would be if you had a monster who had an At-Will power that could stun someone until the end of it's next turn. Let's say that tactically the smartest thing to do would be to make sure the PC's Wizard couldn't do anything. So the monster puts all of his attacks, every time, on the Wizard...potentially keeping him out of the combat for the entire encounter.

Or you have a couple of monsters that can do a Stunned, save ends. The first hits...then you wait until it wears off and then hit the same PC with the second one...

Our DM is not entirely wrong in this aspect...after all the great thing about 4e is that you don't have to pull your punches, even at low levels. However, one of the problematic aspects of 4e is that it is possible to remove a player from the combat for an extended length of time.

What do you guys think?

 

[Angellis_ater]

I'd say it depends on the enemy. If the enemy is intelligent or has experience fighting a certain kind of people, this should be reflected in their actions. I prefer a game that is slightly realistic over the "the game is supposed to be fun at all times, fun means always getting to do stuff" - well, it's a team game, if the badguy is wailing at you, then that means someone else stayed up. Worst case is rather than keep on whacking you down is the scenario where he leaves you, whacks someone ELSE down to 0 hp. You get up and either go save that dude or make one ranged attack - but your pal went down. If the badguy has multiattacks, he might just come over to triplewhack someone else so they also go down, and suddenly the entire team is scrambling to get people up again.

Unfortunately for the DM, having a BBEG whack on a "Jack-in-a-box" (up, whack->down, heal, up) is an awesome deal for the players. It essentially means that in exchange for 2 characters doing nothing (one healing, one going down), the rest of the team get to focus fire on the enemy. If we're a little lucky, and healer has minor-action heals, that means three people doing focused fire on a BBEG that is staying put.

This is coming from the guy playing the Bard/Ardent leader in a group of 4 strikers (2 rogues, 1 assassin, 1 warlock). Keeping them up is essential, but I far prefer if the badguy focuses on ONE of my striker friends vs running all over knocking them all down.

 

[Aegeri]

I don't mind the odd stun power now and again, the problem is the auto-hit problem with stun powers (due to some classes having terrible will) and the general "spammability" of it. Stun is just as bad for monsters as PCs, as any solo that does not have a way of dealing with being stunned is effectively automatically free experience points. Personally I am dealing with stun in a couple of ways:

1) I have made solos and elites resistant to it. This means in general stuns aren't such an automatically great choice - while still being very solid against the majority of creatures.

2) On the converse, I reduce the amount of stuns I use on monsters. One monster may have a stun power, but that's it and I typically make them save ends (which allows bonus saves and such). I do not try to "stunlock" PCs anymore. Part of this is because with the new damage and effects of epic monsters, stunlocking isn't required to make an encounter challenging anymore.

I've also decided to start just replacing monsters that would stun/dominate at-will towards dazing or other effects (like employing the PCs highest level encounter against its allies without expiring it, ala the Kraken for example). I also try to make combats where something like the creature that dominates, like the cacodemon in my recent SoH game, can be "forced" out or dealt with to give the PC back their turn. For example the cacodemon dominates the barbarian, but the wizard is first so he uses arcana to force the demon out of the barbarian and remove the dominate condition.

Doing that seems far more fun, because the PC is more "active" in how the condition works and it means even a non save ends power can be prevented.

 

[pemerton]

I tend to be from the "spreading the pain" school of GMing, for the sorts of reasons the OP gives (ie it sucks for the player who is relentlessly targetted). But I also feel at least a thin veneer of logic has to be given for this sort of decision on the part of a monster. For many creatures, that a foe is prone at its feet is a good reason to turn to a different foe who is still standing and posing a more active threat.

 

[LostSoul]

So the question is this...even though it is tactically smart to try to kill the character, is the right 'game' move to do that? Effectively I spent the last four rounds of the combat not able to do anything, and compeletely unable to improve my condition.

It depends on why you are playing.

One of the things I made sure to do with my hack was to tell the DM and the Players their roles. In that hack, the primary goal as DM is to provide the players with meaningful choices. The other "rules" go into how one does that - by maintaining the consistency of the game world is a big one.

In my case it's a question of what the NPC would do. While this may restrict your choices round-by-round, it opens up a whole bunch of other ones. Who am I going to fight? Why do I want to fight this guy? Are there other ways to get what I want without fighting? If we do fight, how can I maximize my chances of success?

In my game those choices are more meaningful than what you do round-to-round, so I have no problem with smashing a PC down and depriving him of options during a combat. The strategic choices outweigh the tactical ones.

Even if a PC is killed and/or removed from play, the player gains important information that can inform future choices. Since my goal for play is to challenge the players and not the PCs, it's not that big a deal if a PC is removed from play.

However, if you are not trying to challenge the players - or if you're focusing on the tactical combat - then you might want to ignore what I've said.

 

[FireLance]

I partly address these issues at the monster selection stage. For example, as a general rule of thumb, any single encounter will have not more than:

1. A single creature with a non-rechargeable or infrequently recharged multiple-target stun power. If the stun is save ends, it cannot be rechargeable, and if the stun lasts one round it can at most be recharged at most once, e.g. when bloodied; OR

2. Up to two creatures with a non-rechargeable or infrequently recharged single-target stun power. Similarly, if the stun is save ends, it cannot be rechargeable, and if the stun lasts one round it can at most be recharged at most once, e.g. when bloodied; OR

3. A single creature with a relatively frequently rechargeable single-target stun power. If the stun is save ends, it cannot be recharged on more than a .

During play, I will not necessarily have the monster always take the most tactically correct option, but I will have the monster take a plausible action, for example, focusing its attention on a healer, or on a character which it deems to be dangerous (Side note: as an example, in the OP's linked case, I would have have the monster attack the artificer who was healing the sorcerer at some point, especially since the sorcerer had been rolling badly and the monster could plausibly dismiss him as not being a threat). It then becomes a question of which plausible action is likely to create the most enjoyable situation at the table.

 

[Mengu]

As a leader player, to avoid whack a mole, I won't heal the person that went down until the monster picks a new target to attack. It's just wasting healing surges. I'll either take another action, or hold my action.

Monsters like to focus fire, as much as the PC's. And there is little reason why they shouldn't. That's pretty much why you want a defender and a controller in your group.

I'm generally a proponent of playing monsters with a goal in mind, depending on the encounter. This may sometimes mean keeping multiple PC's dazed, slowed, immobilized, and prone, sometimes it means keeping a front line busy while a group of monsters try to slink to the back, sometimes monsters are focusing fire on a PC to punch through a defensive PC line, and sometimes all they want to do is eat some brains.

I've removed stun as written from my game, so a player not getting to do anything is rarely a problem. In other people's games when I get stunned, I just don't sweat it, whatever happens happens, I can't do anything about it. I just have to trust the DM knows what they are doing as I get wailed on without the ability to retaliate.

 

[raavek]

As a DM I don't purposefully try to kill my players (none have died to date up, they are level 5)

I would have probably done the same thing by thwacking your sorc unc a few times. However, playing an intelligent monster, if your sorc was down...I would move onto the next target.

I would suggest next time, having your healer delay, and healing your KO'd butt from the brink of death AFTER the solo went. Giving you ample time to gtfo and live

 

[the Jester]

The key part of the discussion the DM and I are having is whether or not the DM should always make the tactically correct move, even if that results in the player getting knocked out of the combat repeatedly.

Only if he wants to run a challenging game.

 

[Tewligan]

Why the hell did the other PC heal you a second time immediately after seeing that the monster had no problem with smacking you back into unconsciousness after the first try? A better choice would have been for another PC to use a round to drag your character out of the fray before patching him up. The problem in this case wasn't bad DMing, it was a dumb move on the healing PC's part.