You make the call: Spreading the Pain

[Tony Vargas]

Is it okay for a DM to repeatedly attack a PC with an effect that removes him from the combat? Or should he spread that attack around? Obviously I believe the latter. ;-).

Deciding how a monster uses it's powers is an issue every DM has to wrap his head around.

Obviously, one way to make tactical decisions for monsters is to try to defeat the PCs - using everything you know about their characters and how they usually play them. It should be pretty obvious that's not an ideal aproach. Only a supremely brilliant/precient/clairsentient monster could know all that.

Another obvious way is to play the monster in the way that's most 'dramatic' or 'fun' for the encounter. It's a legitimate 'storytelling' aproach, but many players get bummed if they realize you're doing it. It's making things 'too easy.'

That leaves trying to play a monster 'realistically,' which is complex. Realistically, monsters spend their whole lives fighting NPCs and other monsters who generally have 1 healing surge and no way to trigger it, and maybe two or three distinct tactical options each. Then, one day, they walk into the middle of a 5-person monstergrinder with a dozen powers each that's able to jump up from 'death' several times in the course of the encounter. Must be traumatic for them.


OK, even ignoring that metagameyness, monsters don't fight determined heroic adventurers every day, most probably do it exactly once in their life, y'know, right at the end of said life. So 'obvious' tactics, like 'gank the mage' are not going to be obvious at all. The monster will know that a given PC can toss a ball of fire when the ball of fire hits him in the nose. He may act accordingly thereafter.

Basically, a monster encounter should be a successions of shocked, surprised, eventually desperate reactions from a monster that's used to roasting villagers armed with little more than pitchforks and snacking on maidens now and then.

A smart monster will obviously regain it's equilibrium faster and start to adapt intelligent tactics based on what he's seen. Run Away, not being the least reasonable such tactic.


Now, setting aside the horror that is PC power levels for a moment, monsters will have some accustomed tactics based on their power set. A monster that can stun an enemy for a turn, for instance, knows that it can either follow up on a stunned enemy while it's vulnerable, or stun another one. It might be accustomed to simply attacking the last enemy that hit it, or the one that hurt it the most, until some other enemy manages a sufficiently damaging attack to get it to shift it's attention. A monster with a (save ends) power, OTOH, is much more enclined to 'spread it around,' since there's no benefit to 'layering' it on someone already affected.


Now, putting it together: A monster is fighting PCs. One of those PCs is vulnerable-looking but lets off a nasy magical attack of some kind, so the monster uses it's stun power on that PC, maybe even follows up to bloody or even drop him if nothing else seems like more of a threat first. But, "sproing" the PC gets back up again. Maybe attacking him is futile? That guy with the holy symbol just tells his allies to get up and they do, so maybe it goes after him next. In the mean time, there's a shouty burly warrior in his face, hitting him whenever he tries to sidle past him or attack one of his buddies. Maybe he should focus on that one. But, wait, there's also some little sneaky guy stabbing the monster in soft vulnerable places even other monsters are too polite to hit you in! Dirty pool!

Bottom line, if the monster focuses on one PC for a couple of rounds, it'll probably take a hell of a beating from some other PC, and shift focus to that one. Add in encounter powers, and whoever he hasn't stunned this round can land something pretty fearsome on him, attracting his attention. Unless the PC he's repeatedly stunning has demonstrated something just overwhelming (like a pre-update stun-lock or a massive radiant damage attack vs an undead), he should be changing targets. Maybe not every round, but often enough to break up the other characters' combos and momentum.

 

[surfarcher]

IMHO it's a judgement call each DM needs to make based on the situation at hand.

Say I'm playing with young people very new to RPGs, for example. I'll often fudge and minionise and have the monsters make stupid decisions. I don't let them know that, of course. It'd ruin their fun.

On the other hand with sophisticated and experienced strategists I'll focus fire, use terrain intelligently and otherwise make the monsters fight for their lives and their home. I'm also likely to add a couple of waves of monsters on the fly or otherwise up the ante if I feel it's appropriate. I don't tell them either. I think this kind of group needs the odd PC down or dead for them to feel therer eally is risk in the game.

To me I want to challenge the players and push them to the edge of their cpaabilities. Letting things be too easy or making them too hard isn't going to do that and, in my book, is going to be less fun than it should be.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

You're discussing this topic about DMs fudging things in the group's favor under the assumptions that all groups are equal. But they are not.

If I would kill a PC most of my players wouldn't learn anything from that they would probably just say, "damn I lost my char".

If I would use all my tactical and rules skills I could kill my group probably every 2nd encounter. - Being more tacticalminded and having higher rules-fu doesn't mean you should use them if your group can't handle them.

My players don't want to get taught how they can improve their tactics or their teamplay. They don't read all the books/sources to make a good/the best char - they want a char they like. They just want to play and have fun. Those are not assumptions that is what I know about them.

Therefore, you can't say a good DM does X and doesn't do Y. You have to know your group to know what is good for them.

So the conclusion is that the things that work for your group KD are not by default the right things for AS' group.

 

[Jhaelen]

My players don't want to get taught how they can improve their tactics or their teamplay. They don't read all the books/sources to make a good/the best char - they want a char they like. They just want to play and have fun. Those are not assumptions that is what I know about them.

Therefore, you can't say a good DM does X and doesn't do Y. You have to know your group to know what is good for them.

So the conclusion is that the things that work for your group KD are not by default the right things for AS' group.

Well, I suppose you are right. However, I've been apparently quite lucky to never have met players that are like this:

Note, that my group includes several players that are best described as casual players. They don't care about optimization at all and don't particularly enjoy reading about rules.

But despite of this, they enjoy being challenged and are more than willing to learn about using better tactics. There are rules I have to explain to them every single session, but their tactics have definitely improved a lot since we started playing. And if an encounter runs smoothly for them these days, they get a sense of achievement, because they know I will not scale back encounters or fudge die rolls to make things easier for them. If an encounter seems easy, it's because they played well. And if they 'win' an encounter by avoiding combat altogether, it's because they roleplayed well.

Anyway, as I said in the beginning, you're probably right that there are players that don't enjoy being challenged. I'm wondering though, why they're playing D&D then? Probably they'd enjoy playing a different rpg more. One with less focus on tactical combats.

 

[Saeviomagy]

If I would use all my tactical and rules skills I could kill my group probably every 2nd encounter. - Being more tacticalminded and having higher rules-fu doesn't mean you should use them if your group can't handle them.

Have you tried? You might be pleasantly surprised. Run a dream sequence gauntlet and see.

With a couple of exceptions driven by party makeup (ie - zero leaders and no attempt to compensate) or specific monsters (anything able to massively restrict party actions, like mass or multi-target stuns or dazes), 4e is pretty forgiving. Those without tactical nous will require more extended rests, but they're not likely to suffer TPKs or deaths much more often unless they simply leave people who are downed to die.

 

[pemerton]

There seems to me to be quite a difference between posing a tactical challenge to the players, and stunlocking and killing a PC. That's not to say that the latter is illegitimate - though as I already posted I tend to spread the pain, using the sort of logic Tony Vargas articulated a few posts uptherad - but I don't think it's fair to infer from "No GM stunlocks" to "No tactical challenge for players". To give the easiest example I can think of - even if you as a GM choose not to have your monsters stunlock a PC, the players still have the tactical challenge of minimising their surge loss over the course of the combat.

 

[Jhaelen]

Have you tried? You might be pleasantly surprised. Run a dream sequence gauntlet and see.

Excellent suggestion! (Unfortunately, I need to spread some more XP around first...)

 

[Black Knight Irios]

Have you tried? You might be pleasantly surprised. Run a dream sequence gauntlet and see.

With a couple of exceptions driven by party makeup (ie - zero leaders and no attempt to compensate) or specific monsters (anything able to massively restrict party actions, like mass or multi-target stuns or dazes), 4e is pretty forgiving. Those without tactical nous will require more extended rests, but they're not likely to suffer TPKs or deaths much more often unless they simply leave people who are downed to die.

A Dream Sequence sounds like a nice tool to test that but what can I learn from it and even more important what do they learn from it?

And actually I had run something similar where they weren't able to die b/c of an artifact's effect. Man I hoped they tried to work as a team and all I got were craptastic tactics. They probably thought, we can't die why even think about good tactics - in the end the encounter dragged on for hours.

 

[Kobold Boots]

To the OP:

1. If a sorceror is in base to base contact with a Level +3 elite solo, you've made such a blatant tactical blunder, your character deserves what he gets.

2. If an artificer continually tries to heal you after it's made obvious that the solo is going to keep striking you down, then he deserves what happens.

3. Is it right to spread the pain? Sure. Is it right to do the tactically right thing all the time? Sure.

The question should be: If I don't know what my DM's combat style is ahead of time, should I be responsible for my lack of enjoyment? Answer there is no. The DM has the responsibility to tell the players the skinny ahead of time.

In my own games I go out of my way to advise "Ok, this encounter is important, if you wipe.. you wipe." Usually gets people to think tactically when they know they could lose their characters perm.

KB

PS. Honest question: Did you really not enjoy yourself because the DM made a choice or because you made a tactical error and the rest of the table found your plight amusing?

Reason I ask: There have been times when my party's tank gets hammered in rapid succession because he's surrounded and I roll 2 or more crits. Most of the time the table cracks up.

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

To the OP:

1. If a sorceror is in base to base contact with a Level +3 elite solo, you've made such a blatant tactical blunder, your character deserves what he gets.

Actually, up until that point the DM had been strictly using ranged attacks that had an effect of sliding the target and making them make an attack. We had no idea it had a killer melee attack as well. We had in fact, spread out dramatcially in order to minimize the effect of the sliding/dominate-ish attack. It was a bit of a shock to then have it come into melee and hit me for 40-odd hp damage.

2. If an artificer continually tries to heal you after it's made obvious that the solo is going to keep striking you down, then he deserves what happens.

As I have said repeatedly, we did not consider delaying. It is not a tactic that as a group, they have really ever used. Obviously that's now changed. I apologize to the Tactical Gods for making such a blunder but can we please stop hammering us on this point. WE GET IT.

I apologize for seeming sensitive to this point, but it keeps getting mentioned, despite me having acknowledged we made an error.

As for the solo is going to keep striking us down...if the DM was quite willing to do that, he very well could have been quite willing to coup de grace me. THAT was what we were trying to avoid here.

3. Is it right to spread the pain? Sure. Is it right to do the tactically right thing all the time? Sure.

The question should be: If I don't know what my DM's combat style is ahead of time, should I be responsible for my lack of enjoyment? Answer there is no. The DM has the responsibility to tell the players the skinny ahead of time.

This is a very good point, and it was a surprise to me when the DM said that that was his intention, even to provoke a TPK if necessary. I was taken a bit aback by that, as it has never occured to me to TRY to TPK a party. If it happens by accident? Sure. But to throw an un-escapable encounter that is likely to TPK the players? That was a surprise.

In my own games I go out of my way to advise "Ok, this encounter is important, if you wipe.. you wipe." Usually gets people to think tactically when they know they could lose their characters perm.

KB

PS. Honest question: Did you really not enjoy yourself because the DM made a choice or because you made a tactical error and the rest of the table found your plight amusing?

I didn't enjoy myself because we were put up against a monster significantly above our abilites to deal with (given that our 5th man, the defender couldn't make the game) which meant that it was difficult to hit (I personally needed a 13 to hit at all). That combined with poor dice luck (rolling lower than 5 for four of the first five rounds. Then combined with coming up with solutions to my predicament (we even started dipping into the Heal checks to allow Second Wind solution) only to have them clobbered, badly. Remember, it wasn't until days later that we'd realized that we did have the solution in having the Artificer delayed. Then _that_ was combined with having the DM express his enjoyment at playing wack-a-mole.

If my character had been hitting repeatedly, for good damage (like say, the Warlock in the party had been), and _then_ I get wacked, I probably wouldn't have had an issue with it. I would have been annoyed, but at least I got my licks in early. If I'd had that poor dice luck and had difficult to hit-rolls but not gotten effectively stun-locked I could have shrugged and I just had bad luck that night.

As it was, I got to roll the damage dice twice in 10-12 rounds.

Reason I ask: There have been times when my party's tank gets hammered in rapid succession because he's surrounded and I roll 2 or more crits. Most of the time the table cracks up.

The difference here is that the tank is probably still able to do something, yes?

It's not the 'challenge' I'm having an issue with. It's not getting wacked for loads of damage. It's being unable to affect the game when my turn comes around...repeatedly.

I find it hard to believe that it's not possible to challenge the party without effectively stun-locking a single PC. Because it isn't.

Incidentally as a side note, the encounter in question is the final one in Stormcrow Tor, which is on DDI. Afterwards I'd taken a look at that monster and realized we should have been TPKed, but the DM being inexperienced didn't realize that the first two attack powers were 'basic attacks'. So instead of having one attack per round for the first five, he should have had 3...Plus he was having the PC decide which at-will to use, which I pointed out to him was not the usual way of doing it, to which of course we were just doing basic attacks...since we sucked at them.