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Crow
2008-06-13, 07:49 PM
So we finally got our little group together and gave the new edition a spin. The (cliched) plot was made up pretty quickly on the fly, and just a few things were put together ahead of time. Basically an old lady came and propositioned the PC's in a tavern (yes, we started in a tavern). Her grandson was kidnapped by some kobolds, who killed her husband in the attempt. They left a ransom note, and so the old lady was going to have the PC's go to the exchange.

The group was made up of the following;

Human Cleric of Pelor (Annie)
Eladrin Rogue (Corey)
Halfling Rogue (Josie)
Human Ranger (me, DMPC)

The adventure went by alright, but we did have some seriously bad runs of dice-rolling though, where the dice didn't smile on us. We had only one character go down (the Halfling Rogue) in about 7 encounters, who was quickly saved by a Heal check. We also never laid down for an extended rest, as we were never in a safe place to do so. The group could have left to rest, but I think they didn't want to risk the kobolds relocating the hostage before they came back (I don't know).

Some observations we made:

Level 1 monsters have a lot of hp. You really have to slog it out in order to defeat an enemy 1 on 1. This really wasn't a whole lot of fun. Even on a critical hit with an encounter power, you have a decent chance of not taking them out. This isn't very fun...but it's not the worst thing that could be wrong.

Minions are made more satisfying by the other threats' high hp. Even though you pretty much know you can drop them in one hit anyways, there is still a feeling of gratification in dropping the enemy in one hit. This probably wouldn't be the case if other level 1 monsters weren't so durable.

Daily powers suck. Encounter powers are great. Of the daily powers the group used, 50% were innefective. The much-vaunted daily power...rather than striking with the power of a grizzly bear, fails with the mew of a kitten if you miss. Encounter powers on the other hand are excellent. If you do miss, you will get to use it later without needing to sleep 6 hours. In addition, many of them are nearly as good as the daily powers are anyways. It seems as if daily powers should be the ones you use on easier to hit foes, because you don't want to waste them on hard-to-hit targets.

Picking the right At-Will powers will make or break your character. These end up being your character's bread and butter, and at low levels you will use them a lot. Picking a lame at-will (which I did, and used once), is a waste of precious resources...luckily I got a free one for being human.

Skill Challenges are hard to implement. Unless you lay it out for the players and say "You need this many successes before you get this many failures, using these skills." these will not be fun for the players. And if you do...it destroys immersion. We did a skill challenge of tracking through the sewers, and another which was a hostage negotiation. Tracking through the sewers went well, but was nothing more than repetitive die rolling, the DM guide didn't seem to help in outlining how to make the challenge more interesting than just being die rolls. The hostage negotiation was a disaster. Our group usually role-plays these things out, so maybe that is the problem. No matter what the players say, or how reasonable they are, success or failure are determined by the dice, (I assigned modifiers to take into account what they were saying) and not by the motivations, loves, hatreds, and situations of the people negotiating. The dice were absolutely malicious for the players at this point too. "We'll give you everything you want, just hand over the boy and we'll leave." <rolls natural 1>. "Never!" This "Skill Challenge" went so badly, that I wish I had just said "Roll diplomacy, get this many successes.", instead of trying to role-play it out at all. To be fair, I never flat-out told the players that it was a skill challenge.

Traps and Hazards are great, but I wish it was easier to design your own. We had fun with the ones I inserted in the adventure, but I didn't have enough time to look through the books in order to design one all on my own. I didn't even bother trying to make one part of a skill-challenge.

Even with "unlimited" out-of-combat healing, you still need a cleric, and he still needs to heal. That second-wind just doesn't cut it, and as the day goes on, you start to run short of healing surges.

Sneak attack damage is great...but neccessary. Those extra dice really add up, but the rogues almost needed to have it in order to bring down the bad guys. Probably due to the high hp of enemies. Corey's rogue used an ability that slid the enemy, which caused him to fall off a ledge, killing him. She didn't get sneak attack damage, but it was the only other real example of the rogue doing anything that didn't rely upon combat advantage.

The rogue cannot go it alone. At low levels at least, the team really needs to work together in order to overcome challenges. This is a good thing for the most part.

Markers and Hunter's Quarry. Keeping track of who has been marked by whom is a serious pain in the butt. I just threw it out because it was too much paperwork. Maybe if a mark lasted the entire encounter it would be ok, but when multiple marks are ending and being created each turn, it gets to be a headache. Also, I kept forgetting to designate Hunter's Quarry.

Enemy abilites can be frustrating to casual players. The Kobold Dragonshield (level 2 enemy) ability which lets them shift 1 move when an enemy gets close seriously pissed off Corey. I had to flat out tell the players under what conditions they were able to do this. Most just said "Screw it", and went with ranged attacks.

I am sure there are things which I forgot to mention, but those were the ones which came immediately to mind.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-13, 08:15 PM
As for skill challenges, the DMG is quite clear. Wing it or prepare it beforehand, you ROLEPLAY IT. Yeah, it's like that. Say you find tracks in the mud and ooze, that they find multiple routes, etc.

As for the dragonshields, I blame it on the lack of familiarity of the players with the system. Once you look through it, you realize you can ready a power and then whack the dragonshield as it tries to move away. Works wonders.

As for the high HP, that's because mano-a-mano fights are for solos. You're supposed to teamplay, not to just go your way like that.

And finally, for the daily power things...that's why the fighter should pick the Reliable Brute Strike, why the rogue wants Nimble Blade and Combat Advantage, and why so many of the wizards powers debuff. You want to set up your enemy for dailies, not open with them unless they're reliable. I've yet to see anybody, IRL or In-game, who though just swingin' out wildly would work.


Also, it's no surprise that the fights were hard. Without a defender, enemies can move with impunity, and defenders add a massive boost in tactical mobility and damage.

Crow
2008-06-13, 09:50 PM
As for skill challenges, the DMG is quite clear. Wing it or prepare it beforehand, you ROLEPLAY IT. Yeah, it's like that. Say you find tracks in the mud and ooze, that they find multiple routes, etc.

I understand how to candy-coat and dress up thing with descriptions, but a point still comes where the players think "Ok, how many more fricking rolls...". When it comes to things like our negotiation, there is a huge disconnect when the conversation is going one way, but the rolls are going the other way. When the dice keep coming up as failures, it strains believability for the person you're negotiating with to be utterly unreasonable even though having them agree with you would be more "in-character" for them. When an NPC's loves, hates, motivations, and desires are pretty much swept to the side because a skill check says they don't matter, that doesn't seem to encourage roleplaying it out. I'm probably never going to bother with a social skill challenge again. It worked great for the "tracking through sewers" thing though, and would probably work great for crossing a swaying rope bridge or something. I'll probably just use it for things like that.


As for the dragonshields, I blame it on the lack of familiarity of the players with the system. Once you look through it, you realize you can ready a power and then whack the dragonshield as it tries to move away. Works wonders.

I am sure that works great, but I don't have my books to look it up. My players just ended up going with ranged attacks. Still, I don't think my players have the time to learn every in and out of the rule system just so they can take on basic bad guys.


As for the high HP, that's because mano-a-mano fights are for solos. You're supposed to teamplay, not to just go your way like that.

While it's great that the enemies are on even footing with the players, it is disheartening when 1 enemy (whom the party should handle 4 of with little difficulty) requires the concerted efforts of 4 people to take down quickly. Like I said, this made having minions great, because it gave a little hope back to the players to actually take somebody down. I expect solo monsters to be tough, but "Kobold Skirmisher" should go down a little easier once you start to hit.


And finally, for the daily power things...that's why the fighter should pick the Reliable Brute Strike, why the rogue wants Nimble Blade and Combat Advantage, and why so many of the wizards powers debuff. You want to set up your enemy for dailies, not open with them unless they're reliable. I've yet to see anybody, IRL or In-game, who though just swingin' out wildly would work.

I don't know where you got "swingin' out wildly from. I also don't know why you assumed that our group just let the dailies fly when combat started. The entire group, knowing that they only had one shot with the dailies, waited for good times to use them. The rogues did wait until they had CA (and they hit). My ranger missed with the Split shot due to crappy rolls, and so did the cleric, also due to crappy rolls. I know that crap rolls happen. I didn't say that the daily abilities were bad at what they did. Just that the way they are implemented is sort of lame. Given a choice of a daily power, and an extra encounter power, the encounter power is a better value, just in case bad luck ruins your daily.


Also, it's no surprise that the fights were hard. Without a defender, enemies can move with impunity, and defenders add a massive boost in tactical mobility and damage.

I hope the method with which they add that "massive boost in tactical mobility and damage" is not with the clunky marking mechanic. Our group had little difficulty in the mobility department. In fact, it was the most mobile I have ever seen my players. As far as damage is concerned, unless it is a huge boost, I can't see it making much of a difference. Let me make it clear though, the fights were not hard. They were fun because it was a new system, and we had nifty new abilities, but it wasn't enjoyable wailing on standard enemies for multiple rounds (the dice were unkind), and even when we were hitting, not making much of a dent in their defenses.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-13, 09:56 PM
Nah, the marking mechanic is not clunky, at all. See, the fighter is actually a better damage dealer than the rogue, if well prepared, and the paladin can stop an enemy dead on his tracks. Because of that, it allows the rest of the team to try out more focused strategies, and since every time the enemy tries to move or attack is possibly a hit, there's a lot of damage coming.

Also, about the dailies...yeah. Unkind dice suck. It's probably the reason for the Gauntlets of Destruction.

Also, did you tone down the number of monsters? The default number of players is now five, so if you have less, you have to tone the number of monsters down a notch.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-06-13, 10:20 PM
Skill Challenges: it gets easier as you get used to them.

Take the "Negotiating" challenge. First you have to define success and failure for the PCs. What do the kobolds want? What do the PCs want to achieve.

IMHO, a hostage negotiation SC only works if the PCs are trying to do something aside from do what the terrorists want. If you set up the challenge to be "The PCs want the kobolds to accept the ransom and release the boy" then why would the kobolds not just take the money?

Perhaps the kobolds think the PCs are suckers, and that they can get more money because the PCs negotiate so poorly? You really do have to think these through well in advance - and the dice rolling is only useful if you think it important for the PCs abilities to have an effect. If it like you say, and the PCs just said something that no one would refuse (and you can't think of a way to deal with it) just scrap the challenge and send the PCs home with all the loot. I mean, that's what you would have done without the challenge, right?

Challenges are designed to stop that kind of thing from happening. It forces the PCs to not play the DM, but to play the game (see Rich's discussion of "Diplomacy" in the "Gaming" tab for why this may be useful).

Let's take your example:

"We'll give you everything you want, just hand over the boy and we'll leave." <rolls natural 1>. "Never!"

Why would the Kobolds say never to this? Wouldn't they say "Ha, then put the gold in the center of the room and leave. We'll send the boy out tomorrow" ... and then if the PCs are foolish enough to do this, the kobolds take the gold and the boy isn't released, and another ransom note goes out.

See? Lots of room is left in that scenario to RP a failure. The failure here is that the kobolds don't take the PCs seriously (Diplomacy Failure) and so they're going to try to eat their cake, and have it too.

Crow
2008-06-13, 11:01 PM
Nah, the marking mechanic is not clunky, at all. See, the fighter is actually a better damage dealer than the rogue, if well prepared, and the paladin can stop an enemy dead on his tracks. Because of that, it allows the rest of the team to try out more focused strategies, and since every time the enemy tries to move or attack is possibly a hit, there's a lot of damage coming.

Also, about the dailies...yeah. Unkind dice suck. It's probably the reason for the Gauntlets of Destruction.

Also, did you tone down the number of monsters? The default number of players is now five, so if you have less, you have to tone the number of monsters down a notch.

I am sure the marking mechanic is not too difficult to use when just one person in the encounter is using it. The thing is, that we didn't have a player character fighter using it, but rather we had multiple enemies using it (the dragonshields). It was a ridiculous pain, so I just ended up ignoring it.

I spent a good amount of time looking on CharOp for ways to increase attack bonus because the dice traumatized me so badly!

I didn't tone down the monsters because I had been expecting another player to show up (who didn't). So the 4 person party was taking on 5 person party challenges. They were still pretty easy, but started to feel like slogging matches with a bunch of movement thrown in.


Skill Challenges: it gets easier as you get used to them.

Take the "Negotiating" challenge. First you have to define success and failure for the PCs. What do the kobolds want? What do the PCs want to achieve.

IMHO, a hostage negotiation SC only works if the PCs are trying to do something aside from do what the terrorists want. If you set up the challenge to be "The PCs want the kobolds to accept the ransom and release the boy" then why would the kobolds not just take the money?

Perhaps the kobolds think the PCs are suckers, and that they can get more money because the PCs negotiate so poorly? You really do have to think these through well in advance - and the dice rolling is only useful if you think it important for the PCs abilities to have an effect. If it like you say, and the PCs just said something that no one would refuse (and you can't think of a way to deal with it) just scrap the challenge and send the PCs home with all the loot. I mean, that's what you would have done without the challenge, right?

Challenges are designed to stop that kind of thing from happening. It forces the PCs to not play the DM, but to play the game (see Rich's discussion of "Diplomacy" in the "Gaming" tab for why this may be useful).

Let's take your example:


"We'll give you everything you want, just hand over the boy and we'll leave." <rolls natural 1>. "Never!"

Why would the Kobolds say never to this? Wouldn't they say "Ha, then put the gold in the center of the room and leave. We'll send the boy out tomorrow" ... and then if the PCs are foolish enough to do this, the kobolds take the gold and the boy isn't released, and another ransom note goes out.

See? Lots of room is left in that scenario to RP a failure. The failure here is that the kobolds don't take the PCs seriously (Diplomacy Failure) and so they're going to try to eat their cake, and have it too.

In our situation, the Kobolds wanted to extort more money out of the PC's. I ended up getting fed up with the skill challenge but didn't want to stop in the middle of the game to re-tool the thing, so I just represented the failures as the kobold stalling to allow his people to go around and trap the players so he could kill them. After the kobold's people cut off the pc's escape, the players decided to fight. Basically, the kobolds had tried to get the players to do something like you said, but the players weren't foolish enough to bite. My example was an exaggeration, and not what actually happened.

It just seems like it would make more sense if I did something like; "Ok, you sit down and negotiate with the kobold leader and his lawyers. Roll your diplomacy against DC whatever and keep rolling until you get however many successes." Then if they fail, say something like "After bandying back forth over specifics, the kobold leader still refuses to come down on his offer...what now?" Or if they succeed. "After negotiating back and forth for the past hour, you have convinced the kobold leader to come down to your offer.

But then we lose a great deal of roleplaying opportunity. In our case it basically became (due to failures);

Kobold: "We want this."
Players: "No."

Followed by the players offering small variations of their same offer. But they still hadn't accumulated enough failures to fail (by the rules)...They were still 1 away. Do you think I should just scrap the skill challenge if they don't have anything new to input before it's over?

Oracle_Hunter
2008-06-13, 11:26 PM
In our situation, the Kobolds wanted to extort more money out of the PC's. I ended up getting fed up with the skill challenge but didn't want to stop in the middle of the game to re-tool the thing, so I just represented the failures as the kobold stalling to allow his people to go around and trap the players so he could kill them. After the kobold's people cut off the pc's escape, the players decided to fight. Basically, the kobolds had tried to get the players to do something like you said, but the players weren't foolish enough to bite. My example was an exaggeration, and not what actually happened.

It just seems like it would make more sense if I did something like; "Ok, you sit down and negotiate with the kobold leader and his lawyers. Roll your diplomacy against DC whatever and keep rolling until you get however many successes." Then if they fail, say something like "After bandying back forth over specifics, the kobold leader still refuses to come down on his offer...what now?" Or if they succeed. "After negotiating back and forth for the past hour, you have convinced the kobold leader to come down to your offer.

But then we lose a great deal of roleplaying opportunity. In our case it basically became (due to failures);

Kobold: "We want this."
Players: "No."

Followed by the players offering small variations of their same offer. But they still hadn't accumulated enough failures to fail (by the rules)...They were still 1 away. Do you think I should just scrap the skill challenge if they don't have anything new to input before it's over?

If the PCs decide to fail the Skill Challenge (by stopping negotiations) then they fail it. Additionally, give hints for successful gambits:

DM: You stand at the far side of a long, narrow room, staring down a group of kobolds. One steps forwards wearing a particularly silly hat and says "Hmph, survived the traps you did? Ransom, now you give us?"
Rogue: "Maybe yes, maybe no. How about you bring the boy out first, so that we know he's still alive."
DM: Roll Diplomacy *checks* a failure. "Hmph, boy we bring out and snatch him you will. First, gold you show us."
Fighter: Bah! "Gold? How about some steel instead? We killed off your guards and survived your traps. Bring him out now or we'll get him ourselves!" I'll use Intimidate.
DM: Yeah you will *checks* a success. You see a couple of the kobolds behind Yoda start shifting around nervously. They begin whispering in Draconic briefly before Yoda thwaps one with his hexing rod. He turns back to you, but you can see he's become unnerved. "Nothing, violence will get you. Boy is well hidden. But proof we need."
Paladin: I take a handful of gold from my pack and hold it up in the torchlight. "We are honorable people, creature. This is proof of our bargain, and now show us the same." Diplomacy?
DM: Yep. *checks* another failure. Man, that's rough. Yoda brightens visibly, and you see that several of the muttering kobolds are now staring at the gold in your hand with rapt fascination. Looks like a little gold killed what dissent Fighter had sown. Yoda smiles broadly "Ah, good. Boy is quite safe, and bring him we will. First, place the gold in the center of the room and leave it for us to count." You don't like the look of his grin. Cleric, what have you been doing.
Cleric: looks up from his comic book Huh? Um... I tell the kobold no.
Party: groans
DM: *sigh* okay, roll Diplomacy - and I'm putting this at a penalty, because the kobolds have been watching you pick your nose rather than pay attention in a potentially dangerous situation. *checks* a success? Pah! Yoda takes a step back and blinks rapidly in the face of your surprisingly forceful retort. "Uh, then put it before you. See it from here we can."
Fighter: What? No! Don't do that.
DM: What are you doing, Fighter?
Fighter: Oh, um... I'll Intimidate the kobolds again. Something about how they better bring out the boy first before we kick their ass.
DM: *checks* Success. The kobolds begin muttering amongst themselves again, and it takes Yoda a couple of whacks to get them to quiet down. If you keep this up, he might have a mutiny to deal with.
(and so on)

See? You keep the interactions going on. If the PCs get bored, give them hints they're making progress - and if you find the PCs get bored with, say Complexity 4 social encounters, use 3 instead, or 2. You can totally tone down the Complexity of a SC in the middle of it too - just make a note in your adventure.

Was that helpful?

bdh5533
2008-06-13, 11:36 PM
Well i have to say our group got together and I was very satisfied with the system overall. It definately felt like it was lacking something, but i can't my finger on it. character creation was fast like mentioned above, definately take some time choosing your at-will powers. you will be using them the most.

we had:

elf ranger (me)
halfling rogue
human fighter
half-elf warlord

one thing to note, we are all experienced in tactical movement games. 4e definately feels more about movement. the slide, push, pull are all interesting. my elf archer really felt like he was dancing all over the place and never took an AO.

some short comings of the characters we played:

the rogues movement doesn't allow him to slide, so AO's are constant. there are plenty of abilities to give him backstabbing. improved backstabbing is definately a must

for the hunters quarry, we simply just assumed i marked the guy closest to me unless i took a minor action. ranged hunters seem to be a bit more powerful than two weapon hunters, since you still get multiple attacks. also two weapon fighting seems weak still.

the fighter took alot of punishment, but he had a LOAD of Healing surges, so combined with our warlord, everything was good. cleave was quite good for taking out minions.

the warlord is great at keeping the rest of the party healed, but they can't heal themselves. all potions/ritual scrolls need to go to them.

Learnedguy
2008-06-14, 01:36 AM
A good way to keep track on hunters quarry and all the other abilities along those lines is to use some kind of marker (a penny or something). Did you try that?

Chosen_of_Vecna
2008-06-14, 02:11 AM
1) Skill challenges are stupid, the math is terrible. You always want to pick the highest complexity, because that makes it easier. It totally makes no sense, and it really is just roll. Now do that again 8 times.

2) Skills are dumb because DCs scale. Climb a rope. Now go level up 7 times. Go back at level 8 and try to climb a rope. For some reason the rope is now harder to climb. This is stupid, so you add half level to all skill checks and all skill checks go up by 1 every other level. Great, you know what you did, just added 0. You might as well remove the scaling and the half level bonus, since a level 30 Rogue is just as good at picking any given lock as a level 1 Rogue.

3) Yes at wills are the most important, yes combat is a boring slugfest, just wait till you get to higher levels.

Skyserpent
2008-06-14, 02:24 AM
1) Skill challenges are stupid, the math is terrible. You always want to pick the highest complexity, because that makes it easier. It totally makes no sense, and it really is just roll. Now do that again 8 times.

2) Skills are dumb because DCs scale. Climb a rope. Now go level up 7 times. Go back at level 8 and try to climb a rope. For some reason the rope is now harder to climb. This is stupid, so you add half level to all skill checks and all skill checks go up by 1 every other level. Great, you know what you did, just added 0. You might as well remove the scaling and the half level bonus, since a level 30 Rogue is just as good at picking any given lock as a level 1 Rogue.

3) Yes at wills are the most important, yes combat is a boring slugfest, just wait till you get to higher levels.


1) I dunno, we've had fun with ours... tactically making choices in the conversation and the like, if I make this knowledge check my bluff check will get a bonus, if I fail this bluff check then my intimidate check takes a penalty... this was fun

2) what? no they don't... Rope climbing and such is a flat DC with a flat bonus or penalty based on slipperiness and the like... The locks are divided into specific tiers: Heroic tier locks can be encountered at Paragon tier, they're just a cakewalk... Just as Epic locks can be encountered at Heroic... The big difference is that instead of dividing it into qualities they just divided it into standard tiers... I agree that the way they laid it out is a bit difficult to interpret correctly, but hey if you just say that each tier has a particular quality of lock that is the standard, I think it works out... Shoulda said that explicitly though...

3) Combat was far more dull in 3.5 imho, I LOVE battling it out in 4e.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-06-14, 02:35 AM
1) Skill challenges are stupid, the math is terrible. You always want to pick the highest complexity, because that makes it easier. It totally makes no sense, and it really is just roll. Now do that again 8 times.

2) Skills are dumb because DCs scale. Climb a rope. Now go level up 7 times. Go back at level 8 and try to climb a rope. For some reason the rope is now harder to climb. This is stupid, so you add half level to all skill checks and all skill checks go up by 1 every other level. Great, you know what you did, just added 0. You might as well remove the scaling and the half level bonus, since a level 30 Rogue is just as good at picking any given lock as a level 1 Rogue.

3) Yes at wills are the most important, yes combat is a boring slugfest, just wait till you get to higher levels.


:confused:

1) Who's picking the complexities here? Now, I'm agreeing with the conjecture that the math is bad (provided people always have trained appropriate skills and have nice bonuses to boot) but if so, then what's to keep the DM from using small SC - say Complexity 1 or 2?

2) Story driven game. Your level 30 rogue isn't going to be bothering with level 1 locks - and if he is, the DM probably should just let him breathe on it. If you're worried about having any 30th level character being able to pick the locks on random peasants' doors, then make picking locks a Trained only skill. Rope is the same way; plus not all DCs scale. You'll note on PHB 182 that climbing a rope is always DC 10, for example. Additionally, Picking Locks scales by Tier, not level. A random level 11 punk would have 5+Dex to pick a DC 30 lock... with no take 20.

I will note that being able to freely retry lockpicking is dumb. It has always been a problem with having locks in the first place. I'd impose the "fail by 5, lock is jammed" house rule to prevent casual lockpicking.

3) I have no personal experience here, but I think that the moral of the above is that people need to change their expectations. Goblins can be serious threats now - they don't just have 4 HP and crappy armor. Minions however, are the new goblin. Actual monsters exist to stiffen encounters populated mostly by minions, and really tough encounters have no minions at all.

It's just a design change which people can get used to.

EDIT: :smallfrown:

Sky... why'd you have to dopple-ninja me so bad?

Talon14
2008-06-14, 03:57 AM
Enemy abilites can be frustrating to casual players. The Kobold Dragonshield (level 2 enemy) ability which lets them shift 1 move when an enemy gets close seriously pissed off Corey. I had to flat out tell the players under what conditions they were able to do this. Most just said "Screw it", and went with ranged attacks.


I'm curious how exactly you played the Kobold Dragonshield's ability. I've noticed quite a bit of confusion regarding that particular power.

If you're moving toward the kobold and he shifts away you can still move another square if you have movement left after he moves. Shifting away from them without incurring an OA is indeed difficult however, unless you want to use 2 shifts, and then you don't have actions left to do anything except a minor.

Remember that, as it's an immediate action, the kobold can only use the ability once per round.

Talon14
2008-06-14, 04:08 AM
Double post.

nagora
2008-06-14, 05:38 AM
The hostage negotiation was a disaster. Our group usually role-plays these things out, so maybe that is the problem. No matter what the players say, or how reasonable they are, success or failure are determined by the dice, (I assigned modifiers to take into account what they were saying) and not by the motivations, loves, hatreds, and situations of the people negotiating. The dice were absolutely malicious for the players at this point too. "We'll give you everything you want, just hand over the boy and we'll leave." <rolls natural 1>. "Never!" This "Skill Challenge" went so badly, that I wish I had just said "Roll diplomacy, get this many successes.", instead of trying to role-play it out at all. To be fair, I never flat-out told the players that it was a skill challenge.
Just ignore the dice; you're the DM and they're your NPCs there is no need for dice and anyone who thought this system was a good idea should be banned from designing games. Just rip the pages out and pretend it never happened. Role play, not roll play.

qube
2008-06-14, 06:12 AM
The group was made up of the following;
Human Cleric of Pelor (Annie)
Eladrin Rogue (Corey)
Halfling Rogue (Josie)
Human Ranger (me, DMPC)

Even with "unlimited" out-of-combat healing, you still need a cleric, and he still needs to heal. That second-wind just doesn't cut it, and as the day goes on, you start to run short of healing surges.

The rogue cannot go it alone. At low levels at least, the team really needs to work together in order to overcome challenges. This is a good thing for the most part.you might want to think about a balanced party: you have 3 strikers and 1 leader ...

about healing:
The job of the defender (be it fighter or paladin) is to make sure your strikers don't get attacked. of course you'll need much healing. the PHB2 even says it would be best if the 5th character is an other defender.

about rogues/alone
- a defender could help you flank
- a controller (wizard) can have once per encounter spells that daze or make prone (both provide combat advantage).

JaxGaret
2008-06-14, 06:37 AM
So we finally got our little group together and gave the new edition a spin. The (cliched) plot was made up pretty quickly on the fly, and just a few things were put together ahead of time. Basically an old lady came and propositioned the PC's in a tavern (yes, we started in a tavern). Her grandson was kidnapped by some kobolds, who killed her husband in the attempt. They left a ransom note, and so the old lady was going to have the PC's go to the exchange.

Yay, D&D!


The group was made up of the following;

Human Cleric of Pelor (Annie)
Eladrin Rogue (Corey)
Halfling Rogue (Josie)
Human Ranger (me, DMPC)

A heavily unbalanced party. Should make for interesting battles - if the Cleric goes down for the count, you had better hope the plethora of Strikers lay enough smackdown on their enemies before they go down too.

Also, Rogues work better when they have flanking partners. Is the Cleric working to flank with the Rogues? If not (which may very well be the case, and may be in the Cleric's best interest, since the Cleric has quite a few good ranged attack powers and should be trying to stay up to heal your melee Strikers), then the Rogues are each other's flanking partner, which is needless to say less than ideal.


The adventure went by alright, but we did have some seriously bad runs of dice-rolling though, where the dice didn't smile on us. We had only one character go down (the Halfling Rogue) in about 7 encounters, who was quickly saved by a Heal check. We also never laid down for an extended rest, as we were never in a safe place to do so. The group could have left to rest, but I think they didn't want to risk the kobolds relocating the hostage before they came back (I don't know).

Neat.


Some observations we made:

Let's take a look :smallsmile:


Level 1 monsters have a lot of hp. You really have to slog it out in order to defeat an enemy 1 on 1. This really wasn't a whole lot of fun. Even on a critical hit with an encounter power, you have a decent chance of not taking them out. This isn't very fun...but it's not the worst thing that could be wrong.

Level 1 PCs have a lot of HP, too. It's part of a general shift towards each individual combat round being less potentially lethal than in 3e, which opens up more opportunities for teamwork.


Minions are made more satisfying by the other threats' high hp. Even though you pretty much know you can drop them in one hit anyways, there is still a feeling of gratification in dropping the enemy in one hit. This probably wouldn't be the case if other level 1 monsters weren't so durable.

Yeah, I was totally surprised by the Minion mechanic once I got to play the game. I thought it was bad design, then I actually tried it, and it's quite enjoyable, both for the DM and the players.


Daily powers suck. Encounter powers are great. Of the daily powers the group used, 50% were innefective. The much-vaunted daily power...rather than striking with the power of a grizzly bear, fails with the mew of a kitten if you miss. Encounter powers on the other hand are excellent. If you do miss, you will get to use it later without needing to sleep 6 hours. In addition, many of them are nearly as good as the daily powers are anyways. It seems as if daily powers should be the ones you use on easier to hit foes, because you don't want to waste them on hard-to-hit targets.

There are Reliable daily powers, which aren't wasted if you miss. You also really want to ensure that your dailies hit, so you want as many favorable conditions as possible when you use them - having Combat Advantage, for example.

There are also Stance dailies that work for the entire encounter, and so never "miss".


Picking the right At-Will powers will make or break your character. These end up being your character's bread and butter, and at low levels you will use them a lot. Picking a lame at-will (which I did, and used once), is a waste of precious resources...luckily I got a free one for being human.

Remember that every time you gain a level, you can swap out a power (or a feat or a trained skill) for a power of equal or lower level. Picked a crappy at-will power at level 1? Fixed at level 2.

Also, some of the "crappy" at-will powers definitely have their uses in the right situation. Especially if you're a Human, and you get that extra at-will, so you can be a bit more open with your third at-will choice, since you won't be using it that much anyway.


Skill Challenges are hard to implement. Unless you lay it out for the players and say "You need this many successes before you get this many failures, using these skills." these will not be fun for the players. And if you do...it destroys immersion. We did a skill challenge of tracking through the sewers, and another which was a hostage negotiation. Tracking through the sewers went well, but was nothing more than repetitive die rolling, the DM guide didn't seem to help in outlining how to make the challenge more interesting than just being die rolls. The hostage negotiation was a disaster. Our group usually role-plays these things out, so maybe that is the problem. No matter what the players say, or how reasonable they are, success or failure are determined by the dice, (I assigned modifiers to take into account what they were saying) and not by the motivations, loves, hatreds, and situations of the people negotiating. The dice were absolutely malicious for the players at this point too. "We'll give you everything you want, just hand over the boy and we'll leave." <rolls natural 1>. "Never!" This "Skill Challenge" went so badly, that I wish I had just said "Roll diplomacy, get this many successes.", instead of trying to role-play it out at all. To be fair, I never flat-out told the players that it was a skill challenge.

If you don't know how to properly utilize skill challenges, or simply don't like skill challenges, don't use them. It's as simple as that. Skill challenges are not, I repeat not, a straitjacket. If you can't work outside the box to mesh the skill challenge mechanic with the roleplaying element, you're probably better off not using them.


Traps and Hazards are great, but I wish it was easier to design your own. We had fun with the ones I inserted in the adventure, but I didn't have enough time to look through the books in order to design one all on my own. I didn't even bother trying to make one part of a skill-challenge.

Considering that the rest of 4e is designed to reduce the amount of prep time the DM has to spend on mechanics, you'll find that you have a little more time to come up with creative traps and hazards. It just takes a little work, but it is far superior to 3e's trap implementation.


Even with "unlimited" out-of-combat healing, you still need a cleric, and he still needs to heal. That second-wind just doesn't cut it, and as the day goes on, you start to run short of healing surges.

This is partly an effect of your party being Striker-heavy. Defenders have their own limited healing, and more HP and healing surges to boot, and the Wizard and Warlock have some nice mobility options that the Rogue simply does not have.

Rogues are really nice in larger parties, or parties with more Defenders and Leaders. Rangers and Warlocks are better in smaller parties and parties without so many Defenders and Leaders, since they have more individual mobility and aren't reliant on gaining Combat Advantage to deal their large amounts of single target damage.

In other words, your party isn't built very well.


Sneak attack damage is great...but neccessary. Those extra dice really add up, but the rogues almost needed to have it in order to bring down the bad guys. Probably due to the high hp of enemies. Corey's rogue used an ability that slid the enemy, which caused him to fall off a ledge, killing him. She didn't get sneak attack damage, but it was the only other real example of the rogue doing anything that didn't rely upon combat advantage.

Partly an artifact of poor party design, but yes, Sneak Attack damage is very important to the Rogue. +9 damage (with the Backstabber feat) per round is significant.


The rogue cannot go it alone. At low levels at least, the team really needs to work together in order to overcome challenges. This is a good thing for the most part.

Indeed.


Markers and Hunter's Quarry. Keeping track of who has been marked by whom is a serious pain in the butt. I just threw it out because it was too much paperwork. Maybe if a mark lasted the entire encounter it would be ok, but when multiple marks are ending and being created each turn, it gets to be a headache. Also, I kept forgetting to designate Hunter's Quarry.

I have the players keep track of who they've marked and who they have Hunter's Quarry on, etc. It makes the game run much more smoothly. They only have their character to worry about, after all, they can remember those things themselves.


Enemy abilites can be frustrating to casual players. The Kobold Dragonshield (level 2 enemy) ability which lets them shift 1 move when an enemy gets close seriously pissed off Corey. I had to flat out tell the players under what conditions they were able to do this. Most just said "Screw it", and went with ranged attacks.

Yes, Dragonshields are very annoying to deal with. A little tactical insight may be necessary in doing so, but it's definitely not an insurmountable challenge. Ranged attacks, for example, are a fine solution. What's wrong with that?

Also, this comes back to the problem of Rogues needing flanking partners, and your party being ill-equipped to provide them.


I am sure there are things which I forgot to mention, but those were the ones which came immediately to mind.

Come back and let us know! :smallbiggrin:

Antacid
2008-06-14, 07:41 AM
Well i have to say our group got together and I
the warlord is great at keeping the rest of the party healed, but they can't heal themselves. all potions/ritual scrolls need to go to them.

This is untrue, the Warlord can target himself with Inspiring word, as well as all the powers with the Healing keyword.

As for Crow's first 4e experience, it sounds like events conspired to make it less than ideal. Lack of preparation plus poor party balance plus enemies with a power specifically designed to nerf the Rogue, plus four players vs. encounters balanced for five is a recipe for frustration. For one thing, having 1 fewer player was always going to make 5-player encounters last longer, because each player has a certain damage output per round. With five players, the combat wouldn't have outstayed its welcome nearly as much.

General observation: people really want to play the 4e Strikers. There was even an argument over who got to play one at my group, because everyone agreed we wanted a balanced party and three people wanted the role. At one point I even offered to change from Wizard to Warlord so we could have one of each striker type substituting a Warlock for a Wizard, but the DM insisted someone had to be Controller.

JaxGaret
2008-06-14, 08:44 AM
This is untrue, the Warlord can target himself with Inspiring word, as well as all the powers with the Healing keyword.

That's right, at least as far as Inspiring Word and most Healing powers go; it may be all Healing powers, but I haven't double-checked it, so I can't affirm just now.


As for Crow's first 4e experience, it sounds like events conspired to make it less than ideal. Lack of preparation plus poor party balance plus enemies with a power specifically designed to nerf the Rogue, plus four players vs. encounters balanced for five is a recipe for frustration. For one thing, having 1 fewer player was always going to make 5-player encounters last longer, because each player has a certain damage output per round. With five players, the combat wouldn't have outstayed its welcome nearly as much.

Thanks for pointing that out. That agrees with my points, and fleshes out a few things I forgot to mention.


General observation: people really want to play the 4e Strikers. There was even an argument over who got to play one at my group, because everyone agreed we wanted a balanced party and three people wanted the role. At one point I even offered to change from Wizard to Warlord so we could have one of each striker type substituting a Warlock for a Wizard, but the DM insisted someone had to be Controller.

A 4-person party with 3 Strikers can work, but I would highly recommend that the Strikers be Archery Rangers or Warlocks. TWF Rangers can work too, but the necessary proximity to enemies without Defender cover hurts. Rogues are the least suited for a small Striker-heavy party. That's precisely the worst circumstances for them.

Also, Fighters and Wizards are both secondary Strikers, so out of the 8 PHB classes, 5 of them are primary Strikers or secondary Strikers. That gives a lot of choice to those players who for whatever reason just like to deal massive amounts of damage to single targets instead of using other tactics.

One other thing that can be done in any party that could really use some more healing power is that one or more party members can multiclass into a Leader class.

Chosen_of_Vecna
2008-06-14, 09:57 AM
3) Combat was far more dull in 3.5 imho, I LOVE battling it out in 4e.

I can only ask what you are smoking.


3) I have no personal experience here, but I think that the moral of the above is that people need to change their expectations. Goblins can be serious threats now - they don't just have 4 HP and crappy armor. Minions however, are the new goblin. Actual monsters exist to stiffen encounters populated mostly by minions, and really tough encounters have no minions at all.

It's just a design change which people can get used to.

I don't think you understand, it's not that Goblins are more of a threat, that doesn't matter, and in fact they aren't. What it is is that everything you do is boring and repetitive. Most of your damage comes from at wills, every monster takes forever to take down, and it really is just "I hit it again" most times.

Either build an all melee Cleric party who breaks the RNG with the +5 bonus at will, and uses Encounter Powers to chain stun, or build a Laser Cleric, Warlock, Ranger, Wizard, Wizard party, have the Ranger knock prone and shift backwards, the Warlock shift backwards, The Laser Cleric does all the real damage, and the Wizards are both Orb Mastery, Spell Focus, Maxed Wis and Int, take Ray of Frost, Cloud of Daggers, Sleep, and some encounter powers with decent save ends effects.

Then you just play a game called juggle the Monsters with Ray of Frost and shifting, throw out an occasional Daily power that takes them 7 rounds to save against or more, and Cloud of Daggers to kill all the minions on the first round.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-06-14, 11:01 AM
I don't think you understand, it's not that Goblins are more of a threat, that doesn't matter, and in fact they aren't. What it is is that everything you do is boring and repetitive. Most of your damage comes from at wills, every monster takes forever to take down, and it really is just "I hit it again" most times.

Either build an all melee Cleric party who breaks the RNG with the +5 bonus at will, and uses Encounter Powers to chain stun, or build a Laser Cleric, Warlock, Ranger, Wizard, Wizard party, have the Ranger knock prone and shift backwards, the Warlock shift backwards, The Laser Cleric does all the real damage, and the Wizards are both Orb Mastery, Spell Focus, Maxed Wis and Int, take Ray of Frost, Cloud of Daggers, Sleep, and some encounter powers with decent save ends effects.

Then you just play a game called juggle the Monsters with Ray of Frost and shifting, throw out an occasional Daily power that takes them 7 rounds to save against or more, and Cloud of Daggers to kill all the minions on the first round.


:confused:

How is that boring? Or different from 3.5?

I mean... didn't everyone in 3rd just say "I walk up and hit... then I 5-step and full attack" while the rogues said "I tumble into flanking and sneak attack." I guess if you were a wizard or a cleric you would buff/debuff first... but how is that less tedious than what you described?

Is it because things die more slowly now? Was it more fun to just steamroll rooms of enemies?

What did you like about 3e combat?

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-14, 11:37 AM
Indeed. I'd like to know what YOU are smoking, or if you actually played past level 1 and into something like level 11. With 4 per encounters, 4 dailies, and an increasing number of utilities, it's a cold day in hell when you have to use more than two at wills per encounter. Seriously. Your options multiply exponentially as you reach level 11.

nagora
2008-06-14, 11:45 AM
Indeed. I'd like to know what YOU are smoking, or if you actually played past level 1 and into something like level 11.
Have you? If you've had time to play a character from level 1 to level 11 in 4ed then it's reward system is even more broken than I thought.

Myshlaevsky
2008-06-14, 11:48 AM
...Or he's tried out characters of different levels. Or, you know, looked at the fact you get more encounter powers.

JaxGaret
2008-06-14, 11:53 AM
We've only run 1st through 6th level characters in our group, with a couple of forays with a single 10th level character for testing purposes.

The difference between 1st level and 6th in the amount of options you have per round is significant. At 11+ I can see there being another significant jump in combat choices.

nagora
2008-06-14, 11:56 AM
...Or he's tried out characters of different levels. Or, you know, looked at the fact you get more encounter powers.

His use of the words "past" and "into" imply that he was talking about a process from 1st to 11th.

Skyserpent
2008-06-14, 11:58 AM
I can only ask what you are smoking.

Now that's a little mean...

I suppose the thing I am smoking is The Batman Wizard casting his save-or-suck spells making combat obviously over, but since the enemies still have hit points left we have to beat them down over the next dozen or so rounds so that we can clean up. I'm talking about the Warblade using his best maneuver. Attacking to regain his maneuvers and then using it again, over and over again for the entirety of combat. The Fighter's inability to do anything other than "I attack" or "I power-attack" when fighting an enemy that doesn't carry a weapon or has multiple legs. (MOST OF THEM.) I'm talking about the Crossbow Rogue who does ONE sneak attack at the begining of combat and then proceeds to feel like an idiot because he can't really do much more than that. There are a lot of issues with a lot of classes in 3.5

Don't get me wrong, I've had fantastic combat encounters in 3.5, but not because of the system, but because we had a good group of players. And even then, sometimes the system bogs us down. 4e encourages visceral and intense combat encounters that: because the system is streamlined: go by quicker. We got through about 5 encounters our first night we played Keep on the Shadowfell. That's more than ANY 3.5 Session I think we had EVER played in the past...

Chosen_of_Vecna
2008-06-14, 12:13 PM
How is that boring? Or different from 3.5?

Because in 3.5 you actually use different actions based on situations, or based on your enemies, in 4E you literally build you character (or optimally, your party) for one given tactic to be repeated in every single fight, oh and it takes a long time, too, just because.


I mean... didn't everyone in 3rd just say "I walk up and hit... then I 5-step and full attack" while the rogues said "I tumble into flanking and sneak attack." I guess if you were a wizard or a cleric you would buff/debuff first... but how is that less tedious than what you described?

No, no one did that, they full attacked with a bow, or charged, or charged then full attacked, or relied on AoOs if they wanted to be a boring 4E character that everyone complained about. The solution to the fighter being boring and Wizards/Clerics/Druids/Rogues being fun isn't to make everyone boring, but call out different attacks that do the basically the same thing, it's to make characters have actually interesting divergent abilities that make you actually care which of your actions you are taking.

They even did this to a minor extent with ToB, but instead of realizing that melee characters liked the ability to choose between Avalanche of Blades, Emerald Razor, Creeping ect, because they presented different abilities that you choose to use based on what was best, they decided that people like to call out ability names and do a variable amount of damage with a variable status effect that really all might as well be the same attack.


Is it because things die more slowly now? Was it more fun to just steamroll rooms of enemies?

It's not about steamrolling enemies, it's about doing something that matters. I don't know how to make this any clearer 4E is just as easy as 3.5. Even easier if you didn't take the time to do the work in 3.5. But doing 1/100th of an enemies HP in one attack, and then having him do 1/100th of my HP is inherently a waste of time compared to doing 1/4th, or 1/3rd each. It's just an excuse to roll more.


What did you like about 3e combat?

The fact that your choices actually mattered. In 4E you build one of two acceptable builds for each class, then you use the same move combos no matter what because deviating from them for any reason is shooting yourself in the foot. That's not fun, having genuine choices, and having to figure out what the best move is is what I like about 3.5.

Of course, to be fair, making everything carbon copies of the same crap, and taking away anything that actually matters was apparently a brilliant design move, since everyone seems to love doing the same crap for 30 levels, and 90% of all PbP games are level 1 games that maybe get to level 5 ever.


Indeed. I'd like to know what YOU are smoking, or if you actually played past level 1 and into something like level 11. With 4 per encounters, 4 dailies, and an increasing number of utilities, it's a cold day in hell when you have to use more than two at wills per encounter. Seriously. Your options multiply exponentially as you reach level 11.

Actually, I've played exclusively past level 11, where you spend all your encounters, use 1 daily per encounter, and that kills 1 or 2 of your seven enemies. Then you get to at will the rest to death.

Not to mention that other then Super Orb Mastery Sleep, Wizards are usually better off using Ray of Frost or Cloud of Daggers. Not to mention that an all Cleric Party using Righteous Brand seriously breaks the RNG.

It's not even that you run out of other things to do, it's that you are better off doing at wills anyway, because 1/100th of the enemies HP isn't that much different then 1/50th. So every now and then the Wizard uses Sleep, or the Clerics feed each other a Righteous Brand so that they can auto-hit on encounter and dailies to chain stun enemies. It's the same thing every time, you don't have diverse tactical options, you have one ability order spammed every fight. It doesn't matter what you are fighting, you use one of your three preset tactics every time. It doesn't even matter. You roll, you roll, you roll, and you roll. And you don't even care how much damage you are doing because 50 attacks to kill it and 50 attacks to kill the next encounter is just the same as 100 attacks to kill this one.

Chosen_of_Vecna
2008-06-14, 12:26 PM
Now that's a little mean...

Where I come from, "what are you smoking?" is primarily a joke, and not indicative of any actual belief that you are crazy/high.


I suppose the thing I am smoking is The Batman Wizard casting his save-or-suck spells making combat obviously over, but since the enemies still have hit points left we have to beat them down over the next dozen or so rounds so that we can clean up. I'm talking about the Warblade using his best maneuver. Attacking to regain his maneuvers and then using it again, over and over again for the entirety of combat. The Fighter's inability to do anything other than "I attack" or "I power-attack" when fighting an enemy that doesn't carry a weapon or has multiple legs. (MOST OF THEM.) I'm talking about the Crossbow Rogue who does ONE sneak attack at the begining of combat and then proceeds to feel like an idiot because he can't really do much more than that. There are a lot of issues with a lot of classes in 3.5

I don't even know where to start:

1) The Batman Wizard save or sucked them, and now you get to beat on them for 2 rounds (seriously, why more then that?) Oh well. Of course, they could also pass their saves, or have some of them pass their saves, or he could use other abilities that cripple them, or just kill them saving you the trouble of the beating, or you could do the same thing.

2) And I'm talking about the Warblade who is better off using some of his other abilities that are nearly as good, or situationally better.

3) And I'm talking about the Elven Longbow Rogue with a Ring of Blink, or Greater Invisibility that full attacks for SA damage every round. Or the Acid Flask Hurling one. Or the TWF Pounce Rogue that charges in under Greater Invis for full attacks of SA. Or the Shadow Pounce Rogue, or the one that turns into a Hydra.

5) Well, you can optimize Fighters to Stand Still, or you can push the numbers so they can still trip and Bullrush, and then you can use the Dungeon Crasher. But I won't argue that Fighters are that versatile, I mean that's kind of my point, 4E turned every other class into a Fighter.


Don't get me wrong, I've had fantastic combat encounters in 3.5, but not because of the system, but because we had a good group of players. And even then, sometimes the system bogs us down. 4e encourages visceral and intense combat encounters that: because the system is streamlined: go by quicker. We got through about 5 encounters our first night we played Keep on the Shadowfell. That's more than ANY 3.5 Session I think we had EVER played in the past...

Honestly, if your 4E combat encounters are going faster then your 3.5 ones, you had problems in 3.5. Just the time it takes to roll the umpteen billion attacks against you enemies, and the damage on all those attacks, is more time then the average 3.5 combat.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-14, 12:27 PM
The LMAO on this side of tubes is gigantic.

Be honest, now. Have you PLAYED the edition, instead of just doing theoretical experimentation? You have to look at the group options AS A WHOLE, not character by character. The game is now very focused on teamplaying, NOT on making a character that will OHKO everything.

FoE
2008-06-14, 01:11 PM
Oh, there's no point arguing with Chosen of Vecna. He just doesn't like the combat system and nothing will change his mind. Like I said, it's all personal preference.

Chosen_of_Vecna
2008-06-14, 01:34 PM
You have to look at the group options AS A WHOLE, not character by character. The game is now very focused on teamplaying, NOT on making a character that will OHKO everything.

{Scrubbed}

Of course, you know why they are better? Because I made them all. Each character. Because 4E actively punishes you for building a character that you want to play, instead of one that fits into the party you play with. So unless you coordinate creation, you suck.

I'm not talking about being a superbadass character. I am talking about:

Purple Worm 780HP, level 16 Solo

For simplicities sake I am going to take a level 16 Laser Cleric optimized for damage only and multiply by 5. Since this character is well above average damage for a character, it should be fine.

Powers:
Encounter (2d10+Wis, 2d8+Wis, 3d8+Wis, 3d8+Wis)x5=375 damage.
level 9 Daily: (2d10+2Wis+5)x5=160 damage.

So if you use you most powerful daily on a single encounter, and hit with every single ability, you end up barely bloodying it. And that's a character made for damage, that can't inflict many good status, or hand out minor bonuses very well. So since you are probably lucky to manage to hit half the time, you probably did about half as much damage. So in fact, you now need to do 3 times as much damage with at wills as you did with encounters and dailies. And that's blowing you best daily, you can't even do this 4 times a day. Luckily for you, you probably have a Warlock with maxed intimidate if you are smart, who can just force any enemy to flee as soon as they are bloodied, so you actually only have to do as much damage with your at wills as you did with your encounters. Have fun with the grind.

Alternatively, you could be a Wizard Rogue Duo that beats freaking every solo in the game after level 15 using using the following system:

1) Rogue takes feat that gives him Combat advantage against Cold damaged characters, or slowed characters, or whatever.
2) Wizard takes Ray of Frost.
3) Ritual yourself up some dimensional Shackles.
4) Wizard: I ray of frost!
5) Rogue: With my combat advantage I attack the Dimensional Shackles!
6) Wizard: I retreat out of range of it's attacks and fire magic missle for the next five years.
7) Rogue: Yay, Orcus is dead!

Chosen_of_Vecna
2008-06-14, 01:49 PM
Oh, there's no point arguing with Chosen of Vecna. He just doesn't like the combat system and nothing will change his mind. Like I said, it's all personal preference.

It would help if anyone had anything to say other then: "No man you don't need to use your at-wills very often, and like, it's a party game, have you ever played this at all?"

You know, like something that was actually true, and that I didn't say first.

I find it funny that no one ever uses actual math to back up their arguments, especially considering that apparently they haven't even played it past level 11 anyway, but still know all about everything, including how wrong I obviously am about at will grinding.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-14, 01:50 PM
{Scrubbed}

HidaTsuzua
2008-06-14, 02:17 PM
The Purple Worm is a gimp and easy to beat. However, it's a long slow fight. He really can't hurt you and he has a ton of hp. It's more of a slow "I use X," the worm bites you for a little bit, repeat. It's even less fun at higher levels where monsters often barely have action, but huge amounts of hps. Solos suck.

Other high level monsters have issues too. Even groups can be CCed and it's just a slow confirmation of the winner.

Antacid
2008-06-14, 02:18 PM
Either build an all melee Cleric party who breaks the RNG with the +5 bonus at will, and uses Encounter Powers to chain stun,

…And be screwed the first time they meet monsters with ranged or area attacks.


or build a Laser Cleric, Warlock, Ranger, Wizard, Wizard party, have the Ranger knock prone and shift backwards, the Warlock shift backwards, The Laser Cleric does all the real damage, and the Wizards are both Orb Mastery, Spell Focus, Maxed Wis and Int, take Ray of Frost, Cloud of Daggers, Sleep, and some encounter powers with decent save ends effects.

First of all, what’s this knock prone ability Rangers have? Not the 7th level one, you’re talking like they get something at first level. Why do you think shifting backwards is so effective? All it does is let monsters charge you, or move to attack the wizards without risking AaO.


Then you just play a game called juggle the Monsters with Ray of Frost and shifting, throw out an occasional Daily power that takes them 7 rounds to save against or more, and Cloud of Daggers to kill all the minions on the first round.

Cloud of Daggers has an area of effect of one square. It can kill one minion per round. In a normally-balanced encounter, there are now three minions left to charge and hit you for 5 points of damage each because your armour is a bathrobe and your party has no Defenders.

Ray of Frost has to hit to slow an enemy, and even if it does the Warlock and Ranger will have to spend a move action to move more than 2 squares away (impossible with just shifting), or the slowing effect is wasted. That leaves them with no standard action left to attack, so all the tactic does is make two lightly armoured characters into combat shields and leave the LAZER CLERIC as the only character who’s doing more than d6+5 damage per round on a hit. An optimized fighter with a maul can do 2d6+5 damage per round starting at level 1, so....


But doing 1/100th of an enemies HP in one attack, and then having him do 1/100th of my HP is inherently a waste of time compared to doing 1/4th, or 1/3rd each. It's just an excuse to roll more.

A level 1 monster has like 30 HP. You can’t do a third of that in one hit?

Are you talking about at higher levels? Did your DM forget to give you magical items or something?

Even all this worked (which it wouldn’t), if you do the exact same thing every encounter you are asking the DM to put you up against monsters chosen to counter your tactics.

Chosen_of_Vecna
2008-06-14, 02:19 PM
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

You lost the moment you mentioned the purple worm as a credible opponent. Seriously. CharOp has demonstrated why that monster is a total gimp of itself and can be defeated by a normal party without breaking a sweat (And with no Blade Cascade or Garrote Grip cheese, or Rain of Blows, or etc.). Pal, you don't know what you're talkin' about. So I suggest you go back and rethink it, because right now

Oh I'm sorry, could you point to the part where I ever claimed the Purple Worm was a credible threat? Please?

Of course you can't, because you just make stupid claims without thinking. I never said it was a credible threat, I've in fact said on multiple occasions that if you build your party right, almost no challenge of the appropriate level is a credible threat. I just used it as an example of the stupid at will grinding that needs to go on.

Can you just get on a goddam cleric chariot and fly around throwing 1d6+Wis Radiant Damage until you kill it? Of course. Could you have your Wizard ray of Frost it every round and your Warlock shift it back 3 squares until it dies eventually? Sure. Does that mean that you could ever hope to kill it without doing at least half your damage with at will attacks (meaning the vast majority of your combat rounds)? No. Is the Purple Worm the only creature with comparable HP? No, and Solo above level 15 is going to require massive at will grinding. Any group of five creatures is going to lose only 2-3 before you run out of encounters and dailies and begin the at-will grindathon.

But thank you for proving once again that you never pay any attention to what someone says when they disagree with you, and you just skim for keywords to insult them over in your next post.

Indon
2008-06-14, 02:19 PM
You lost the moment you mentioned the purple worm as a credible opponent. Seriously. CharOp has demonstrated why that monster is a total gimp of itself and can be defeated by a normal party without breaking a sweat (And with no Blade Cascade or Garrote Grip cheese, or Rain of Blows, or etc.).

Yeah, that's kind of exactly his point - that your entire party can wail on this not-even-very-impressive creature and still need to At-Will the fight away.

I don't know if that's actually the case - I've neither played 4'th edition nor have I even crunched the numbers on hit point versus damage scaling by level. But if hit points scale faster than damage does, then it wouldn't be surprising if fights did turn into sloggy slugfests of at-wills.

Edit: Man, I got ninja'ed pretty hard.

Antacid
2008-06-14, 02:31 PM
No ****ing kidding genius. Thanks for Because 4E actively punishes you for building a character that you want to play, instead of one that fits into the party you play with.

So basically, you hate the game because if you min-max everything and do the same tactic every encounter, it's boring? I wonder what you're doing wrong?!?! :smallbiggrin:



1) Rogue takes feat that gives him Combat advantage against Cold damaged characters, or slowed characters, or whatever.
2) Wizard takes Ray of Frost.
3) Ritual yourself up some dimensional Shackles.
4) Wizard: I ray of frost!
5) Rogue: With my combat advantage I attack the Dimensional Shackles!
6) Wizard: I retreat out of range of it's attacks and fire magic missle for the next five years.
7) Rogue: Yay, Orcus is dead!

Yay, your DM must be asleep!

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-14, 02:47 PM
Yeah, that's kind of exactly his point - that your entire party can wail on this not-even-very-impressive creature and still need to At-Will the fight away.

I don't know if that's actually the case - I've neither played 4'th edition nor have I even crunched the numbers on hit point versus damage scaling by level. But if hit points scale faster than damage does, then it wouldn't be surprising if fights did turn into sloggy slugfests of at-wills.

Edit: Man, I got ninja'ed pretty hard.
{Scrubbed}

Chosen_of_Vecna
2008-06-14, 02:47 PM
…And be screwed the first time they meet monsters with ranged or area attacks.

Or you know, close with the enemy. Horrid as that may be.


First of all, what’s this knock prone ability Rangers have? Not the 7th level one, you’re talking like they get something at first level. Why do you think shifting backwards is so effective? All it does is let monsters charge you, or move to attack the wizards without risking AaO.

Ray of Frost has to hit to slow an enemy, and even if it does the Warlock and Ranger will have to have spend a move action to move more than 2 squares away (impossible with just shifting), or the slowing effect is wasted. That leaves them with no standard action left to attack, so all the tactic does is make two lightly armoured characters into combat shields and leave the LAZER CLERIC as the only character who’s doing more than d6+5 damage per round on a hit. An optimized fighter with a maul can do 2d6+5 damage per round starting at level 1, so....

Wow, you addressed what happens when you shift without slowing and slow without shifting. Now let's try some simple addition! The point is to slow and shift, and occasionally use encounter stuns and crap too. I'm not talking like Rangers can knock Prone from level 1, I'm talking like they can knock prone, and that when that is an option is works with the strategy of shifting and slowing and starting combat as far away as possible and shooting and then moving backwards.


A level 1 monster has like 30 HP. You can’t do a third of that in one hit?

Are you talking about at higher levels? Did your DM forget to give you magical items or something?

Well since I said: "The math works at low levels as we've seen from XYZ, but after level 15, it's a huge boring grind." on several occasions, I'm going to say, yes, I am talking about higher levels. Of course, the problem still exists at lower levels, just not to the same extent.


Even all this worked (which it wouldn’t), if you do the exact same thing every encounter you are asking the DM to put you up against monsters chosen to counter your tactics.

Have you played 4E? You have the exact same options every encounter except an occasional daily choice. You do the same thing every encounter because that's your only option. And he can choose monsters to counter your tactics, it's called having a party of all strikers to go against you. And yes, this makes the grind easier but more deadly to you. And yes that's exactly what you want.

Chosen_of_Vecna
2008-06-14, 02:49 PM
So basically, you hate the game because if you min-max everything and do the same tactic every encounter, it's boring? I wonder what you're doing wrong?!?! :smallbiggrin:

Yes, the other option is being an idiot.


Yay, your DM must be asleep!

Yay, you must have missed the part where he literally has no choice in the matter, because this works against anything you would want to fight.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-14, 02:49 PM
Have you played 4E? You have the exact same options every encounter except an occasional daily choice. You do the same thing every encounter because that's your only option. And he can choose monsters to counter your tactics, it's called having a party of all strikers to go against you. And yes, this makes the grind easier but more deadly to you. And yes that's exactly what you want.

I really can't start to comment on how wrong this is. I'll just say Page 42 and leave it at that. I never saw 3.5 giving you that kind of simplicity for doing something interesting and different.

Chosen_of_Vecna
2008-06-14, 02:51 PM
Point is, he's doing it wrong (very, very tempted to use that "doin' it wrong" image macro here, particularly after he started flaming...). The purple worm is not an example of good design. Sure, you CAN take a single monster and run with it saying that everything sucks like that, but it doesn't support your argument. Maybe a sample of them, but as is? He just looks full of bile and seems to be a little John Solomon wannabe who can't even pull it off well.

Oh, so are you saying all the other challenges you might face half half the HP? Or are you admitting that you are wrong, and that at-will grinding is an inevitable result of every challenge at that level?

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-14, 02:57 PM
Oh, so are you saying all the other challenges you might face half half the HP? Or are you admitting that you are wrong, and that at-will grinding is an inevitable result of every challenge at that level?

No, what I'm saying is that your argument is flawed. You just can't take one monster out of a hundred odd and say every battle works like that, because that is not the case. That discounts environment, stunts, attack combination, item powers, and many other variables. It is fundamentally wrong.

E^G
2008-06-14, 03:15 PM
But doing 1/100th of an enemies HP in one attack, and then having him do 1/100th of my HP is inherently a waste of time compared to doing 1/4th, or 1/3rd each. It's just an excuse to roll more.

I agree that the pacing is off b/c of HP.
I'd like to experiment with (1) halving everyone's hp and (2) halving all enemy hp and doubling the number of enemies (3) giving everyone a -3 to all defenses and saves.

Some tweaking may be in order (e.g. wizard's become more powerful, especially in the second case, you might nerf/limit their at-wills, etc.)

But I think a much more pleasant pacing would come with attacks being less random and hp lower.
Battles will become more dynamic and small tactical errors/insights more important

Antacid
2008-06-14, 03:30 PM
Or you know, close with the enemy. Horrid as that may be.
Unless you can't, because they have move 7. Or are standing on a platform, or on the other side of a river.

The main point is: why would any real gaming group tolerate an all-cleric party other than to prove to themselves that the system is flawed? Most people would consider playing a system in an implausible way purely to break it a complete waste of time.

This is exactly like the Rain of Blows exploit. It will never come up in a game where people are there to have a good time, because the DM would houserule it instantly (i.e. "You can't give the Righteous Brand bonus to another cleric, that would be like unto the sin of Pride"). So it's an entirely theoretical loophole with zero repercussions for normal gameplay.



Wow, you addressed what happens when you shift without slowing and slow without shifting. Now let's try some simple addition! The point is to slow and shift, and occasionally use encounter stuns and crap too. I'm not talking like Rangers can knock Prone from level 1, I'm talking like they can knock prone, and that when that is an option is works with the strategy of shifting and slowing and starting combat as far away as possible and shooting and then moving backwards.

You know monsters can both move and attack in the same round, right? Slowed = move 2, so if the purpose is to avoid hand-to-hand you have to be able to shift more than 2 squares away and attack, or the shifter is really just forfeiting his turn. And the wizard has to hit every turn. I'm not seeing why this is better than just having the ranger attack and the wizard fire magic missiles into combat.


Well since I said: "The math works at low levels as we've seen from XYZ, but after level 15, it's a huge boring grind." on several occasions, I'm going to say, yes, I am talking about higher levels. Of course, the problem still exists at lower levels, just not to the same extent.

Lots of monsters have rechargeable abilities, and bloodied abilities that only kick in halfway through, during the ostensibly "grinding" part of the battle. And many of those abilities require that you also change your tactics, so you really can't just keep doing exactly the same thing again and again. And of course I'm ignoring the fact that 3.5e was completely broken long before players reached level 15...


Have you played 4E? You have the exact same options every encounter except an occasional daily choice. You do the same thing every encounter because that's your only option. And he can choose monsters to counter your tactics, it's called having a party of all strikers to go against you. And yes, this makes the grind easier but more deadly to you. And yes that's exactly what you want.
I haven't played 4e to high levels. But you're assuming that meeting different enemies in different environments and under different circumstances will create no interesting variations at all. Which given that almost all monsters at that level have special abilities which affect how the players can use their special abilities, is almost certainly wrong as well.

Again, it's quite solvable by a DM who isn't consciously conspiring with you to make the game boring; one who can make the players interested in the outcome because of the story rather than because of the mechanics.

Kizara
2008-06-14, 03:31 PM
No, what I'm saying is that your argument is flawed. You just can't take one monster out of a hundred odd and say every battle works like that, because that is not the case. That discounts environment, stunts, attack combination, item powers, and many other variables. It is fundamentally wrong.

Obviously, the only satisfactory solution is to prove the point by using multiple examples. Honestly, his point is solid regardless of what minor variation the variables you suggest would introduce.




I agree that the pacing is off b/c of HP.
I'd like to experiment with (1) halving everyone's hp and (2) halving all enemy hp and doubling the number of enemies (3) giving everyone a -3 to all defenses and saves.

Some tweaking may be in order (e.g. wizard's become more powerful, especially in the second case, you might nerf/limit their at-wills, etc.)

But I think a much more pleasant pacing would come with attacks being less random and hp lower.
Battles will become more dynamic and small tactical errors/insights more important

Sounds like a good direction for a band-aid for a very lackluster system. Good luck.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-14, 03:42 PM
Really? Check page 42. Look up the item powers. Imagine what happens when you bullrush someone off the cliff, or when the rogue Imperiling strikes an enemy. Minor variables, my arse. That kind of things can turn the tide around.

Antacid
2008-06-14, 03:47 PM
Yay, you must have missed the part where he literally has no choice in the matter, because this works against anything you would want to fight.
In metagamer fantasy land, perhaps, where the DM has to just sit there while the players use a single exploit in every encounter, and that's everyone's idea of a worthwhile way to spend an afternoon.

Oh... wait a moment...


As a standard action, any creature other
than the one in the shackles can remove them from an
adjacent creature.

Maybe if you only ever fight Purple worms, eh?

dyslexicfaser
2008-06-14, 04:20 PM
What are we even talking about anymore? Over the last two pages, I've really lost track of the topic at hand.

I'll just say this: Vecna, arguing that using the same at-will power over and over again is the only option and that ever doing anything else is stupid is comparable to asking why anyone in 3.5E would ever play anything other than a power-attacking, leap attacking, charging greatsword-wielder to deal 1000s of damage per turn (adjusted for hyperbole, you understand; I realize that my example is somewhat more extreme than what you're talking about).

Sometimes people don't actually have to break down their characters into their component numbers, find the optimal solution, and then spam it forever and ever. Sometimes, if you want variation (and you certainly seem to, from your posts), you have to accept that you don't have to deal optimal damage.

Sorry if this doesn't address the topic at hand or whatever, but as I said, I lost the thread of the conversation somewhere amidst all the flames.

Saph
2008-06-14, 04:26 PM
Aaaanyway, going back to the original topic, I played a longish session today as well, so this seems like a decent place to post what I noticed. Much of it agrees with Crow.

• Your at-will powers really are your most important abilities at low levels, because they're what you're using over and over again. Encounter powers come next, though they don't catch up to at-wills until you get to be a high enough level that you have multiple ones to burn per encounter. Dailies just aren't used often enough on a per-round basis.

• Already I'm noticing that there are only a very limited number of effective tactics, top of which is "Kill enemies one at a time in ascending HP order". All the fancy stuff is entertaining, but by far the most effective way to fight is for everyone in the party to pick the easiest target and attack it 'til it's dead, rinse and repeat.

• Minions are way more fun to fight than standard enemies - the minion fights were the highlight of the session! You get to actually see enemies die when you hit them, instead of shrugging off your shots, and if you have AoE powers, you can blow them away in groups. It's very cathartic after having spent a combat slowly grinding down a high-HP monster.

• The first couple of rounds of combat are by far the most exciting. That's when the monsters are at full strength and a serious threat, and the PCs are burning through their action points and encounter powers. By contrast, the closing rounds of battles are rather dull.

A note here - One of the things that 4e did was switch encounters away from 'one big monster' to 'lots of little monsters'. This is good in some ways, but has a drawback. Once half or more of the monsters are down, then unless the PCs have suffered crippling damage, the battle is basically over; the only question left is how many healing surges they're going to have to spend after the fight. This results in a long 'cleanup' phase where the PCs chase down the remaining monsters and spam them to death with at-wills (since they've used up their per-encounters and don't want to waste their dailies). The monsters have effectively zero chance of winning by this point, but it can still go on for a long time, causing a general feeling of "Can't we just kill this guy already?"

From the point of view of DMs, something else I've noticed is that the most effective tactic isn't the most fun one. All the DMs I've seen run 4e so far did combat in a 'cinematic' way, with the monsters rushing in to attack the nearest or most obvious target. This is more fun since every character has attacks coming in at them, but it's far more effective for the monsters to concentrate their attacks on just one PC, hit him non-stop until he's down, then move on to the next one. This is much smarter from the monsters' point of view (since it mirrors what the smart tactic is for the PCs) but it sucks from the point of view of the players, as 4 out of 5 get ignored and the fifth one is beaten to a bloody pulp before he can do anything. (Notably, the only 4e battle I've had so far where any PCs died was when the monsters, by accident, ended up doing this.)

- Saph

Oracle_Hunter
2008-06-14, 04:50 PM
Aaaanyway, going back to the original topic, I played a longish session today as well, so this seems like a decent place to post what I noticed. Much of it agrees with Crow.

• Already I'm noticing that there are only a very limited number of effective tactics, top of which is "Kill enemies one at a time in ascending HP order". All the fancy stuff is entertaining, but by far the most effective way to fight is for everyone in the party to pick the easiest target and attack it 'til it's dead, rinse and repeat.

But what about Leaders? The buffing abilities I see in some of the "Leader" monsters seems like it would make fighting hordes of little guys really painful. Did you face any of these, and did they have an effect on the combat?


A note here - One of the things that 4e did was switch encounters away from 'one big monster' to 'lots of little monsters'. This is good in some ways, but has a drawback. Once half or more of the monsters are down, then unless the PCs have suffered crippling damage, the battle is basically over; the only question left is how many healing surges they're going to have to spend after the fight. This results in a long 'cleanup' phase where the PCs chase down the remaining monsters and spam them to death with at-wills (since they've used up their per-encounters and don't want to waste their dailies). The monsters have effectively zero chance of winning by this point, but it can still go on for a long time, causing a general feeling of "Can't we just kill this guy already?"

Did your DM try having that last-man-standing run, or surrender? If they were free-willed, that's an easy way to end an encounter, since the PCs probably don't want to give chase. And if they do, then the PCs risk stumbling onto reinforcements, which will make them think twice about pursuing :smallbiggrin:


From the point of view of DMs, something else I've noticed is that the most effective tactic isn't the most fun one. All the DMs I've seen run 4e so far did combat in a 'cinematic' way, with the monsters rushing in to attack the nearest or most obvious target. This is more fun since every character has attacks coming in at them, but it's far more effective for the monsters to concentrate their attacks on just one PC, hit him non-stop until he's down, then move on to the next one. This is much smarter from the monsters' point of view (since it mirrors what the smart tactic is for the PCs) but it sucks from the point of view of the players, as 4 out of 5 get ignored and the fifth one is beaten to a bloody pulp before he can do anything. (Notably, the only 4e battle I've had so far where any PCs died was when the monsters, by accident, ended up doing this.)

That might have been the problem. From just looking at, say, the goblin hexer, you have a real chance of multiplying the power of the individual minions by a few well-placed spells. Ganging up on one PC seems like it'd be a bad idea for the monsters, since if they pick a defender, then the wizard and/or cleric is free to use controlling and buffs to let the fighter whale on them, or it leaves the monster's leader free to be smacked down by a Striker.

The rules seem to suggest that there's a lot of opportunity for the DM to design smart encounters without relying on Tucker's Kobolds-style Crazy Prepared (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CrazyPrepared) encounters. Did anyone try this?

Saph
2008-06-14, 05:05 PM
But what about Leaders? The buffing abilities I see in some of the "Leader" monsters seems like it would make fighting hordes of little guys really painful. Did you face any of these, and did they have an effect on the combat?

Yeah, but like I said, you go for the monsters in ascending HP order. In other words, if there are minions, you go for them first. The leader isn't very effective with no-one to lead!


Did your DM try having that last-man-standing run, or surrender? If they were free-willed, that's an easy way to end an encounter, since the PCs probably don't want to give chase. And if they do, then the PCs risk stumbling onto reinforcements, which will make them think twice about pursuing :smallbiggrin:

We're playing Keep on the Shadowfell, so in every encounter so far we've been fighting every monster within earshot at once. So, no reinforcements.

Having the monsters run once they're reduced to half numbers makes sense, but AFAIK that goes against the instructions in the DM notes, so DMs aren't likely to do this unless it's their second time running the adventure.


That might have been the problem. From just looking at, say, the goblin hexer, you have a real chance of multiplying the power of the individual minions by a few well-placed spells. Ganging up on one PC seems like it'd be a bad idea for the monsters, since if they pick a defender, then the wizard and/or cleric is free to use controlling and buffs to let the fighter whale on them, or it leaves the monster's leader free to be smacked down by a Striker.

But ganging up on an enemy and taking him out of the fight is the only reliable way to actually reduce the amount of damage you're taking per round, which is why it's the number one tactic for both players and monsters. It's very hard at level 1 to avoid attacks any other way.

Having the Striker go after the leader sounds nice, but just doesn't work in practice. Monsters in 4e have lots of HP. If you work out the expected damage-per-turn a striker does and compare it to a standard monster's HP, you'll see that it'll take numerous attacks to take down even a relatively weak monster alone. And a wounded monster can fight just as well as an untouched one, which is why having everyone focus on the easiest target works better.

- Saph

Matthew
2008-06-14, 05:12 PM
But ganging up on an enemy and taking him out of the fight is the only reliable way to actually reduce the amount of damage you're taking per round, which is why it's the number one tactic for both players and monsters. It's very hard at level 1 to avoid attacks any other way.

Sounds like my preferred tactic in Battle Tech... keep shooting that mech until it goes down, then move onto the next one. Of course, I usually go for the strongest enemy mech first, depending on the strength of the rest of the lances involved.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-06-14, 05:15 PM
Having the Striker go after the leader sounds nice, but just doesn't work in practice. Monsters in 4e have lots of HP. If you work out the expected damage-per-turn a striker does and compare it to a standard monster's HP, you'll see that it'll take numerous attacks to take down even a relatively weak monster alone. And a wounded monster can fight just as well as an untouched one, which is why having everyone focus on the easiest target works better.

:smallfrown:

That does make sense, unfortunately. There really aren't many ways to temporarily disable monsters anymore, so you kind of do have to kill them till they're dead-dead-dead. A Controller Wizard probably could do that pretty well, but the wizard's powers really do look more striker-y, particularly at first level.

Plus, there aren't really any other "controllers" around, except for pure agro control.

Well, I'll have to try with my own goblin raiders. It makes sense to try and take out the weakest guys first (same in 3rd, at low levels anyhow) but having, say, a Paladin around to Divine Challenge the Leader so that he can't throw his buffs around without taking damage should be a viable strategy.

I need to read through "Keep" - a read the DDE modules and they were really poorly designed. Perhaps "Keep" is as bad?

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-14, 05:18 PM
Actually, the wizard's powers are pretty well suited for controlling, right from level one. Consider that the consensus of the CharOp experts is that sleep should only be swapped at level 25 or higher. So yeah, it gets better later, but it's rather good from the start, as is, say, Ray of frosting an enemy and thus lagging it behind its comrades.

Yakk
2008-06-14, 05:19 PM
From the point of view of DMs, something else I've noticed is that the most effective tactic isn't the most fun one. All the DMs I've seen run 4e so far did combat in a 'cinematic' way, with the monsters rushing in to attack the nearest or most obvious target. This is more fun since every character has attacks coming in at them, but it's far more effective for the monsters to concentrate their attacks on just one PC, hit him non-stop until he's down, then move on to the next one. This is much smarter from the monsters' point of view (since it mirrors what the smart tactic is for the PCs) but it sucks from the point of view of the players, as 4 out of 5 get ignored and the fifth one is beaten to a bloody pulp before he can do anything. (Notably, the only 4e battle I've had so far where any PCs died was when the monsters, by accident, ended up doing this.)

Interesting. When I was doing combat-sims, I was playing the monsters with full knowledge of PC abilities. I picked a target, whaled on it. That usually resulted in the player backing that target off, and tossing defensive abilities at it. (You really can take a single character from besieged to nearly perfect in a round).

Often that resulted in some other character being left open... So I swarmed the target I could most easily swarm.

And fights that others claimed where "pretty easy", I was killing PC characters in, and once I simply beat the party hands-down.

...

Is there any way to make "spread out and attack" more effective? A simple method would be a "full offense" move action:

Reckless Offense (Minor Action; at-will)
You gain a +2 to hit until the start of your next turn, but you take a -2 penalty on all of your defenses, and the next attack that damages you deals double damage if it happens before the start of your next turn. You may not use this ability if you have been attacked (hit or miss) or damaged since your last turn.

If the players are concentrating on one enemy, the other enemies can go "Reckless Offense" and up their damage output. This encourages players to attack the Reckless monsters instead of the "swarm target".

Players can do the same thing if monsters are gang-piling them.

Antacid
2008-06-14, 05:22 PM
Aaaanyway, going back to the original topic

Thank you Jesus!!!


Already I'm noticing that there are only a very limited number of effective tactics, top of which is "Kill enemies one at a time in ascending HP order". All the fancy stuff is entertaining, but by far the most effective way to fight is for everyone in the party to pick the easiest target and attack it 'til it's dead, rinse and repeat.

You probably shouldn't know who the lowest-HP is, in most battles (although Minions are always going to be easy to spot). A good DM will probably figure out ways to screw with this tactic that are still realistic and fair, like monsters who send shock troops in first with artillery support and send the minions in a couple of rounds later when your party is already tied up in combat, or who try to separate the players from one another, and so on.


Minions are way more fun to fight than standard enemies - the minion fights were the highlight of the session!

You'll be pleased to hear I've made a template that can convert any monster into a minion whilst retaining its XP/power-level and distinctiveness. I'll post it to this or the Homebrew board when I can be bothered to write it up. The minions are on me!

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-14, 05:25 PM
Thank you Jesus!!!

You probably shouldn't know who the lowest-HP is, in most battles (although Minions are always going to be easy to spot). A good DM will probably figure out ways to screw with this tactic that are still realistic and fair, like monsters who send shock troops in first with artillery support and send the minions in a couple of rounds later when your party is already tied up in combat, or who try to separate the players from one another, and so on. If your DM sets out to find ways to surprise and challenge you, it's always possible.



You'll be pleased to hear I've made a template that can convert any monster into a minion whilst retaining its XP/power-level and distinctiveness. I'll post it to this or the Homebrew board when I can be bothered to write it up. The minions are on me!

Do it, man. People NEED MOAR MINIONZ!!!!!111!!!!one!

marjan
2008-06-14, 05:38 PM
Having the monsters run once they're reduced to half numbers makes sense, but AFAIK that goes against the instructions in the DM notes, so DMs aren't likely to do this unless it's their second time running the adventure.

This can be accomplished by Intimidate, so there's no reason to do it yourself.

A bit off-topic: I'm interested in hearing, from those who have played, how do minions compare to elite monsters of their level in difficulty? Harder, easier, same?

Saph
2008-06-14, 05:41 PM
Well, I'll have to try with my own goblin raiders. It makes sense to try and take out the weakest guys first (same in 3rd, at low levels anyhow) but having, say, a Paladin around to Divine Challenge the Leader so that he can't throw his buffs around without taking damage should be a viable strategy.

I need to read through "Keep" - a read the DDE modules and they were really poorly designed. Perhaps "Keep" is as bad?

It's not really bad - we enjoyed the fights and the session, even if it could have gone a bit faster. Having full-colour battle maps almost makes playing a pre-gen adventure worth it on their own. :)

A defender's abilities do work to pin enemies down and force them to attack him instead of someone else. However, the defender can only tie up one guy, and monsters usually outnumber PCs.


Interesting. When I was doing combat-sims, I was playing the monsters with full knowledge of PC abilities. I picked a target, whaled on it. That usually resulted in the player backing that target off, and tossing defensive abilities at it. (You really can take a single character from besieged to nearly perfect in a round).

Often that resulted in some other character being left open... So I swarmed the target I could most easily swarm.

And fights that others claimed where "pretty easy", I was killing PC characters in, and once I simply beat the party hands-down.

That's the thing - PCs can heal, so as long as the monsters spread their attacks out a bit, the PCs will usually have time to back off and regenerate a damaged member. But that doesn't work if the PCs takes all the damage in one round.

Doing this also scatters the players and puts them on the defensive, which makes it easier to take down the next one. Luckily, as I said, the DMs I've played with so far don't do this. :)


You probably shouldn't know who the lowest-HP is, in most battles (although Minions are always going to be easy to spot). A good DM will probably figure out ways to screw with this tactic that are still realistic and fair, like monsters who send shock troops in first with artillery support and send the minions in a couple of rounds later when your party is already tied up in combat, or who try to separate the players from one another, and so on.

No, you don't know who the lowest HP is, but you do know who the easiest target is - there'll probably only be one or two enemies that everyone is in a position to hit. Since shooting through allies or into melee doesn't cause penalties anymore, it's usually doable for the two melee guys, the archer, the cleric, and the arcanist all to blast the same target.

- Saph

Antacid
2008-06-14, 06:00 PM
A bit off-topic: I'm interested in hearing, from those who have played, how do minions compare to elite monsters of their level in difficulty? Harder, easier, same?
1 elite = 8 minions of the same level.

tumble check
2008-06-14, 06:13 PM
If a campaign's players are optimizers that build their characters based on numbers completely while disregarding anything that has to do with flavor or having fun, then I think it's perfectly OK for the DM to use "choose victim, concentrate till dead" tactic.

Otherwise, it's the DM's job to RP monsters just like players should RP their characters. If they meet a group of mentally unstable bugbears, the bugbears should instantly charge and fight until dead or dying. If they meet a group of Drow that are simply travelling to the nearest city, then perhaps the Drow should be hesitant to fight in the beginning. If a group of monsters starts dwindling and their victory will clearly never happen, then it's the DM's job to have them retreat, unless he doesn't give a crap about the PCs' boredom.

If the players have chosen to forego making optimized characters and forego the most brutal but boring tactics in battle, then the DM should do the same. Otherwise, it's basically a wargame. Flavor and roleplaying is what sets DnD apart.

marjan
2008-06-14, 06:14 PM
1 elite = 8 minions of the same level.

Made a mistake there. Thought of standard monsters, not elite and wanted to know if those 4 minions are as though as 1 standard monster (or 8 and elite monster). I get the rules on that, just wanted to know if they work as suggested.

The Sandman
2008-06-14, 06:14 PM
Aaaanyway, going back to the original topic, I played a longish session today as well, so this seems like a decent place to post what I noticed. Much of it agrees with Crow.

• Your at-will powers really are your most important abilities at low levels, because they're what you're using over and over again. Encounter powers come next, though they don't catch up to at-wills until you get to be a high enough level that you have multiple ones to burn per encounter. Dailies just aren't used often enough on a per-round basis.

• Already I'm noticing that there are only a very limited number of effective tactics, top of which is "Kill enemies one at a time in ascending HP order". All the fancy stuff is entertaining, but by far the most effective way to fight is for everyone in the party to pick the easiest target and attack it 'til it's dead, rinse and repeat.



I haven't actually played yet, just read the rulebooks, but I think I see a simple way of fixing this: allow players to have more powers at any given time, and increase the number of different at-wills somewhat. The real problem, as I see it, is the whole "after level 10 you never really increase the number of powers you can have" thing. Change that, maybe nerf the HP a bit, and you're less likely to run out of encounters and dailies before finishing combat.


• Minions are way more fun to fight than standard enemies - the minion fights were the highlight of the session! You get to actually see enemies die when you hit them, instead of shrugging off your shots, and if you have AoE powers, you can blow them away in groups. It's very cathartic after having spent a combat slowly grinding down a high-HP monster.

• The first couple of rounds of combat are by far the most exciting. That's when the monsters are at full strength and a serious threat, and the PCs are burning through their action points and encounter powers. By contrast, the closing rounds of battles are rather dull.

A note here - One of the things that 4e did was switch encounters away from 'one big monster' to 'lots of little monsters'. This is good in some ways, but has a drawback. Once half or more of the monsters are down, then unless the PCs have suffered crippling damage, the battle is basically over; the only question left is how many healing surges they're going to have to spend after the fight. This results in a long 'cleanup' phase where the PCs chase down the remaining monsters and spam them to death with at-wills (since they've used up their per-encounters and don't want to waste their dailies). The monsters have effectively zero chance of winning by this point, but it can still go on for a long time, causing a general feeling of "Can't we just kill this guy already?"

I would say that a well-set up fight should probably not involve you taking on the mooks and the leader in the same combat. Unless your party actively tries to engage the leader, he should use whatever escape options he has once his mook squad is down to about 1/2-1/4 strength. One of the regular monsters, the ones in-between the leaders and the mooks, could be considered a lieutenant figure; it stays in the fight until whatever conditions the DM sets for its departure are filled (whether that be its death, its incapacitation, its having stalled long enough for the BBEG to escape, etc.)

As far as the mook fight goes, that should end once the lieutenant and leader are both gone and the mooks are down to about half-strength (a quarter-strength if the lieutenant or leader is still there to bolster their morale). After that point, the surviving mooks should attempt to flee or surrender, at which point the PCs are awarded XP as if they had beaten the whole group. The downside of letting mooks flee, of course, is that those survivors could be added on to future encounters, with some of them maybe even leveling to regular monsters. On the other hand, it prevents the whole "tedious mopping-up" issue. Also, unless you're on the evil side of the street, you probably shouldn't be butchering the helpless anyway.


From the point of view of DMs, something else I've noticed is that the most effective tactic isn't the most fun one. All the DMs I've seen run 4e so far did combat in a 'cinematic' way, with the monsters rushing in to attack the nearest or most obvious target. This is more fun since every character has attacks coming in at them, but it's far more effective for the monsters to concentrate their attacks on just one PC, hit him non-stop until he's down, then move on to the next one. This is much smarter from the monsters' point of view (since it mirrors what the smart tactic is for the PCs) but it sucks from the point of view of the players, as 4 out of 5 get ignored and the fifth one is beaten to a bloody pulp before he can do anything. (Notably, the only 4e battle I've had so far where any PCs died was when the monsters, by accident, ended up doing this.)

- Saph

Depends; I would think that the weaker and/or dumber monsters should generally use the ravening swarm tactics. Smarter ones, however, or ones being led by a higher-level monster, should start concentrating their attacks, especially if the monsters have fought the party before. Furthermore, possibly by the paragon and definitely by the epic tier, almost every group of monsters you fight should be assumed to at least have heard of your group. Not necessarily under its current composition; unless they've been running into you regularly or simply did the research, expect their most recent info on your party to be current as of 3-4 levels back.

In my opinion, the concentrating attacks thing would actually make battles more exciting. For example:

*You'd have to have a player or two who tries to keep the baddies off your squishier guys or most effective character, who'd they be trying to kill.

*You'd have to actually fight as a unit, so that you can always support each other if something starts to go wrong.

*The enemies cutting off a character and starting to wail on him would be the cue for a desperate struggle by your party to reach the character that's getting swarmed.

*You might have one player using themselves as bait and then having the other players start killing monsters too focused on the one target to defend themselves from other attackers.

I'm sure there are many other possibilities, but the point remains: having the monsters act realistically can actually be fun, it's just a question of how your DM runs the encounter and how your PCs handle it.

Antacid
2008-06-14, 06:45 PM
Made a mistake there. Thought of standard monsters, not elite and wanted to know if those 4 minions are as though as 1 standard monster (or 8 and elite monster). I get the rules on that, just wanted to know if they work as suggested.
I think it's a bit difficult to say, because minions are supposed to be used in combination with other monsters. I assume WotC came up with the "1-HP cannon fodder" idea first, and then figured out the 1:4 ratio by playtesting.

You certainly can't just ignore them, and considering you're only going to kill them in one hit about half the time, and two hits 75% of the time, they wind up absorbing around 2 attacks each. If it weren't for Wizards opening combat with scorching blast, they'd probably be slightly more dangerous than 1:4.

Mmmm... given that ACs and hit modifiers are quite well balanced in 4ed, let's give both sides an abstract 50% chance to hit and say all four minions are already in combat with 1 PC. 1st level minions do 4 HP on a hit, so an average of 2 per round. A player has a 50% chance of killing one per round, so halve their damage...

(giving the minions initiative)
Round 1: minion damage = 2 + 2 + 2 + 2
Round 2: minion damage = 2 + 2 + 2 + 1
Round 3: minion damage = 2 + 2 + 2
Round 4: minion damage = 2 + 2 + 1
Round 5: minion damage = 2 + 2
Round 6: minion damage = 2 + 1
Round 7: minion damage = 2
Round 8: minion damage = 1
= 8 + 7 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 or 8!

(Where the 1s represent the minion that has a 50% chance of being dead. The chance of the player killing all four minions in as many rounds and the chance of it taking longer than eight ought to cancel each other out).

So purely using b.s. math derived from abstract damage averages, I'd say 4 minions should deal 7! or 8! damage to a player before he can kill all of them, depending on whether they win initiative. That's 28 or 36 HP - which, yeah, is in the same range as a first-level player's HP total, making the 1:4 ratio between minions and players/standard monsters a solid bit of game design.

Crow
2008-06-14, 06:46 PM
Looking at some of the higher level enemies, it just seems like your party needs to be optimized a little more than the average party in order to have a reliable chance of hitting them, especially if the party is missing a crucial role. And then when you are actually hitting them, unless (and even if) you have everything just right, you will have to hit them a lot.

"CharOP" is all well and good, but a lot of groups don't want to spend the time needed to optimise the crap out of their "build". My group has never been one to not play a character they wanted to play because the group would be missing a cleric. From what it looks like, if your group doesn't include a defender, you're almost wasting your time. And if your primary stat is not absolutely maxxed out, you are gimping yourself. So long generalists.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-06-14, 07:22 PM
"CharOP" is all well and good, but a lot of groups don't want to spend the time needed to optimise the crap out of their "build". My group has never been one to not play a character they wanted to play because the group would be missing a cleric. From what it looks like, if your group doesn't include a defender, you're almost wasting your time. And if your primary stat is not absolutely maxxed out, you are gimping yourself. So long generalists.

Well... you're sort of right. 4e has certainly done its best to get rid of generalists by designing all characters to have a specific role in combat. That said, every class has at least 2 "build styles" you can use, and those general styles leave a lot of room for fluffy tweaks. Heck, messing around with multiclass feats gives you an even wider range, and it's not quite as silly as considering a 3e "dip build." Part of the reason why WotC got rid of generalists is because it didn't want any one class/build capable of "winning the game" all on its own - see the CoDzillas and Batman Wizards which, while mostly theoretical exercises, could actually be built to some extent in any non-core game.

Now, as for "defenders being necessary" I think that may not be fully true. Yes, Defenders are very, very helpful for aggro control, but a Controller-y wizard can do the same, as can a Warlord... just not as well. Also, all of the classes are just broad enough that you probably could have fun playing any of them (unlike the healbot cleric of 2e). Heck, now that alignment restrictions are gone, Paladins are an extremely interesting class to take if you're of the cleric-y bent, and Fighters have a bunch of "fun" feats that make it a nice alternative if you like Ranger or Rogue-style combat.

And, now that you don't have blinders like "trap sense" or "cross-class skills" you can turn any given character-type into whatever non-combat role you want. Charismatic fighters aren't an auto-fail anymore, nor are burly thieves, or sneaky clerics. Some builds are less "efficient" than others, but it's nothing that a little teamwork and foresight can't fix.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-14, 07:41 PM
That's not true, oracle. Pound by pound, a fighter can not only deal more damage than a rogue of equal optimization (Blade Cascade multiclass and Garrote Grip cheese aside), he can also:

A) Stop the opponents from moving.

B) Inflict better Status effects.

C) Gain bonuses for himself.

Trust me, without defenders, high level battles become worlds of hurt, as you are drained out of HP with brutal efficiency.

Roland St. Jude
2008-06-14, 09:50 PM
Sheriff of Moddingham: Please remain civil and abide by the Forum Rules.

Crow
2008-06-14, 10:30 PM
I understand what you are saying Oracle, but with the huge dependence upon having a good stat for your powers to work, you are essentially forced into a certain role which you can do well, at the expense of being able to fill in other roles. Basically, you can only effectively multiclass into classes that share the same important attributes of your main class, otherwise you won't be able to fill the second role you're looking to fill with an sort of effectiveness. If you try to balance both though, you then end up sub-par at both.

I understand why WotC would want to do this, but when you take everything into account, this penalizes groups who are missing a specific "role", as they don't have any way to effectively shore up that weakness.

knownaspirate
2008-06-14, 10:59 PM
erm.. while i haven't actually played in a 4e session yet, i can say that i'm not looking forward to it. (and so i just want to throw in my two cents)
a friend of mine bought the books and, i feel that they are just to hard to follow. and while i'm sure everything was meant well. . . i just don't see myself investing in this.
i'm sure everyone has heard this before but 4e strikes me as WOW on paper...
anywhoo, while i'm not as informed as the rest of you... i needed my little vent. i look forward to continuing to read this thread :)

Skyserpent
2008-06-15, 12:29 AM
erm.. while i haven't actually played in a 4e session yet, i can say that i'm not looking forward to it. (and so i just want to throw in my two cents)
a friend of mine bought the books and, i feel that they are just to hard to follow. and while i'm sure everything was meant well. . . i just don't see myself investing in this.
i'm sure everyone has heard this before but 4e strikes me as WOW on paper...
anywhoo, while i'm not as informed as the rest of you... i needed my little vent. i look forward to continuing to read this thread :)

/shrug

to be honest, I haven't really encountered any glaring issues in my 4e adventures... but then again, I went into it hopeful... Also: If you hate combat, you won't like 4e very much, the system is really amping up the focus in that area considering the amount of it you have to do in most games. Out of combat you still have plenty of options, but the system has been streamlined to a more.... White-wolf esque manner of skill systems, so far, we've been able to roleplay just as well out of combat as we have in previous editions, though we no longer have characters who are built out of the system. By which I mean we no longer have characters who are designed based on funny quirks in the rules for their class...

I mean, right now I'm rolling up a Plague Doctor who is hyper-paranoid and sees everyone as a patient to either be "cured" or "examined"... 3.5 would have been fine for him, and 4e is working out just as well...

4e limits your character choices in that two rogues, one a dashing charismatic crossbowman, the other a gritty silent crossbow-wielding assassin, both shoot a crossbow at you in the same way. i.e. you're getting shot with a crossbow and taking X amount of damage... The big difference is only in their personality...

Fact of the matter is: Unlike 3.5 which is very much build Dependant, many different character builds can work so long as the party is tactically capable. Indeed, rather than basing off of individual strengths we have a slightly more communist mindset of group play. Wherein we've exchanged individual optimization for party optimization in most cases.

That got rather tangental rather quickly...

anyway: pirate, I encourage you to give 4e a shot and see if it's for you, try a session or two, and you might be pleasantly surprised... or you might not, in which case have fun playing 3.5 or Exalted or whatever it is you play. No big deal right?

Learnedguy
2008-06-15, 12:38 AM
4e limits your character choices in that two rogues, one a dashing charismatic crossbowman, the other a gritty silent crossbow-wielding assassin, both shoot a crossbow at you in the same way. i.e. you're getting shot with a crossbow and taking X amount of damage... The big difference is only in their personality...

You could mix it up and have a dashingly silent crossbow-wielding crossbowman as well:smallwink:

Yahzi
2008-06-15, 01:23 AM
• Already I'm noticing that there are only a very limited number of effective tactics, top of which is "Kill enemies one at a time in ascending HP order".
Isn't that kind of like 3e?

I was hoping the at-will powers and status conditions would create other strategies, but apparently not. :smallfrown:


Once half or more of the monsters are down, then unless the PCs have suffered crippling damage, the battle is basically over[/qoute]
I think one of the goals of 4e was to make combat a little less random; the side-effect is what you've mentioned here. In 3.5e, even though you know the monsters are going to lose, they could still dish out some criticals; they might even succeed at killing a player. It sounds like 4e has neutralized that threat.
[quote]From the point of view of DMs, something else I've noticed is that the most effective tactic isn't the most fun one.
Or the most realistic.

What I do is have my monsters act that intelligently only when their leader is actively giving orders. We've found that the difference between a TPK and a mob-slaughter often comes down to morale roles and intelligent tactics on the part of the mobs.

nagora
2008-06-15, 06:03 AM
• Already I'm noticing that there are only a very limited number of effective tactics, top of which is "Kill enemies one at a time in ascending HP order". All the fancy stuff is entertaining, but by far the most effective way to fight is for everyone in the party to pick the easiest target and attack it 'til it's dead, rinse and repeat.

That is the most effective tactic in real life (unless you have overkill capacity on a unit by unit basis), if circumstances allow you to pull it off. In most situations it's hard to do because of range issues or space issues or, in the case of mass hand to hand combat, the sheer impossibility of constantly targeting the same opponent all the time in melee or the impossibility of choosing alternative targets when in organised formations.

In 1ed this was reflected by the fact that you rolled to see who you attack on each round unless in formation (in which case you could attack the guy in front of you or perhaps one of the two flanking him) . The assumption in 1ed, which I believe is correct, is that minis make combat totally unrealistic at the level of a party of adventurers fighting a group of orcs or whatever in a spacious room, chamber, or forest clearing. They should be reserved for battles where there are at least scores or hundreds of combatants.

The problem here is not at-will powers as such, but the ability to chose your target with any degree of certainty and independance, a luxury that should normally only be available to artillery (including archers etc.) attacking organised ranks of troops. In that case, the best tactic should be to reduce the enemy's number of effective attacks per round as quickly as possible.

Saph
2008-06-15, 07:02 AM
Isn't that kind of like 3e?

I was hoping the at-will powers and status conditions would create other strategies, but apparently not. :smallfrown:

There are other strategies . . . sort of, but they're very hard to pull off.

You can slow certain targets and try to stay away from them . . . but unless the entire party is cooperating, the monster's probably going to have at least one target within range, so the effect is negligible.

Playing as the wizard, I did manage to pull off one controller-y thing, once, by spending an action point to first Thunderwave a pair of Dragonshields and then Icy Terrain them, taking them both out of combat until they could reposition. But that required me to hit with four out of four attack rolls, and after a round they were back in the fight again, so all it really accomplished was to prevent two attacks.

I think the immobilise status condition would actually allow for effective controlling, but that's much harder to get.


That is the most effective tactic in real life (unless you have overkill capacity on a unit by unit basis), if circumstances allow you to pull it off. In most situations it's hard to do because of range issues or space issues or, in the case of mass hand to hand combat, the sheer impossibility of constantly targeting the same opponent all the time in melee or the impossibility of choosing alternative targets when in organised formations.

It's more that in real life you can suppress enemies. Real people, when shots come near them, tend to get out of sight first and figure out how accurate the shooting is later. You can't really do that in D&D - the only way to scare off enemies is to actually hit them (and sometimes even that doesn't work).

- Saph

two_fishes
2008-06-15, 10:08 AM
Skill Challenges are hard to implement. Unless you lay it out for the players and say "You need this many successes before you get this many failures, using these skills." these will not be fun for the players. And if you do...it destroys immersion. We did a skill challenge of tracking through the sewers, and another which was a hostage negotiation. Tracking through the sewers went well, but was nothing more than repetitive die rolling, the DM guide didn't seem to help in outlining how to make the challenge more interesting than just being die rolls. The hostage negotiation was a disaster. Our group usually role-plays these things out, so maybe that is the problem. No matter what the players say, or how reasonable they are, success or failure are determined by the dice, (I assigned modifiers to take into account what they were saying) and not by the motivations, loves, hatreds, and situations of the people negotiating. The dice were absolutely malicious for the players at this point too. "We'll give you everything you want, just hand over the boy and we'll leave." <rolls natural 1>. "Never!" This "Skill Challenge" went so badly, that I wish I had just said "Roll diplomacy, get this many successes.", instead of trying to role-play it out at all. To be fair, I never flat-out told the players that it was a skill challenge.


I haven't played 4e yet (I'm excited for it) so I don't know exactly how the Skill Challenges play out. However, I have played a number of other games that play out social conflicts with a series of rolls (Burning Wheel, HeroQuest, and Dogs in the Vineyard are good examples.) Making it explicit is usually how we do it. We don't find it hurts the immersion too much, especially once you grow accustomed to the ruleset. Also, we've found it helps to make the roll first and role-play appropriately. So if a player makes a sucky roll, he has to role-play his character fumbling or making a mis-step somehow. I find this an enjoyable play experience, myself, but it may not be everyone's thing. I find it adds a gamey-ness and challenge to the role-play.

Orak
2008-06-15, 10:46 AM
I have played 2 sessions of 4E so far and I can't wait to play more. The combat lasts way more rounds than it did before but each fight takes the same amount of time or less in real time. Mainly because you have fewer options on what to do in a combat, but each action has multiple outcomes. Using a push/pull/daze/knockdown/etc can be used in so many different ways. You can prevent foe from flanking an enemy, move an ally into postition, stop an enemy from advancing, etc. The abilities that each race/class have can be used in so many harmonic ways, far more than in previous editions. It used to be hard to work together as a party, easy to split up and do things solo. But now teamwork comes naturally and it is somewhat suicidal to go solo.

I love the multiple encounters each day, cause it means that by the end of the day, you really have to dig deep to take down the big baddie. That is what we are doing this week. I am the warrior, down to 3/13 healing surges, daily ability already blown. All my other companions have already used their dalies is the furious battles as we invade the kobolds lair (jeeze Kobolds can be nasty). Now there is one room left unexplored. We are sure that the villages missing supplies must be stowed away inside. Dirty little creatures, they are messing with the wrong dwarf. I am tired, beat up and worst of all, almost out of ale. So I will heft my shield once again and lead the push into the final battle.

Never before have I had a dramatic, hard fought battle at level 1. And we have had multiple such combats so far and the best is still to come. I can't wait till wednesday.

Orak

Gaming since '85

Oracle_Hunter
2008-06-15, 11:55 AM
I understand what you are saying Oracle, but with the huge dependence upon having a good stat for your powers to work, you are essentially forced into a certain role which you can do well, at the expense of being able to fill in other roles. Basically, you can only effectively multiclass into classes that share the same important attributes of your main class, otherwise you won't be able to fill the second role you're looking to fill with an sort of effectiveness. If you try to balance both though, you then end up sub-par at both.

I understand why WotC would want to do this, but when you take everything into account, this penalizes groups who are missing a specific "role", as they don't have any way to effectively shore up that weakness.

Well... multiclassing is not supposed to be an optimizing exercise. Back in the day, it was restricted heavily by race and classes, and the multiclassing races all had level caps. The reason why is because it's kind of silly for anyone to take a single class if they can just as easily take two and basically be twice as good because of it. 3e worked with this by forcing you to choose class-levels, but ultimately that made it easier to multiclass, and so you never had single-class characters. Well, maybe spellcasters, but nobody wanted to be a straight fighter, and so many people started "dipping."

Now, I can see why you'd want to have individuals to wear "multiple hats" - you are more flexible, and that feels good. However, WotC saw that allowing too much flexibility results in CoDzillas and Batman Wizards - individuals who can "solo" adventures, which while acceptable in MMOs, is less good for pen & paper. So WotC made some hard roles and "designed" an optimal party.

This isn't new, BTW. Remember the Cleric Healbot? Or the Fighter meat-shield? At least in 4e those sort of essential facilities can be spread out - everyone has some healing, and most people can do some tanking (between control effects and slide abilities), which means that you should be able to put together many sub-optimal parties. But optimality is no longer required, because it is very hard for any individual "optimal" character to break a campaign.

I mean, judging from the PVP/PA Podcast over at Dragon Magazine, it seems that even a small party (Fighter, Cleric, Wizard) can do just fine. Considering that the "standard" party size is 5, I'd imagine a full-sized party can survive even if it's sub-optimal.

The Sandman
2008-06-15, 12:18 PM
It's more that in real life you can suppress enemies. Real people, when shots come near them, tend to get out of sight first and figure out how accurate the shooting is later. You can't really do that in D&D - the only way to scare off enemies is to actually hit them (and sometimes even that doesn't work).

Again, I think this is a situation where the DM has to actively control the combat situation. If there is cover available that doesn't allow the PCs to just completely evade combat after the enemies use it, then the enemies should head for said cover as soon as the ranged attacks start coming in.

If there isn't any cover available, or if the enemies aren't allowed to use cover due to PC actions, their leaders forcing them out, not enough cover for all the enemies to take shelter, etc., then the enemies should be using a double move action or charge to try to close with the PCs as quickly as possible.

Also, although it's a bit jury-rigged, there should be some sort of roll against Will for the enemies to simulate morale. If their leader just got chunked by a critical hit, or if ranged attacks butchered half of the minions before they got close enough to the PCs to strike back, or another similar situation, then there should be at least some possibility that the enemies begin to panic or just flee outright. Raise or lower the DC of this roll depending on how many enemies are left and the circumstances that caused you to make the roll.

Yahzi
2008-06-15, 12:34 PM
Also, although it's a bit jury-rigged, there should be some sort of roll against Will for the enemies to simulate morale.
I do that all the time.

A huge part of the problem that we're discussing lies in D&D's binary approach: as long as you have 1 hp, you fight just as well as if you had 100 hps. As long as even one monster is alive, it fights just as eagerly as when they were all alive.

This is because it's supposed to be a war game. If was supposed to be an RPG, there would be rules for being injured. As it is, you're either perfectly functional or dead.

What D&D really needed was some good, easy, quick rules on disabling injuries. What we got was 4e. Color me annoyed. :smallannoyed:

nagora
2008-06-15, 01:08 PM
Again, I think this is a situation where the DM has to actively control the combat situation. If there is cover available that doesn't allow the PCs to just completely evade combat after the enemies use it, then the enemies should head for said cover as soon as the ranged attacks start coming in.

If there isn't any cover available, or if the enemies aren't allowed to use cover due to PC actions, their leaders forcing them out, not enough cover for all the enemies to take shelter, etc., then the enemies should be using a double move action or charge to try to close with the PCs as quickly as possible.

Also, although it's a bit jury-rigged, there should be some sort of roll against Will for the enemies to simulate morale. If their leader just got chunked by a critical hit, or if ranged attacks butchered half of the minions before they got close enough to the PCs to strike back, or another similar situation, then there should be at least some possibility that the enemies begin to panic or just flee outright. Raise or lower the DC of this roll depending on how many enemies are left and the circumstances that caused you to make the roll.
Has 4e: a) no morale rules, and b) no rules for partial cover?

THAC0
2008-06-15, 01:24 PM
Ok, last night the husband pulled out the random dungeon tables, and I pulled out a first level half elf paladin and an NPC first level rogue (time to make the NPC: 5 minutes. Sweet.).

We made it through three encounters before having to call it quits. Great staying power for first level characters, compared to previous editions. I liked the smoothness of combat. I thought that powers and marking lead to plenty of tactical decisions, as did the use of encounter powers and daily powers. Several times in the final "boss" encounter we were a dice roll away from death, which is just how I like my combats, but was difficult to achieve at first level previously (since one hit could kill ya!).

My biggest annoyance was with the NPC healing surge rules. The fact that the NPC rogue had only one surge per day was absurd. Now, I can see the one/level working a. at higher levels, or b. with a larger party, but when one needs to use NPCs to fill out a small party with only one to three players, the NPC having such limited surges is crippling. If I hadn't been playing a Paladin, it would have been back to the 1st level paradigm, "Oh we got hit once! Run away and sleep for the night!"

Apart from that, healing surges weren't quite as bad as I had expected them to be, and if we'd had a cleric around would have been fine. It is very frustrating though to be dying with eight healing surges left that I just can't activate!

Scintillatus
2008-06-15, 02:41 PM
Well, I suppose the simplest suggestion is to just build your NPC like a PC? NPC rules are generally meant for one-time combatants or enemies, rather than a constant and needed ally.

RebelRogue
2008-06-15, 03:52 PM
I'll chip in with my experience so far: I orignally had very high expectations for this game, but when we bought the rules and actually read through them and created a few first level chars, I must say I was initially very disappointed. Amyway, we only did combat, since this is the meat of the mechanical system for any edition of D&D (though 4th stresses this more explicitly than ever before). The combats were fun, although not overwhelmingly so, but the options for character creation seemed somewhat reduced. A few days later we met and decided to try playing higher-level chars: we set the level somewhat arbitrarily at 11th and used a MM encounter. I must say, I found this pretty dreadful and very similar to the situation Chosen_of_Vecna outlined: it just seemed to go on forever, and ultimately felt boring, chipping away hp from monsters endlessly. I'm not blind to the fact that we very not optimized at all, and that play was slow because we were new to the mechanics, and much less so to 11th level play. Still, that was discouraging as hell! However, today we tried the game out as an actual game with developed characters rather than bunches of stats and real adventuring at 1st level. This felt much better (as it is of course still the core of the game) and the combats were actually fun (we only ran two encounters since we spent most of the time making the chars and doing RP stuff like interacting with people in town and establishing basic character traits/group dynamics). Our group has no controller, but seems well-balanced enough so far:

Halfelf Warlord
Halfelf Fighter
Tiefling Paladin
Tiefling Warlock (Star Pact) [My character]
Goblin Rogue

That's one leader, two defenders and two strikers, which ought to be a reasonable combination, even though a wizard would be a nice addition. My only concern is, that most of elemental damage is radiant, but we'll see. So far, it's been fun, but I'm fearful, that the game will only be enjoyable at a certain interval of levels (namely low ones). As for skill challenges we've not actually had any yet, but I think they sound like a great idea if people realize they're roleplaying tools, not straightjackets. The dialogue outlined on page one (forgot the poster's name, sry) was a really fine example of how the concept may be applied as a way to support good RP.

That's my impression so far. Thanks for lending an ear ;)

Crow
2008-06-15, 05:16 PM
Glad to hear you had a pretty enjoyable experience =)

Character creation for my group took f-o-r-e-v-e-r. I have no idea why. We even had two PHB's. Also, the more I look at it, the more I am annoyed that you need to max out your primary stat to have any appreciable chance to hit monsters at higher levels. Attack bonus is king in this game, and since the majority of powers require a hit to function (some daily powers have effects on a miss though), you can't afford to spread your points out very much at all because once those powers are expended, you have to wait until the fight is over to try them again. This is frustrating for the people in my group (who were reared on Shadowrun), who absolutely despise one-trick ponying. Annie and Corey love to play flexible characters, as do I. Josey doesn't mind so much, but gets irritated if I don't give him opportunities to do his "trick" (which is understandable, so I usually do).

Anyhoo....

In your experience, what made the level 11 encounter you ran take so long? What seemed to make it go on forever, and why was it boring? What made the low-level combats seem like more fun? I haven't had an opportunity to try higher-level combat yet, so I am rather curious.

Also, I think you'll be just fine without a wizard. It seems that they have to try extra hard to do controller-type things anyways. I was quite disappointed by their "control" aspect.

RebelRogue
2008-06-15, 06:21 PM
The 11th level encounter primarily took so long because our damage output seemed realatively small compared to the total monster hp: even when you factor in that we spent a lot of time looking up rules and considering tactics during play, it still took forever to get those monsters even bloodied! I appreciate the fact that it's much harder to one-shot monsters now (being it through save-or-suck or leap attacking with two-handed, nasty, pointed things), but it just got boring in the long run. Then again, for simplicity, we had very few terrain features (pseudo-infinte plain with spots of difficult terrain) and it seems to make things a little more interesting.

As for the session today, I guess I just really enjoyed cursing kobolds and Eldritch Blasting them, making a bit too comfortable noises when enemies were downed (my character concept was basically, that I somehow (unwillingly) had made a deal with a Lovecraftian entity, who demanded sacrifices for my granted powers (my interpretation of the Warlock's Curse). With the entity constantly demanding sacrifices, every time I actually succeded in giving one, I imagined that constant pressure momentarily eased. However, the other characters naturally misinterpreted this behaviour as me being a perv, somehow excited at the idea of snuffing out lives :smallbiggrin: All in all, I found that pretty entertaining). So once again, simple roleplaying fun saved the day :smallsmile:

THAC0
2008-06-15, 08:22 PM
The 11th level encounter primarily took so long
*snip*

Did it take about 10 rounds?

I just ask because I've heard that combat in this edition is designed to take 10 rounds, which can feel like forever if you're used to 3.5 high level combat where if you aren't done in five you're dead.

marjan
2008-06-15, 09:11 PM
3.5 high level combat where if you aren't done in five you're dead.

My personal record: 2 minutes. Level 9. Everyone survived.

Don't ask.

Indon
2008-06-15, 09:22 PM
Also, although it's a bit jury-rigged, there should be some sort of roll against Will for the enemies to simulate morale. If their leader just got chunked by a critical hit, or if ranged attacks butchered half of the minions before they got close enough to the PCs to strike back, or another similar situation, then there should be at least some possibility that the enemies begin to panic or just flee outright. Raise or lower the DC of this roll depending on how many enemies are left and the circumstances that caused you to make the roll.

Honestly, I didn't use AD&D's morale system very often.

Though, it was kinda nice to have when I did use it.

Wender
2008-06-15, 10:33 PM
Part of the problem is that Keep on the Shadowfell isn't really a module. It's a showcase for the shiny new rules. Every combat is a set piece that ends when one or the other side is wiped out; there is no story; and there are no characters in any meaningful sense. There was one room that demanded a pretty high degree of tactical cleverness and planning, and that one was the most fun—one player even remarked that it had a first edition feel. Overall, though, it made a mixed impression on my gaming group. But that's not the fault of the rules. Real modules will come.

Part of it is undoubtedly that going from 3.5e to 4e is like going from 2.5e to 3e, or 1.5e to 2e. The first thing you notice is that all the accumulated classes and rules and spells and options are gone and there's no way to port your funky character to the new ruleset, and it sucks. We had a party consisting of characters from the Tome of Battle and the Complete Divine and one hacked from the Tome of Magic, and suddenly we've been whittled down to a few options in one measly book. But that's not the fault of the rules. Optional rules will come.

We did notice that 1st level combat is incredibly repetitive, and that is the fault of the rules. It's odd, but psychologically there is a difference between just smacking something with your weapon and invoking a power to attack: The extra step required for the latter implies that there should be a choice and it's irritating when there isn't one. I suppose that some of this is just the 1st level blues, but I hope that WotC and/or the community are reasonably quick rolling out more powers.

We're starting in 4e with the same module but (mostly) new characters at 10th level. That should give us a reasonable sense of how well the game scales over time.

Sir_Dr_D
2008-06-15, 10:40 PM
RebelRogue

Did you give you 11 th level party proper magic weapons. They should have about +3 weapons at that time. Mosnter Encounter levels expects it.


A 11 the level have should have the following bonus
+4 to +6 for strength
+3 for a magic weapon
+2 for weapon focus


Which means you are doing at least 9 damage on a hit, not including the weapon roll. This means that a fighter will do at least 9 damage on a cleave, and at least 9 damage on reaping strike misses. And these are fighters, not strikers.

When you include class level (not include weapon focus but add in fighting style bonus) it means attack rolls should be at +13. With so many powers to increase attack roll, or bring down enemy defenses, it seems you have a good chance of hitting the target.

Oracle_Hunter
2008-06-15, 10:44 PM
That's one leader, two defenders and two strikers, which ought to be a reasonable combination, even though a wizard would be a nice addition. My only concern is, that most of elemental damage is radiant, but we'll see. So far, it's been fun, but I'm fearful, that the game will only be enjoyable at a certain interval of levels (namely low ones). As for skill challenges we've not actually had any yet, but I think they sound like a great idea if people realize they're roleplaying tools, not straightjackets. The dialogue outlined on page one (forgot the poster's name, sry) was a really fine example of how the concept may be applied as a way to support good RP.

That's my impression so far. Thanks for lending an ear ;)

As the poster of the dialog, I'll give myself a pat on the back :smallbiggrin:

That said, I'm glad you liked actually playing 4e. I just helped my players make their first characters, and while the whole thing took 6 hours, most of that time was socializing and one of my players demanding an epic retelling of the history of the setting they were in. This included a description of the new Cosmology... yes, it was long :smalltongue:

I found the actual character creation pretty fast. Even with only one book, I was able to sit down and get each character assembled from stats to equipment in 30-45 minutes - much faster than 3e, where spell selection alone could take that long!

marjan
2008-06-15, 10:51 PM
I found the actual character creation pretty fast. Even with only one book, I was able to sit down and get each character assembled from stats to equipment in 30-45 minutes - much faster than 3e, where spell selection alone could take that long!

This is my observation as well. While I didn't play yet, I took a liberty of creating a character. And 10 minutes after I began the process I was screaming: "Where the hell is a DM, when you need one?". :smallfrown:

Oracle_Hunter
2008-06-16, 12:40 AM
This is my observation as well. While I didn't play yet, I took a liberty of creating a character. And 10 minutes after I began the process I was screaming: "Where the hell is a DM, when you need one?". :smallfrown:

Well... I did make up a few mock characters first, to get used to the system. Lord knows it's not a system you can just pick up and make a character in seconds (unless you follow their helpful templates!) but it didn't take me long to get the hang of it.

Crow
2008-06-16, 01:47 AM
Part of it is undoubtedly that going from 3.5e to 4e is like going from 2.5e to 3e, or 1.5e to 2e. The first thing you notice is that all the accumulated classes and rules and spells and options are gone and there's no way to port your funky character to the new ruleset, and it sucks. We had a party consisting of characters from the Tome of Battle and the Complete Divine and one hacked from the Tome of Magic, and suddenly we've been whittled down to a few options in one measly book. But that's not the fault of the rules. Optional rules will come.


As someone who only used core, I have to say it is something more than splatbook envy...

JaxGaret
2008-06-16, 02:09 AM
It's odd, but psychologically there is a difference between just smacking something with your weapon and invoking a power to attack: The extra step required for the latter implies that there should be a choice and it's irritating when there isn't one.

Either I don't understand what you mean by this, or I see no reason why that should be an irritation.

A power is an attack. There is no "extra step required".


I suppose that some of this is just the 1st level blues, but I hope that WotC and/or the community are reasonably quick rolling out more powers.

There's homebrewing aplenty going on. The splatbooks will take longer, but there should be one or two per month starting soon.

And Dragon has already released some material, with what promises to be some neat stuff to-be-released (Illusionist Wizard!). Check it out at DDI.


We're starting in 4e with the same module but (mostly) new characters at 10th level. That should give us a reasonable sense of how well the game scales over time.

What are you going to do, exactly?

RebelRogue
2008-06-16, 06:17 AM
RebelRogue

Did you give you 11 th level party proper magic weapons. They should have about +3 weapons at that time. Mosnter Encounter levels expects it.
As I mentioned earlier, we were still very much learning the rules, so we just winged it quickly. I remember reading in one of the excerpts that the most important stuff is your armor, weapon and neck slot item, so we just assigned one of each at a level comparable to level 11. I made a figther and just picked straight up "bonus on rolls"-items for quick play. I understand now that that's probably a little under what you may expect, bu it's certainly something we thought about!

We never actually ended the combat as we lacked time, but I don't really recall how many rounds we spent. I just know it felt bad at the time. We'll continue playtesting for sure, but I don't expect us to stop playing 3.5 altogether either.

Wender
2008-06-17, 10:42 AM
Either I don't understand what you mean by this, or I see no reason why that should be an irritation.

A power is an attack. There is no "extra step required".

This is not a logical issue, but a psychological issue that most of us ran into. When all you did was hit things with a weapon, you just did that. When you have the theoretical capability to select from a range of powers (the extra step) but there is only one choice it became irritating and monotonous. It admittedly did not help that every enemy we encountered in that module was the same monster.

I don't anticipate that this will be a problem going forward since we're starting with fairly high level characters and of course the splatbooks and homebrews are inevitable. And, since 4e allows retraining, you can mix those into your current character without multiclassing, which is pretty sweet.

I want to be clear that I generally like 4e. A lot about it is elegant and ingenious. My main complaint is that the demonstration module did a poor job of showing it off, and then I have a couple of other nagging issues.


What are you going to do, exactly?

Continue running Isle of Dread, with 10th level 4e characters instead of 7th level 3e characters.