Is 4e Heroic?

[neceros]

From many games and simulations, my group has been experimenting with Fourth Edition. We've noticed how there was a hint of something wrong in the background. We delved in to try and figure out what exactly was wrong with the system and how to improve upon it.

At first glance the system looks immeasurably better then Third. Mostly true, though we've made some discoveries to help our group make the system feel more epic or more heroic.


Hitpoints are too high.
I know this was done for a reason; mostly to make combat more realistic and less swingy. We feel the hitpoints are so exaggerated for NPCs and Monsters that it detracts from everyone's fun. Although we don't have a perfect system to replace hitpoints yet, most of the time cutting HP in half seems about right.

To explain, our players were feeling like they were merely cutting or barely hitting the enemies and it was taking too long to take out a general bad guy. Thematic as it is, it's not heroic or fun. Solos and Elites can go ahead and remain their extreme hitpoints as that is their job: Big tough baddies.


Power doesn't scale right.
Fact: Meteor swarm can't kill a single level one goblin 50% of the time. This is an issue. Again, we understand the power scales differently to balance the game as a whole, but the problem is that there's no real difference in power. Variety and options expand, power scales horizontally, but not vertically. It's an issue in a level based system where gaining levels doesn't mean much in damage.

Hit points and damage need to scale differently, we just don't know how yet. Attacks and Defenses seem spot on: Five stars there.


Variety is too limited.
This one, I believe, will be fixed when more splat books come out. It's the same feeling I got when 3.0 was released. It was exciting and looked fun, but after a few games we were all playing repeats of characters. This will fix it self eventually, but I thought I'd still say this is an issue.


That's pretty much it so far. We're striving to make the game more fun without bringing down the balance. Combat lasts too long, even with everyone rolling their attacks and damage before it's their turn and simply spouting off numbers to the DM. It's not fun, but we've done it to try and see if it went faster. Didn't really help.

Thoughts?

 

[FireLance]

I think the problem with hit points seeming too high is that there is nothing in between a standard monster that takes about four hits to kill and a minion (equal to four standard monsters) that dies on one hit. It seems to me that there is scope for lesser monsters worth about two minions or half a standard monster that have about half the points of a standard monster and require on average about two hits to kill. I'm also considering the possibility of making them die automatically on a critical hit. I did a write-up on such monsters (which I now call Adjunct monsters) over a month ago, but I'll be posting a new write-up to my blog soon.

 

[hong]

You need to use more minions. "Wade through the hordes" is exactly what minions are for, and the beauty is that they're available at all levels.

 

[GnomeWorks]

You need to use more minions. "Wade through the hordes" is exactly what minions are for, and the beauty is that they're available at all levels.

Minions do not solve the problems mentioned.

 

[hong]

Minions do not solve the problems mentioned.

Yes they do.

 

[GnomeWorks]

Yes they do.

Alright, well, since you're hong, and I'm just the ignorant poster who clearly doesn't understand your imminent wisdom, would you kindly point out why you think this is the case?

 

[Ydars]

I think the mathematics of the 4E combat system work perfectly; the problem is, a game is not mathematics.

I recently ran a 3.5E game set in Ptolus, where the PCs faced a high-level monster and all the combatants were flying. I wanted to encourage tactics but didn't want the fight to be decided too randomly so I gave the creature huge HP and low damage.

The fight went well, in terms of backwards and forwards ebb and flow, but afterwards, one of the players told me that, though they beat the creature it "didn't really feel very epic". I asked him to expand on this and he told me that he didn't like just chipping away at opponents for 20 rounds.

I have playtested 4E pitting monsters against Pre-gen PCs (all played by me) and was struck by how similar 4E combat was to this experience, though I think tactics will modify this significantly. The tactics issue really reminded me of playing chess actually, and I think good chess players will be good at 4E but that is another thread.

I know why WoTC made the mechanics the way they did but I think this could become annoying in the long term. I will have to play alot more combats with real players before I can tell how serious this will be.

Hong is right about Minions though; now we can have the guards/sentries who can be killed in one shot and that is just as it should be.

 

[hong]

Alright, well, since you're hong, and I'm just the ignorant poster who clearly doesn't understand your imminent wisdom, would you kindly point out why you think this is the case?

They die in one hit, thus solving problem 1. Despite this, they still present a non-ignorable threat when present in large numbers (all those little hits add up fast, and their defenses mean hitting them is not a trivial thing), thus solving problem 2. Minions have race-dependent features just like regular monsters (eg kobold shift-as-minor, goblin shift-as-reaction), thus solving problem 3.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Minions do not solve the problems mentioned.

It's not?

Minions are the kind of opponents that are non-heroic. They die a lot when fighting heroes.

Everyone else is a "heroic" (villainous?) opponent.

The question might be: How often do "real heroes" fight other heroes? How often should long, drawn-out fights happen, and how often heroes should run through wades of opponents? What is the mixture that feels right to you or your group?

 

[GnomeWorks]

They die in one hit, thus solving problem 1. Despite this, they still present a non-ignorable threat when present in large numbers (all those little hits add up fast, and their defenses mean hitting them is not a trivial thing), thus solving problem 2. Minions have race-dependent features just like regular monsters (eg kobold shift-as-minor, goblin shift-as-reaction), thus solving problem 3.

...who are you, and where is hong? I was expecting a cryptic one-liner.

Point conceded. Carry on.