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Sep 16, 2009 -- 9:23PM, Alphastream1 wrote:

Sep 15, 2009 -- 1:01PM, Elder_basilisk wrote:

First, it's not nearly as mysterious as you are making it out to be. There are modules and encounters that are generally challenging and that are rarely reported to be cakewalks.

Outside of the first half of SPEC1-2, I've had easy rounds of all of the ones you mentioned.  (I've had challenges with some of those as well, due to replaying, and I do know what you mean. Your point is valid).

That aside, the rest of your post was really interesting. I've been thinking on it off and on. I find probabilistic analysis to often fail in the face of human nature and actual play, but the rest of the argument was really very thought provoking. I'm mulling it over. It's a different type of thinking than I employ, and I suspect I'll be thinking on it for a while, if I ever grock it fully.

What do you think in terms of module construction? Is it realistic to say that LFR authors can aim to significantly reduce the swinginess and not hurt other aspects by limiting their construction? (Simple example: a lot of cool monsters have 2-3 rechargeable powers in the higher tiers of play). Should LFR authors aim to do so? Or should we just live with swinginess?

First, a comment about probabilistic analysis. I don't think the failure of things to always play out according to the odds is an argument against my analysis of 4es probabilities. In fact, the crux of my analysis is that by keeping the probabilities of individual rolls within a relatively constrained area in the vicinity of 50% (at least for PCs and monster attacks vs. AC, as I noted before, it is extremely rare for monster attacks vs. NADs to require more than a 7 or 8 even against a character's highest defense and it is not uncommon for them to hit a low defense on a 2), 4e ensures that actual play will see a wide variation of results. For instance, while it is unlikely that all six of the PCs' first attacks in combat would miss, the 1.56% chance will probably occur in at least one combat for at least one table in a large con. Likewise, the opposite result of the PCs' first six attacks all hitting will probably occur in at least one combat for at least one table. To some degree, this accounts for the swinginess of combat that people experience.

As to the rest, I think it is possible for LFR authors to aim to significantly reduce the swinginess of LFR modules. I don't think it is possible to entirely eliminate it since a portion of it is a consequences of the design decisions that went into 4e, but it should be possible to reduce it. Now, I have not written any non-My Realms LFR mods (and, since I am not willing to work with the writer's guidelines, I will not be doing any in the future either), but I don't think that working with the theories I proposed would hurt the modules mechanically, at least in the short term--and provided that they were not adopted strictly. (In some cases, it would be good to accept some swinginess in order to allow the use of different monsters that would create combats with different challenges and stories with different antagonists).

To some degree also, I think that the theories that I was talking about for reducing swinginess also point the way towards more enjoyable modules in general. For instance, I have yet to meet anyone who enjoyed trying to hit an AC 27 soldier at level 3. That situation is both swingy and frustrating (for those people who don't get lucky and finish the combat in round 1 with a pair of lucky crits with their high crit vicious weapons). Likewise, I doubt anyone will complain that they aren't seeing artillery monsters flying outside the party's range and bombarding them until they die. That is swingy (based upon party composition) and unfun.

As for monsters with multiple recharge abilities, I think they are poor design (mostly because the monster will always be using a power that is better than his at-wills), but they are not as inherently swingy as monsters with only one recharge ability. The reason is this: A monster with, for instance, three recharge abilities essentially has encounter power-level abilities to use every round. In general, said monster will have at least one such ability charged every round of combat and while it is possible that an unlucky streak could prevent any of them from recharging for several rounds, a lucky streak where they all recharge every round is not very different from the baseline--after all, said monster can only use most of them once per round anyway. Thus the swing towards easier than anticipated is limited because it is unlikely that none of the powers will recharge and the swing towards difficulty is very limited because, provided the abilities are of similar power and usefulness, the monster can only use one of them anyway. On the other hand, a monster with a single rechargeable power that is more powerful than his at-will abilities has a wider range of possible difficulties (from easy where his power never recharges to hard where his power recharges every round) and in any given combat it is also more likely to turn out easy or hard (since the odds of, for instance, not rolling 5-6 for three rounds or rolling a 5-6 three consecutive rounds are much higher than the odds of three powers not rolling a 5-6 for three rounds or all of them rolling a 5-6 for three rounds running).

One other way that LFR authors could reduce swinginess is more indirect: by altering the resources available to players in treasure bundles and cards. A lot of characters are running around with +2 vicious weapons, which are inherently swingy items. (They are swingy because the increase a characters' damage in a large burst based on random and unpredictable circumstances (rolling a 20)). A focus on useful items that are less swingy (+2 magic or +2 resounding, for instance are less swingy than +2 vicious) as treasure would indirectly reduce the swinginess of LFR mods without changing other parts of adventure construction. The lucky shot card also serves to increase the swinginess of combat (though only in the PCs' favor since monsters cannot use it). On the other hand, the use of card bonuses reduce swinginess by rendering the results of combat somewhat more predictable (the players will hit more). Things such as the various at-will re-roll cards also have this effect. A card that let you re-roll a failed save would likewise reduce the swinginess of combat (though it might be overpowered--not that snap out of it, that'll do, lucky shot, and the at-will re-rolls aren't).

Sep 18, 2009 -- 10:04AM, bgibbons wrote:

Sep 16, 2009 -- 9:23PM, Alphastream1 wrote:

What do you think in terms of module construction? Is it realistic to say that LFR authors can aim to significantly reduce the swinginess and not hurt other aspects by limiting their construction? (Simple example: a lot of cool monsters have 2-3 rechargeable powers in the higher tiers of play). Should LFR authors aim to do so? Or should we just live with swinginess?

I'm curious as to how much LFR could get away with changing the way rechargability works, perhaps in the Tactics section.  For example, something like "Rather than rolling for abilities that recharge on a 4 or higher, the DM can assume that a Recharge 6 power recharges on the 6th round after being used, a Recharge 5-6 power recharges on the 3rd round after being used and a Recharge 4-6 power recharges on the 2nd round after being used."

At the least, I think this is something that should be explicitly considered while play-testing.  If a combat is a cakewalk if a creature doesn't recharge any of his powers, or a TPK if a creature is able to use his power in each of the first three rounds, then further review is necessary.

I ran DRAG 1-1 (Many Hands Make Light Work) again recently, which has a combat with a leader who (at high-tier with 6 players) has a Recharge 5-6 power that lets him summon three 58 hp brutes as a minor action.  I've had one table in which the power recharged in 3 out of 4 rounds; I had another in which it never recharged.  Clearly, the challenge level was very different for those two groups.

If we were looking to change the way recharge abilities work, the way to do it would probably be to make recharge 6 recharge on the 3rd or 4th round after being used (which is where it would be expected to recharge based on probability), 5-6 on the 2nd-3rd round, and 4-6 on the second round. Or to look at it differently, 4-6 has a one-round cooldown, 5-6 a 2 round cooldown, and 6 a 3 round cooldown. (Still, I don't think recharge 4-6 should exist at all; if the creature has any other recharge powers, the ability is almost at-will at that point and in any event it is an invitation to swinginess since it will be usable once in the first three rounds of combat 25% of the time and usable every round in the first three rounds of combat 25% of the time).

On the other hand, I suspect it would be much more interesting to have completely different recharge mechanisms. Recharge when no creature is effected by x power or recharge power x when creature uses (standard action) power y would be less record keeping and would ensure that the monster does not simply spam one ability over and over again.

That said, I suspect that, in LFR this would have to be accomplished by making new monsters. Call ithe revised monster a goblin curse-shaman instead of a goblin hexer and it would probably go through whatever review process new monsters go through. Call it a goblin hexer and people would flood the boards with calls for errata because the recharge mechanics would not match those in the monster manual.