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6 months ago ::
Dec 11, 2012 - 6:54PM
#41
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Fair enoug, as I said It wasn't my Rogue, so I don't know how it was done. Combat has taken more than 4 or 5 rounds typically. Players miss, enemies heal, so on and so forth. I like how combat works but it does feel silly to spend an hour plus on a fight with a band of ambushing orcs.
The part in bold seems wrong.
4E is designed to spend an hour plus on a fight with a band of ambushing orcs if the fight was actually relevant. If it's just one of many minor skirmishes designed to wear out the PCs, run the series of combats as a single long-going skill challenge wherein each fight is assumed to be an easy enough win unless the PCs fumble a lot with their attack rolls and/or skill checks.
Now, if you really want to use the combat rules for those orcs and you want fights to be fast, use minions. Lots and lots of minions. They're there for a reason. Now if you really want to use regular opponents and not minions, lower their HP and defenses as if they were 2-3 levels lower, but retain the attack bonus, then stop rolling for damage and instead use average damage for the non-minions.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 12, 2012 - 5:16AM
#42
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A fair point, actually: enemies should almost never be healing. Enemies that do have regen are better off having it removed and their HP set to normal instead.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 12, 2012 - 8:05AM
#43
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Date Joined:
Jan 19, 2009
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I do like the boat load of minions idea. That's a fun idea that I wanted to try, forgot about, and never got around to.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 12, 2012 - 10:06PM
#44
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A fair point, actually: enemies should almost never be healing. Enemies that do have regen are better off having it removed and their HP set to normal instead.
Personally I'd have creatures with means of prolonging their stay in battle (via regeneration or via resistance to most forms of damage that the PCs have) start out with half their maxHP, so while the frustration of killing them would be there, the actual length of combat isn't increased.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 12, 2012 - 11:26PM
#45
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Why would you want to keep something you explicitly describe as frustrating? Also, the reasoning is actually the reverse: you remove the healing and normalize the HP because the monsters usually get blown up without being able to heal at all.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 13, 2012 - 12:49AM
#46
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A fair point, actually: enemies should almost never be healing. Enemies that do have regen are better off having it removed and their HP set to normal instead.
Never had much trouble with regeneration, although most have a method to stop it for a round. I do either completely remove or otherwise significantly reduce any healing effects that heal as much as a healing surge. Monsters have more hit points, especially elites and solos and they should never heal a full healing surge. Practice has definitely shown that to be a recipe for a dragging fight for most groups.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 13, 2012 - 12:57AM
#47
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Never had much trouble with regeneration, although most have a method to stop it for a round.
It's a compounding problem for small and no-divine parties.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 13, 2012 - 1:46AM
#48
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Never had much trouble with regeneration, although most have a method to stop it for a round.
It's a compounding problem for small and no-divine parties.
Not all regeneration is with undead  In fact, the most infamous ones are trolls and I run those with PCs that even lacked acid and fire attacks. Regeneration is never too high for even basic at-will attacks to pierce: 5 hit points per round at heroic and 10 hit points per round at paragon*. It does require the players to focus fire though, so if you have a group that is not that focussed on party tactics OR you design the encounter to prohibit focus fire (either through terrain, control effects of the monsters or adding non-killing goals) you should indeed avoid regenerating monsters.
In this regards it is really no different from any other monster powers. You need to know the PCs and the players and whether they are able to offset the effects. Similarly, you need to look at the other monsters and the terrain to make sure that they do not interact in unexpected ways with those powers. Such interaction in itself is not bad. You just need to know its effect to achieve the planned effect and adjust accordingly. Of course, this is easier said than done. It helps that when things do end up in a grind, you can adjust accordingly without disrupting the immersion too much. Recogning a grind and knowing when and how to call a fight are great skills for any DM
* Just don't combine regeneration with insubstantial AND weaknesss, because that is a bad idea as we learned the hard way in LFR
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6 months ago ::
Dec 13, 2012 - 1:59AM
#49
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CORE 2-5, Black Card, encounter 6 comes to mind: at-will save-ends Weakening, Insubstantial, Wizard's Escape, and self-resurrecting creatures that can be killed only by radiant damage. Yeah.
Ironically, still a breeze for the well-prepared, but why would anyone write that?
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6 months ago ::
Dec 13, 2012 - 2:46AM
#50
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CORE 2-5, Black Card, encounter 6 comes to mind: at-will save-ends Weakening, Insubstantial, Wizard's Escape, and self-resurrecting creatures that can be killed only by radiant damage. Yeah.
Ironically, still a breeze for the well-prepared, but why would anyone write that?
People being humans, we can all miss things even more so when the problems rise with certain party compositions and not with others. Having said that, I have not been involved in the adventure and I don't know the encounter. After all, you can certainly create these encounters, just make sure the monsters themselves are less lethal than typical
(One of the most favorite fights in my home campaign involved a fight with a monster that could conjure impenetrable darkness. I just made sure the downsides of that defensive power was offset by other things.)
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