Quote from: Doom;379294In any event, action points represent another standard action. At paragon level, action points trigger bonus events...it doesn't speed up the game a bit.

I just don't think you can understand that 'taking more actions in a round' might mean less rounds, but means just as much time.

Sure. But at varying points in a combat, one side might have an advantage over the other -- a temporary condition that makes it easier for them to hit or to do more damage. Using an action point to get another attack during the duration of that temporary condition will increase the amount of damage done per real time minute. I can give examples -- the pacifist cleric encounter power that dazes targets and gives them 10 vulnerability to all damage, for example, but I think it should be pretty obvious.

And of course it doesn't mean "just as much time." Even if it takes 60 seconds to resolve an attack, that's a bit of a distance from the 2.5 minutes you're claiming a whole turn takes. You're adding an entire round's worth of  damage without taking an extra move, an extra start and end of turn, and so on. Except you're adding more than that because you timed your AP to be used when the monster's vulnerable in some way.

QuoteI don't believe you've said this before, and in no way do I dispute this possibility.

First, your group fights, say, two level 15 monsters. Then, they fight 4 level 14 monsters. Then, they have a 2/1 skill challenge. Then, they have a 'level' fight pretty much as described. That barely would take 4 hours, and probably less if your whole party is as hyperoptimized towards damage as you (it's curious that AM hasn't come in here to complain how bad you are for using optimization).

Actually, I did say it before, but you may have missed it. The encounters in question: first, a level 16 skill challenge (6 successes before 3 failures). Second, a level 16 fight with 5 level 16 monsters, none elite. Third, a level 18 fight, a bit weirdly structured -- starts out with a level 16 elite and 4 minions, but they stop fighting once the elite goes bloodied and it transitions into a fight against 3 level 16 normal monsters and another level 16 minion, plus a level 16 hazard. Then we finished up with a level 17 fight: 1 level 18 elite, 2 level 16 normals, 1 level 18 normal.

Weird table, FWIW -- no leaders, but two paladins, which wound up being just enough healing to get by on.

Regarding my sorcerer: I imagine AM isn't doing that because he's seen me play the sorcerer and he knows he's not hyperoptimized. Hyperoptimized, for a sorcerer, would have been cheesing out and taking the daggermaster paragon path so that he crits on an 18-20. My sorcerer is pretty optimized, but I've taken, let's see: Fleet-footed, for +1 movement; Leather Armor Proficency; Sorcerous Blade Channeling, which I barely ever need to use these days since I go entire adventures without using at-wills; and the bard multi-class. Half of his feats have nothing to do with damage, and they could.

Of course, not too long ago, you were telling us that your players were broken:

QuoteMaybe now you'll accuse my players of all being sub-optimal? The cleric has all the broken powers (healing more than double a surge with each 'surge' power), the paladin has the broken 'Certain Justice', the Ranger combos off the broken Bard prestige path...not exactly a weak group, really. I think the lowest plus to-hit is +22, not bad for 15 and 16.

What I'm guessing is that your players fell into a pretty common trap: optimizing for defense and healing. I have another online group that did the same thing. Their fights take forever, very close to your 7 rounds, because the barbarian went heavily into warlord and so on. Of course, you won't show us your encounters or characters so I'm just guessing here -- but it looks pretty likely.

If you could step back and admit this as a possibility, I think there's a great discussion to be had about why this happens. I think it's yet another problem with the presentation of D&D. But when you're stuck on the idea that your path is the only path anyone could follow, it's going to be impossible.

Quote from: jgants;379377For minions, I generally fix the problem by doubling or tripling the amount of damage they are supposed to do.

That's what I do as well - otherwise they're rarely worth paying attention to.

Quote from: jgants;379377But yes, combat is slow.  I don't know if its signifcantly slower than in past editions (I remember 2e and 3e combats taking forever, too).

3E definitely, at least at mid-high levels.

Quote from: jgants;379377Oh, and WTF is with healing surges?  They should have kept them at like 1-4 per day.  At 7 or more, PCs never even come close to using them all before they have to rest.

I don't find that at all. The rogue in my party is almost always out of surges after one or two fights, the paladin gets close as well since he soaks up damage and spends them on lay on hands.

Quote from: Fifth Element;379433I don't find that at all. The rogue in my party is almost always out of surges after one or two fights, the paladin gets close as well since he soaks up damage and spends them on lay on hands.

It's very much in the hands of the DM -- if you get relentless about focusing fire, you'll burn through one PC's healing surges. But everyone else will tend to have a ton left. You're going to see a lot of variation between groups because of this, IMHO.

Quote from: Thanlis;379420And of course it doesn't mean "just as much time." Even if it takes 60 seconds to resolve an attack, that's a bit of a distance from the 2.5 minutes you're claiming a whole turn takes. You're adding an entire round's worth of  damage without taking an extra move, an extra start and end of turn, and so on. Except you're adding more than that because you timed your AP to be used when the monster's vulnerable in some way.

No, it means nearly as much time. I gave 2 minutes less, assuming  every character uses an AP in a pointless, irrelevant, fight that represented no risk to the players. Do you understand that most players won't spend limited resources completely pointlessly? When you pump gas, once your tank is filled, do you take the nozzle out and run it, spilling gas everywhere just to do so? This is irrational.

Anyway, at paragon level, spending an AP generates a bonus power in addition to the bonus standard action...many paragon paths do this. You DO get an extra move, or an extra attack, or generate an extra event that lengthens everyone else's turn.

How come you don't know this already?

QuoteActually, I did say it before, but you may have missed it. The encounters in question: first, a level 16 skill challenge (6 successes before 3 failures). Second, a level 16 fight with 5 level 16 monsters, none elite. Third, a level 18 fight, a bit weirdly structured -- starts out with a level 16 elite and 4 minions, but they stop fighting once the elite goes bloodied and it transitions into a fight against 3 level 16 normal monsters and another level 16 minion, plus a level 16 hazard. Then we finished up with a level 17 fight: 1 level 18 elite, 2 level 16 normals, 1 level 18 normal.

And there's your problem, you're running only pointlessly easy encounters of no risk to your party. Not one of those a real challenge to a level 16 party of five. Five level monsters (exactly like I said), One monster and 4 minions (hah!), or 3 monsters and 1 minion (hah!), and then 4 monsters. Wow, that's, well, very close to what I said before you told me.

In any event, none of those encounters represent any sort of challenge, much like I said. Especially with 2 paragon level paladins in the party, a pair of Certain Justices completely nukes every single one of those encounters.

QuoteWeird table, FWIW -- no leaders, but two paladins, which wound up being just enough healing to get by on.

And both the paladins hit just as hard as your sorcerer, right? Heheheh, defitely some intellectual dishonesty here...which paladin at-will hits for over 50? You've had to have seen it by now, since you say you're playing with them.

QuoteOf course, not too long ago, you were telling us that your players were broken:

I didn't say anything of the sort, it's you and AM that insist it's my players' fault, but the players aren't broken, the game is, at least in the opinion of those that think 2.5 hours a fight is a bit much.

QuoteWhat I'm guessing is that your players fell into a pretty common trap: optimizing for defense and healing.

Yeah, that TWF ranger with a bastard sword in each hand is really, really all defense, no doubt about it.

So, it's a trap to put anything at all into defense? Wow, one more nasty issue with the game.

I concede that if everyone goes all high damage, all the time, it might speed things up, but is that really all 4e and RPGs are to you? Just doing as much damage as possible as quickly as possible, with anything else being a trap? I guess that's why we aren't seeing eye to eye on this.

QuoteI have another online group that did the same thing. Their fights take forever, very close to your 7 rounds, because the barbarian went heavily into warlord and so on.

Whoa, whoa, I thought the thesis here was it's just me. We really are going back to players that do that are playing wrong?

QuoteOf course, you won't show us your encounters or characters so I'm just guessing here -- but it looks pretty likely.

Not a question of won't. You just don't get how an average works, one or two encounters demonstrates nothing. But to satisfy your curiosity, there's a 2wf ranger, a bow ranger, a paladin, a fighter, a cleric, and a warden (half-giant, hits really hard with 2h weapon), currently. My players get bored with their characters and commit suicide every few fights, so party composition changes often.

My players are doing it wrong for only having 2 strikers, right? I know that optimally from your point of view, it should be all 2wf rangers and one warlord...but my players are in the 'trap' of using the other classes.

QuoteIf you could step back and admit this as a possibility,

Hey, I admit it's possible that everyone else is doing it wrong, and you and AM have the "1 true way" of playing this game in a workable fashion. But this way you suggest, of all damage dealing and nothing else, and building the whole party about all damage dealing and nothing else...I don't think it's the only way to play, in my opinion.

In any event, outside of this degenerate situation that still will cause problems, the mathematics say otherwise, is all.

QuoteBut when you're stuck on the idea that your path is the only path anyone could follow, it's going to be impossible.

Indeed.

Back to the original topic, I do hope this 4.5 can at least fix some of the problems that folks not playing the '1 true way' of all damage and nothing else see.

Quote from: Doom;379451No, it means nearly as much time. I gave 2 minutes less, assuming  every character uses an AP in a pointless, irrelevant, fight that represented no risk to the players. Do you understand that most players won't spend limited resources completely pointlessly? When you pump gas, once your tank is filled, do you take the nozzle out and run it, spilling gas everywhere just to do so? This is irrational.

So how many encounters do you put in your day? I'm doing three fights, one skill challenge. Start the day with one AP. Pick up one milestone along the way; in two out of three fights, the PCs have an action point to spend. Since you can't spend more than one AP in a fight (excepting a couple of special cases), you are in fact spending APs more often than not.

QuoteAnyway, at paragon level, spending an AP generates a bonus power in addition to the bonus standard action...many paragon paths do this. You DO get an extra move, or an extra attack, or generate an extra event that lengthens everyone else's turn.

How come you don't know this already?

I do. That's why I said "Even if it takes 60 seconds to resolve an attack, that's a bit of a distance from the 2.5 minutes you're claiming a whole turn takes."

QuoteAnd there's your problem, you're running only pointlessly easy encounters of no risk to your party. Not one of those a real challenge to a level 16 party of five. Five level monsters (exactly like I said), One monster and 4 minions (hah!), or 3 monsters and 1 minion (hah!), and then 4 monsters. Wow, that's, well, very close to what I said before you told me.

Um, no, it's not. You said "First, your group fights, say, two level 15 monsters. Then, they fight 4 level 14 monsters. Then, they have a 2/1 skill challenge. Then, they have a 'level' fight pretty much as described."

Two level 15 monsters is 2,400 experience points. That's a level 10 encounter for 5 PCs. 4 level 14 monsters is 4,000 experience points, which is a level 13 encounter. Then a level fight is of course a level 15 encounter for level 15 PCs.

Again: level 10, level 13, and level 15. What I described was a level 16, a level 18, and a level 17 encounter in that order.

QuoteIn any event, none of those encounters represent any sort of challenge, much like I said. Especially with 2 paragon level paladins in the party, a pair of Certain Justices completely nukes every single one of those encounters.

Neither of the paladins had Certain Justice, actually.

QuoteNot a question of won't. You just don't get how an average works, one or two encounters demonstrates nothing. But to satisfy your curiosity, there's a 2wf ranger, a bow ranger, a paladin, a fighter, a cleric, and a warden (half-giant, hits really hard with 2h weapon), currently. My players get bored with their characters and commit suicide every few fights, so party composition changes often.

Classes don't tell me much. FWIW, that seems like a perfectly reasonable potential party to me. Three defenders is in fact kind of high on the defenders, but a fighter can dish out some pretty good damage.

QuoteMy players are doing it wrong for only having 2 strikers, right? I know that optimally from your point of view, it should be all 2wf rangers and one warlord...but my players are in the 'trap' of using the other classes.

*shrug* You can keep putting words in my mouth, but those aren't things I'm saying. I'm not saying all damage is the one true way. I pointed this out already, I think, but if I felt that way I'd be playing a storm sorcerer with daggermaster as my paragon path instead of a dragon sorcerer with dragonsoul heir, which if there was ever a defensive paragon path for a striker, that's it. I get 6 temp HPs when I AP, very exciting.

I think that if a player tends towards making all defensive choices, it will slow the game down. I think that if you tilt towards more offensive choices, you can wind up with a faster game. That's all I'm saying. You, on the other hand, were saying that it's impossible by the math to get encounters done in less than 2.5 hours.

By the by, in case anyone's still reading this who's interested, there's a great technique hidden above for speeding up fights a bit -- throw in a lot of ad hoc skill challenges. These ought to be opportunities for roleplaying, of course. If you've got a 1:1 balance between skill challenges and fights, then players can spend an action point every fight.

While I'm talking about general strats -- the whole thing where you save all your dailies for the "big fight" can also be a slowdown. Thing is, by the time you're in the middle of paragon, you have four encounter powers and four dailies. Let's assume the seven-round fight is standard. Let's also assume, conservatively, that using all encounters and dailies instead of at-wills speeds up that fight by two rounds.

OK. So you have eight powers to use in five rounds. Some of them will probably be out-of-turn actions, but still -- it's hard to squeeze all your dailies into one fight!

I find myself completely willing to use a daily in a "trivial" fight. Do I have a few targets? Great; let's make this sucker easier. If I see a good opportunity to use a power, I'm going to use it, because I have no guarantee at all that circumstances will line up properly again.

Sometimes this means I'll find myself staring at a difficult fight wishing I'd saved my big guns. But so what? My character emphatically does not need perfect tactics in order for me to have a good time.

To all who are still reading, what they talk about is the fucked-up brokenness of 4e under its OWN terms FROM THE DM perspective. On the players side, it´s pointless boredom interspersed with waiting.

Quote from: ThanlissI'm not saying all damage is the one true way. I think, but if I felt that way I'd be playing a storm sorcerer with daggermaster as my paragon path instead of a dragon sorcerer with dragonsoul heir, which if there was ever a defensive paragon path for a striker, that's it.

You know they errataed Daggermaster to not give the bonus except to Daggermaster and Rogue attack powers, right?

People who do lots of damage and get fights over in less than two hours are not playing the One True Way, as defined by the people who write the errata and print the books. Getting high level fights over with in a reasonable amount of time under any circumstances is a bug.

-Frank

Quote from: Settembrini;379491To all who are still reading, what they talk about is the fucked-up brokenness of 4e under its OWN terms FROM THE DM perspective. On the players side, it´s pointless boredom interspersed with waiting.

So not much different from 3.5, then?  :rolleyes:

Quote from: FrankTrollman;379493You know they errataed Daggermaster to not give the bonus except to Daggermaster and Rogue attack powers, right.

Yes, I do. Doom was pretending that I'm a minimaxer; I am pointing out that if I was a minimaxer, I'd be using that particular broken path. And I'd keep using it until June 4th when it becomes no longer legal in LFR. Instead, I'm using one of the paragon paths that minimaxers refer to as "total crap."

Quote from: Peregrin;379496So not much different from 3.5, then?  :rolleyes:

 UTTERLY different. At least from my own experience I can say that the waiting part in 3.5 is from a wholly different source: people needing time to decide and work out spell effects. So you might have waiting, but you have no boredom.

How does that work?

When I'm fighting something in 3.5 beyond, say, 7th level, and my means of damaging or doing anything to it are limited to such a degree that I'm useless 95% of the time, I'd say I'm pretty damn bored waiting for the mage or the person with the specific type of magic item/weapon to resolve things.  In fact I won't even touch 3.5 beyond the first 5 or 6 levels for this very reason, especially since a lot of creatures start to get higher resistances, necessitating the Christmas Tree Effect just to remain competitive as a martial class.

At least now everyone has cool stuff to do, instead of waiting for the mage to resolve their spells so you can continue sucking or running away.

I just don't see what makes waiting in 3.5 any more or less boring.

Quote from: Peregrin;379511How does that work?

When I'm fighting something in 3.5 beyond, say, 7th level, and my means of damaging or doing anything to it are limited to such a degree that I'm useless 95% of the time, I'd say I'm pretty damn bored waiting for the mage or the person with the specific type of magic item/weapon to resolve things.  In fact I won't even touch 3.5 beyond the first 5 or 6 levels for this very reason, especially since a lot of creatures start to get higher resistances, necessitating the Christmas Tree Effect just to remain competitive as a martial class.

At least now everyone has cool stuff to do, instead of waiting for the mage to resolve their spells so you can continue sucking or running away.

I just don't see what makes waiting in 3.5 any more or less boring.

At this point he's just bating you, dude.  He isn't even making an attempt at a cogent argument.

Are you guys insane or something? Do you want to really tell me a fighter has nothign to contribute in 3.5 past 7th level? Man, I played to the twenties twice as a player and 1.5 times as GM, and I must say you guys act as if 3.5 play never existed and you never read about it or never experienced it.

Well, my rant aside, the question still stands.

How does waiting for someone else to finish their turn in 3.5 differ from 4th?  What makes waiting in one game somehow more bearable?

PS: My insanity is more apt to show itself when talking about the president or how they poison milk supplies than when I'm having a conversation about RPGs.