We recently played our last game of the year, I can’t believe it’s been 1 1/2 years already with 4e. I feel I’m getting into a nice groove with my Dm’ing, both on the table and off. My prep time is going quicker than ever thanks to all the digital tools at my disposal, and I’ve finally found a tracking system for combats that has everything I’ve been looking for. I’m a happy DM right now, and feel like I’m where I should be given the amount of time I’ve been on the job.
One of the lessons I took away from our last session is the ability to spot encounters that don’t necessarily add anything to the adventure, and are more of a drag, rather than fun. To put things in context, I’ve been running the “Tears of Ioun” series from Dungeon Magazines issues 161-163. It’s a nice trilogy dealing with the Far Realm, and it has been a welcome change of pace from the Undead Orgy I’ve been putting my players through. But we hit the issue of “The Grind” with the last fight before the big boss. Let me show you the details:
The map in question...
Here is the map for the encounter we faced… the party approaches from the stairs, into that plain room shaped like a cross. Features of the area? None. The statues. That’s it. 4e adventure design does not really encourage this type of environment, but in the authors’ defense, I’ll chalk it up to 4e newbie issues. But let’s admit that this room couldn’t be more boring, specially so for a mini-boss, a solo level 13 blob of hit points (designed pre-MM2 solo tweaks)……
Foul Gibberer
Level 13 Solo Controller • XP 3,500
Medium aberrant magical beastInitiative +10 Senses Perception +10; all-around vision
Warped Ground aura 3; enemies treat the area within the aura as difficult terrain.
HP 675; Bloodied 337
AC 27; Fortitude 26; Reflex 26; Will 27
Resist 10 acid
Saving Throws +5
Speed 6, Swim 5
Action Points 2m Bite (standard; at-will) • Acid
Reach 2; +17 vs AC; 1d8 + 4 damage, and ongoing 10 acid damage (save ends)M Braking Bite (immediate reaction; usable when a creature moves or shifts within 2 squares of the foul gibberer; at-will) • Acid
Targets the triggering creature; reach 2; +17 vs AC; 1d8 + 4 damage, ongoing 10 acid damage (save ends), and the target stops movingC Gnashing Teeth (standard; at-will) • Acid
Close burst 2; targets enemies; +17 vs AC; 1d8 + 4 damage, and ongoing 5 acid damage (save ends)C Caustic Spew (standard; recharge 4 5 6) • Acid
Close burst 2; +15 vs Reflex; 3d6 + 6 acid damage, and the target is blinded until the end of the foul gibberer’s next turnC Gibbering (free; at-will) • Psychic
Close burst 5; deafened creatures are immune; +14 vs Will; the target takes -2 to attack rolls and all defenses (save ends both). First Failed Save: The target takes -2 to attack rolls and is dazed (save ends both)
So there’s the monster…. an aberrant gibbering mouther type guy that spits acid. He can cause minuses to hit as a free action and daze the hell out of the party. We know how much the dazed condition sucks. The rest of his attacks are acid based, and my pc’s had an acid resistance trick up their sleeves. So this fight pretty much ended up being a toe to toe back and forth. You can’t flank him because he has all around vision, (although in a bit of bad editing, the tactics actually say he goes after flankers first to avoid the flank, WTH?) and the room doesn’t have any dynamic features to make the combat pop. Also, once they were in melee with him, they didn’t want to move away from him due to his bite when you shift out. So it was an 8 round whack-the-mole situation until someone dropped. 675 hp of this for 9 rounds or so. Meh. Bad Dm’ing? Maybe… but more so, bad eye for not tweaking this baby ahead of time.
First thing I should have tackled was the encounter itself. What purposes, story wise, does it serve? None other than to protect the big boss’s room behind one of the double doors. Did the guard really need to be this big HP blob? No, it certainly does not. The room could have been filled with a couple of aberrant themed soldiers instead, some elites, rather than a solo. Guys that could really have put the squeeze on the party. Next the room itself. Where’s the dungeon dressing? James Wyatt has a great article in the December issue of Dungeon dealing with dungeon dressing. Both the DMG & the DMG2 have great new fantastic terrain that I could have thrown in there to spice things up. This room might as well be an empty arena.
So to answer my question, “is the encounter worth it?”, the answer is no. This encounter was not worth it. Certainly a more dynamic encounter with a variety of enemies and terrains would have served the same story purpose, without the grind and feeling of “what was the point of all that?”. The lesson learned is that as a DM, visualize in your head how these things are going to play out at the table. You know your party, you know their capabilities, so keep that in mind when designing or adapting encounters. I was a lazy DM for running the encounter as-is. Don’t be a lazy DM, always ask yourself if the next :45 minutes to an hour of game time are really worth it for you, and for your players.
www. Newbie DM .com 
Paul
December 23, 2009
I can see why the players stayed toe-to-toe, but why didn’t the monster move around? Was there anyone standing at range who needed to be squished?
greywulf
December 23, 2009
Yeah. As written that’s not exactly one of the greatest encounter setups ever. Here’s what I’d do:
1. Halve those hit points and bloodied value. Churning through 675 hp isn’t my idea of a fun evening’s entertainment. Nope. Get rid of halve of ’em right now.
2. Have the centre of the room (the 3×3 area betwen the pillars) be a pool filled with acid (5 damage per round). That Gibbering dude has a swim speed – so use it! It’s got enough reach to be able to hit anywhere in the pool without leaving it, but the players will need to think really tactically to take him down.
Net result: one exciting encounter, and quicker to run too.
The Chatty DM
December 24, 2009
Hindsight is always 20/20 but to surf on Greywulf’s poroposal… the acid pool could, if occupied by the solo for more than, say 4 rounds (i.e. usually 1 hour), collapse into a cavern below, taking down PCs in a Burst 3 radius around the Thing.
Thus you could have had a cavern encounter with terrain effect that HURT the blob…
…or maybe the blob runs off and the encounter becomes ‘save our fallen mates’
I can read between your lines that you’ve fallen in the very common 4e trap of ‘let’s just take whatever shit’s in the magazine and I’ll make it work somehow…’
It never does… all ‘as is’ adventures I’ve run have ended up being a bit disappointing. I believe you can’t prep for an honest 4e sessions without at least 1 hour of prep.
(And I’m not talking to you, Uber Improv god DM reader, if you are that good, you shouldn’t be reading this blog, go see that Chatty guy)
Sorry couldn’t resist.
Target
December 24, 2009
This advice might be doubly important if you create your encounters. I know I personally have a blind spot for how I originally envision things compared to the most probable actual outcome.
newbiedm
December 24, 2009
@Paul The monster could have moved, but it essentially was a situation where everyone would have moved with him, because the room was just an empty space (albeit the 4 columns)
@greywulf Great ideas – that would have made a better encounter.
@Chatty – I did fall in that trap. Guilty as charged. Also, please stop using my blog as free advertising. You want to advertise, pay up. 😉
@target – I think we all have that probelm at one point or another.
Paul
December 24, 2009
Most groups have at least one PC who hangs back because it can’t go toe-to-toe. This strategy works because the monsters have to incur OAs or defender marks to try to attack that PC. But if the monster has tons of HP, those attacks are less of a concern, so the encounter can be made more interesting (and perhaps less of a grind) if the monster deliberately incurs those attacks.
Even if your group doesn’t have such a PC or any defenders, a monster might have good reason to move and provoke. This monster would want to move to get PCs to trigger its Braking Bite. It could just shift, but if it moves 2 it provokes (reducing grind time) and can potentially prevent one of them from re-engaging. Hm, that last might extend the fight, but it still seems more interesting to me than a toe-to-toe grind.
I don’t know. I’ve never run a solo, and never run paragon. Smarter people than I have problems with solos as written. I think finding ways to give the players extra attacks (still within the boundaries of reasonable monster tactics) could be a viable way to reduce grindiness while making the fight more dynamic and interesting.
DiceGolem
December 24, 2009
I think an acid pool would have made the encounter much better to deal with, thematically and logistically. But, you have to also give your players some of the blame; they could have also spiced up the encounter by trying to crush the mini-boss with one of those statues!
Dave T. Game
December 24, 2009
This wasn’t the encounter I was thinking of when you first mentioned it, and I agree it looks like a recipe for boring. I think besides all the ways already suggested, your instinct to cut it out because it doesn’t contribute to the story is the one that I highly agree with.
tottealm
December 28, 2009
Great port newbieDM, and as a ong time DM, and long time hoby adventure producer, I know what you talk about. Too many times, pointless encounters, where the only reason they exist, is to fill the XP budget. I agree, I’ve done that myself, and I regret it.
The only reason is often lack of time or lack of inspiration,but I try hard to make encounters that have something extra, that can be played out in different ways, but it is not always possible.
As a side note, one of my DM-friends posted a good note on my blog about a similar subject, http://4eyes.code66.se/?p=2163, about making sessions that will be remembered a ong time after they were played, with good memories.
The encounter you describe here, is one of those you forget in a month time as it have never happend, or you might remember is as “that boring fight…”.
// Totte
Sadrak
January 13, 2010
Here’s what I do with those encounters. 1) Recognize that they serve 2 purposes: pacing and daily resource depletion. 2) Recognize that the room is boring and the creature is sticky.
Knowing those two things you can then RP the combat without the battle mat. “You walk into the next chamber, a slimy beast appears, roll initiative.” Followed by many rounds of “he does this, what do you do”. The trick is to push a boring encounter into the player’s imaginations instead of staring at the boring combat mat where nothing’s happening.
Every encounter serves a purpose (even if it’s just to add some xp so they level up at the right time during the adventure) but grindy fights I find aren’t so grindy when you can’t “see” what’s going on.
In reality, what I do is make a dummy version of the party that deals fixed average damage and 60% chance to hit (5+ on a d6). Then i run a pregame blitz thru the dungeon. When it becomes clear you’re going to win end the fight. Players will never do exactly what you do, but when you slam into a grindy encounter it shows up fast. Eventually you get a feel for “boring rooms” and “boring monsters” but in the mean time just take it off the board and between your improv and player improv it can make a boring fight awesome. (Essentially it turns a 4e into an advanced 2e encounter without the THAC0).
Brian
January 13, 2010
I had a similar experience DMing an encounter that I’d created myself. It wasn’t a solo, but rather what was supposed to be a dynamic encounter with 2 vine horrors and a bunch of bullywugs in a swamp. Problem being, vine horrors can restrain and inflict 10 ongoing damage to everyone in a close burst 5. Only two characters (the Archer Ranger and the goblin companion character) could really do anything (the Bard rolled very poorly with Vicious Mockery for the entire encounter). The Paladin literally got off 1 attack the whole time, and that was a dragon breath attack. I meant to use the vine horror’s malleability to get them to run around through VERY thick undergrowth, but between the two of them it was just smarter to keep restraining everyone on the board; if one missed, the other had a chance to hit. And the bullywugs just pelted everyone with javelins the whole time. Not only was it frustrating for the players who didn’t have much (or any) options in combat, but it almost resulted in a few character deaths.
I guess the point is that controller monsters sometimes seem like they’ll make for a dynamic fight, but they can be TOO effective and ruin the party’s fun.
Sadrak
January 13, 2010
Oh, forgot to mention, players can greatly increase the speed of this encounter. First they have to realize that the posts give them cover. Aura’s, blasts and bursts are effected by cover as per the diagram on PHB(281) and the posts can give well positioned players a good chance of avoiding daze/blind/slow effects of this baddy. Sure, you can just go toe to toe, but that’s boring, slow, and way more deadly than using the terrain. Plus a sticky defender can draw the reactions and push/pull a medium creature fairly well. So it can be slow and boring or relatively quick and exciting depending on the tactical approach taken by the players.
As a DM, facilitate this by letting players know which squares aren’t in the aura initially (reminding them about line of sight/line of effect) and then when the creature blasts. They’ll get the hint right away. I also see 3 doors. Remember it’s a minor action to open/close a door. So that’s 3 more positions players could stand in to open, fire, close and never suffer any slowing effects.
Can this fight be a grind? Yes. But from a design standpoint it doesn’t have to be. It just needs to be made clear right away that the monster is not one you want to be close to and that there are opportunities for cover. Maybe reveal on a DC15 Dungeoneering check or DC20 history check (assuming the PCs actually do their monster knowledge checks). If no one can get that maybe use Insight (DC15) as a backup check ala “you think those posts and doors might make for good cover”.
Part of the job of the DM is to help the players be better tacticians.
Simon Newman
January 16, 2010
Whenever 4e hit points look excessive I halve them, and award 2/3 XP. A good approach is to take the spare XP and use them for minions; minions who appear on the 2nd or 3rd round are good.
Eg: Orc Chief in Dungeon Delve 3, for 3rd level PCs, has an excessive 216 hp, 700 XP. Halve that to 108 hp, 466 XP. Add say 300 XP worth of additional foes; 2 orc raiders (skirmisher-3, 300 XP); 5 Orc Drudges (minion-4, 220 XP) or 3 Orc Warriors (minion-9, 300 XP) would work.
Having this critter spit out a bunch of minion-globules would definitely do the trick. Some regular artillery or skirmisher type creatures could also work.