Is it worth trying to fix 4e?

[MartinHarper]

An army of level 8 people can indeed wear down a party of level 30 people, but the problem is that the whole thing takes so long that no-one actually cares enough to do it. The players will break down into tears and leave the table, the DM will drink himself into a stupor and even the dice will be likely to try to commit suicide.

And that's why the DM uses an army of 12th level minions instead.

[RandomCasualty2]

But it is circular reasoning. We don't use large numbers of 8th level opponents to challenge 30th level characters because it isn't interesting. But it isn't interesting because the game has a genuine flaw where fighting opponents outside your level range is uninteresting.

In 3e, for example, a 20th level character can get some genuine risk and enjoyment chopping through dozens of CR 6 monsters. The fact that the equivalent action in 4e is as you put it "uninteresting" is not a good thing.

It's true that we don't use ti because it's not interesting, but I don't think you can ever make it interesting. You're dealing with a ton of die rolls of weenie creatures trying to praying for a natural 20. So it's a heck of a lot of rolling for mostly misses (in either edition), and it's just not something we care about.


In 3E, that fight is just as dreary and dull. It's just a little shorter because the damage is higher. But it's still not something I'd ever care to run as a DM. The melee attacks of such creatures are trivial, and the ranged attacks can be nullified by protection from arrows.

This is exactly the sort of thing that you either skip over ("There's a bunch of goblins and you chase them away with your awesomeness.") or it's sometihng that you use rules tricks to try to represent in a more interesting manner, like representing groups of creatures as a high level swarm.

A computer game (even one using D&D rules) can run dynasty warriors style battles and make them fun. A tabletop game really can't. By the time you're done rolling for hobgoblin warrior #212, all your PCs have either fallen asleep or started playing Mario Kart.

Putting down hundreds of low level minis just doesn't work well in any game.

[Tydanosaurus]

True, an army of level 8 people can indeed wear down a party of level 30 people. . .

It has to literally be an army. Even then, it'd be close.

At 30th level, strikers do something like 30 w/ their at-will powers, and hit a L8 creature 95% of the time. The L8 creature will only hit on a 20. If the characters have Demigod, it's very likely they never die, since there's a limit on the number of army people that can attack each round.

[ckafrica]

It seems obvious that we need some functional rules for creating units/swarms that can either fight by another unit or by an individual of significant power while using the basic rules.

Might this actually be easier with 4e rules as you can set criteria of how unit monsters act and then formulate the power by level they should wield?

[Voss]

Hundreds of minis on the table can be very fun, and can work just fine. You just have to be a little creative with how you resolve it.

The attacks of an army is freaking easy to do if you have half a brain. Figure out what absurd number they'd need to hit. Take the average number of hits that would result. (If 200 people only hit on 20s, you have 10 hits). Add or subtract a random die roll, depending on the number of people (d4 for 100, d6 for 200, etc). So for 200, 10 +/- d6 hits.

Done. You've accounted for a fairly reasonable statistical variation and it takes all of a minute, if that. You can go with a 'brainless follow the rules like a fucking robot' if you want to, which is pretty much the 4e philosophy, but damn, its a game, make up a reasonable, workable solution that doesn't punish or reward the players excessively and go with it. It isn't hard, and taking out options because it looks hard is the height of stupidity.

[Username17]

I actually like the "Tide of Battle" rule for large numbers of attacks.

You roll 3d6, and 5% get each number higher than the result and 5% get each number lower than that, to a maximum of 20 and minimum of 1 of course.

It gives you about the same results as jus taking flat averages, but it gives you good and bad turns.

-Username17

[Fwib]

I actually like the "Tide of Battle" rule for large numbers of attacks.

You roll 3d6, and 5% get each number higher than the result and 5% get each number lower than that, to a maximum of 20 and minimum of 1 of course.

It gives you about the same results as jus taking flat averages, but it gives you good and bad turns.

-Username17

Couldn't that end up with a LOT of the enemy critting if the 3d6 roll is high? Or do armies of mooks not get crits?

[zeruslord]

When you want characters wading through armies, why bother with actually representing individual mooks? The commander has some ability that just lets him create an Army AoE. When in the army, opposed characters move at half speed, slaughter an arbitrary number of mooks, and take an army AoO from the commander. I was hammering out a more detailed versoin of this with name here last night, and one of us might post the start of a system along these lines on Saturday.

There is still a gap where there aren't enough mooks to just declare an AoE, but there are still too many to actually represent individually. This is probably where we want real swarm rules to exist - somewhere between ten and one hundred guys.

[JonSetanta]

I actually like the "Tide of Battle" rule for large numbers of attacks.

You roll 3d6, and 5% get each number higher than the result and 5% get each number lower than that, to a maximum of 20 and minimum of 1 of course.

It gives you about the same results as jus taking flat averages, but it gives you good and bad turns.

-Username17

Euughhhh too much math. Percentages make me cringe in tabletop RPGs.
It would be better to have flat bonuses proportionate to the level of the armies (don't know how you'd work out mixed-level groups) and sling those dice around for more random bonuses.
It's not Travian, you know.

[RandomCasualty2]

When you want characters wading through armies, why bother with actually representing individual mooks? The commander has some ability that just lets him create an Army AoE. When in the army, opposed characters move at half speed, slaughter an arbitrary number of mooks, and take an army AoO from the commander. I was hammering out a more detailed versoin of this with name here last night, and one of us might post the start of a system along these lines on Saturday.

There is still a gap where there aren't enough mooks to just declare an AoE, but there are still too many to actually represent individually. This is probably where we want real swarm rules to exist - somewhere between ten and one hundred guys.

Yeah you could probably just declare the army as hostile terrain, that does X damage to you while you stand in it.

[Tydanosaurus]

It seems obvious that we need some functional rules for creating units/swarms that can either fight by another unit or by an individual of significant power while using the basic rules.

While it's interesting to think about, IMO it's not a good way to go. 4E's not built for it. The cover rules, which are OK when you're talking about 5 guys fighting, say, 20, don't make a lot of sense when you're talking about 5 guys fighting 6400. Or 3200. Or whatever. Do you really think your players aren't going to complain a little bit when you say that the mob of L8 archers 40 deep around them don't interfere at all with each other?