Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 ikkitulakubidiii Apr 21, 2009 14:37:04	Newer DM here. I've been thinking about the game design and had an idea for a alteration of combat. I just picked up the 4th rules lately and learned them easily enough, but I found that combat tended to be a mishmosh of each character's strongest at-wills. It just seemed that the vanilla attack stat is there for appearances only (maybe it's my players?). Although not explicitly a problem, I wanted to reincorporate it into the combat step. I had two ideas how to do this, one simple and one complex: a) at-wills have a 1-3 turn recharge time b) allow the "move" action to be used as a vanilla attack. This doubles as a way to speed up combat, and i like the flavor of characters locked in combat getting more hits in. the problem with "B" is that magic-users tend to focus on at-wills, and I can't see a fair way to balance this without letting other classes go nuts with 2xtwinstrike, or 2xlance, etc... maybe 2 different at-wills would be ok? I haven't tried playing with a modified attack step yet, I just wanted some reactions to the idea of replacing movement with action, mostly whether it's complete nonsense or has any merit Thanks!
#2 Shiftkitty Apr 21, 2009 14:57:17	Your players are only using their at-wills? Why are they sitting on their encounters and dailies?
#3 ikkitulakubidiii Apr 21, 2009 15:22:08	Not literally; they use the daily and encounter powers as they need to, but after that it's all just the at-wills. It's not that combat goes poorly or anything it just seems like the vanilla attack stat is completely useless.
#4 ascottbay Apr 21, 2009 15:47:42	Perhaps vanilla attacks are the vermiform appendix of D&D? Vestigial anatomy of bygone editions... However: you could try to build encounters that are resistant to certain characters' most frequently used at-will damage types, or have high defense vs. that particular attack roll. This won't necessarily make them use standard attacks, but could get them to change up their tactics. Do this with a few relatively easy encounters so that they get used to paying attention to the effectiveness of their powers, and then start incorporating it into more important encounters. It'll seem like you hate them if everything you throw at them is hard to hit/damage, so just do it occasionally, and try to tie it into the plot. Maybe also only focus on resisting certain characters each encounter, or setting it up so that Monster A is good against Player A's powers but weak against Player B's, and Monster B is good against Player B but weak against Player A, and set it up so that the A's face each other first, the B's face each other first, and see how long it takes for them to realize it would be easier if they swapped dancing partners. I know this still doesn't directly address vanilla attacks, but generally, when something's not used, I just forget it's there, until I'm going over everything trying to find something new that might work, when the old tricks aren't helping. ;)
#5 ikkitulakubidiii Apr 21, 2009 15:58:34	Part of the vanilla attack option is meant to make being locked in combat more beneficial; i disliked the idea of having a "wasted move" every turn. But the wizards vanilla doesn't benefit as much from this change as does the fighter's or archer. I'm just looking to see if it's possible, so we can try a balanced version of it one session and see what happens.
#6 Stuntman Apr 21, 2009 17:14:01	Newer DM here. I've been thinking about the game design and had an idea for a alteration of combat. I just picked up the 4th rules lately and learned them easily enough, but I found that combat tended to be a mishmosh of each character's strongest at-wills. What level are your characters? At level 1, you are rather limited in your combat options after the first round or two. At higher levels, characters will have more powers available to them. In any case, class at-will powers are the primary features of each class, so you will see them used a lot. Also, most characters will have one at-will that they tend to use most often. The other one will be more situational. For example, one character in my group has Dual Strike, Cleave and Footwork Lure. Dual Strike is his primary power he uses. Cleave will only be used when faced with more than one enemy and Footwork Lure has only been used once because usually there is no need to move around. It just seemed that the vanilla attack stat is there for appearances only (maybe it's my players?). What do you mean by vanilla attack stat? Do you mean the at-will powers? Do you mean the basic attack powers? Although not explicitly a problem, I wanted to reincorporate it into the combat step. If it is not a problem, why do you want to make changes? a) at-wills have a 1-3 turn recharge time If a wizard has Scorching Burst and Magic Missile and the last enemy is surrounded by allies, he is screwed for a couple of turns after using MM while he waits for it to recharge. If he used both in the same turn from an action point, then he pretty well has to throw rocks while he waits for them to recharge. b) allow the "move" action to be used as a vanilla attack. This doubles as a way to speed up combat, and i like the flavor of characters locked in combat getting more hits in. the problem with "B" is that magic-users tend to focus on at-wills, and I can't see a fair way to balance this without letting other classes go nuts with 2xtwinstrike, or 2xlance, etc... maybe 2 different at-wills would be ok? It sounds like your definition of vanilla attack is the class at-will powers. Anyway, I'm still not sure what problem you are trying to solve. I haven't tried playing with a modified attack step yet, I just wanted some reactions to the idea of replacing movement with action, mostly whether it's complete nonsense or has any merit I'm not sure if replacing the move action with a standard action attack is a good idea. It would make things more difficult for PC's because a few monsters ganging up on a single PC will drop him more easily. Instead of one turn each, it starts to look a little like two turns each.
#7 Stuntman Apr 21, 2009 17:18:59	Part of the vanilla attack option is meant to make being locked in combat more beneficial; i disliked the idea of having a "wasted move" every turn. I don't think move actions are wasted. Just try more flanking maneuvers. If you flank a creature, the creature would generally want to at least use the move action to shift. If the enemies want to flank that creature again, they will have to use move actions to move or shift and only one of the two enemies will be able to gain combat advantage. If the flanked creature does not move on his turn, then both of the enemies will have combat advantage on their next turns. It sounds like you guys are not using movement to the fullest advantage. Both the DM and players should be trying to use movement in combat to flank, attack soft targets, protect soft targets, set up or disrupt area attacks.
#8 ikkitulakubidiii Apr 22, 2009 9:14:49	Thanks for all the replies and nitpicking. Helps to know when an idea is not as strong as when I first had it. To clarify: When I refer to "vanilla attacks" I mean the non-power stat on the front of the character sheet. It tends to be strictly worse than at-will powers the character can use every turn. Thus far, our campaign has only been a few sessions, and the encounters so far have been characterized by: a) close quarters b) PC's adjusting to the combat system c) dumb monsters d) low lvl characters So Stuntman diagnosed that pretty well.
#9 Rustmonster Apr 22, 2009 10:24:36	It tends to be strictly worse than at-will powers the character can use every turn. That's the point. Your At-Wills are intended to be stronger than Base Attacking. And you are intended to prefer them to Basic Attacking. They wouldn't be At-Will if they hadn't wanted you to use them all the time. I have a hunch that this is due to attempting to bring old-E logic into 4E, but I won't assume. Basic Attack is really meant only for things like OAs, situations where you are forced to use the inferior attack form by a condition, or if you do not have a certain form of At-Will (IE a Fighter who wants to make a Ranged attack is pretty much stuck with Basic Ranged). Hope that clears things up. TL;DR, you are intended to use At-Wills instead of Basic Attack.
#10 kiyosa Apr 22, 2009 11:04:16	ikkitulakubidiii, (ee-kee-too-luh-ku-bee-deeeee?) I think what you are calling the "vanilla attack stat" here is technically referred to as the "Melee Basic Attack" on page 287 of the PHB. If you think that your combats are bland and uninteresting now, it'll only get worse if you make players use Melee Basic Attacks instead of using their At-Will powers. The Melee Basic Attack (MBA) is utterly bland, you aren't going to make anything more compelling or interesting by forcing it in, you are also going to increase book-keeping a lot if you make At-Wills recharge sporadically. Also, forcing non DEX or STR based characters (all Arcane and many Divine classes) to have to use ranged basic attacks or MBAs a lot is going to completely neuter them from a balance perspective, they don't and can't invest points into DEX or STR and this means they are going to be fairly useless on many rounds. This effect will get more and more pronounced as levels increase, because STR and DEX will be relatively even less powerful for non STR or DEX characters later on! Allowing MBA's to replace the move action is going to completely imbalance the game as well, characters who adjacent to enemies often (defenders and strikers) are going to have their damage inflate massively, characters who are not adjacent to enemies frequently will suffer. How long have you been playing 4e? It sounds like you are trying to jump on the house-rule bandwagon really early to me. Play at least a dozen games with the rules as written before you start to mess with stuff, you'll be happy you did. It takes some time to really see what is and isn't making the game more enjoyable for your group. Despite this a lot of DMs just start playing designer after nothing more than a read-through of the rule book or a single session!
#11 ikkitulakubidiii Apr 22, 2009 12:16:08	I just wanted to note that in the first post I just threw this out as an idea to see what everyone thought of the rules as is, or if and what changes were viable. I haven't been plaing 4e very long at all (4-5 sessions), and this entire thread was more or less meant just to gauge the reactions of much more experienced gamers to what "seemed" at the time like a fair idea. If the feedback was good or some innovative way to balance the change popped up I might have tested it in one encounter to see what happened. Now I know better :D Thanks!
#12 Stuntman Apr 22, 2009 15:06:11	To clarify: When I refer to "vanilla attacks" I mean the non-power stat on the front of the character sheet. It tends to be strictly worse than at-will powers the character can use every turn. Thanks for clarifying whay you mean by "vanilla attacks." What you refer to as "vanilla attacks" are properly called basic attacks. They are describe in the PH1 p. 287. Basic attacks are useful, but in a rather subtle way if you are not familiar with 4E. Here are some examples of when you would use a basic attack: All of your powers are melee range and you want to attack a target at range. You would use the Ranged Basic Attack (RBA) for it. You make an Opportunity Attack. Use the Melee Basic Attack (MBA) for this. Certain powers allow you or an ally to use a basic attack like the Warlord Attack 1, Commander's Strike. You charge. Thus far, our campaign has only been a few sessions, and the encounters so far have been characterized by: a) close quarters b) PC's adjusting to the combat system c) dumb monsters d) low lvl characters My group is also starting and all new to 4E, so there is a learning curve. There is also a learning curve for me (the DM) as well in terms of creating interesting encounters and adventures for my group. The first session didn't go that well as everyone was learning the system. After the first session, things got progressively better. I think it took until the third session before players started to get the hang of it. By the 4th session, everyone also being at level 2, combat started to move more smoothly and players really learned to work together. The important thing in 4E is team work. That takes time and takes patience as players learn about the system, their own abilities and the abilities of their team mates. I was most impressed with the tactics of my group on the last encounter of our previous session. I thought it was going to be really tough for them, but they pretty much identified the most dangerous enemy and worked together really well to bring it down quickly. The rest of the encounter was just mopping up.
#13 Stuntman Apr 22, 2009 15:09:54	I just wanted to note that in the first post I just threw this out as an idea to see what everyone thought of the rules as is, or if and what changes were viable. I haven't been plaing 4e very long at all (4-5 sessions), and this entire thread was more or less meant just to gauge the reactions of much more experienced gamers to what "seemed" at the time like a fair idea. If the feedback was good or some innovative way to balance the change popped up I might have tested it in one encounter to see what happened. Now I know better :D Thanks! For new players learning a new system, I would recommend you try to work within the system first and ask others some advice on how to play it better rather than trying to change the rules. If you are moving from 3E, you will find that there are many things that are different and the reasons why they are different may not seem obvious to you. 4E is very different than 3E and plays differently, so this may be why you feel that something is wrong or needs fixing. Take this opportunity as new players to explore the game as is. Try different things. Use movement more. I find this exploration period is rather exciting because you discover cool things you can do. As you reach an intermediate skill level with the system, these new cool and exciting things are discovered less frequently as you have already discovered many of them in your beginner level.