I just ran a play test with a friend of mine involving five 30th levels vs. the 30th level red. And well, Big Red creamed the PCs.
I stated the PCs myself using what I call 'casual optimization'; a fighter, a paladin, a rogue, a warlord and a wizard; all human and all using standard array. I'm planning a second play test using full dailies and action points, but for this one the PCs were assumed to have spent all dailies and action points fighting their way to Big Red. Here's how the fight went:
1. Three out of five PCs got the drop on Big Red. Fighter and Rogue move in while Wizard uses confusion to take away Big Red's first turn and move him between Fighter and Rogue for flanking. A promising start for the PCs.
2. During the next few rounds the PCs land a few solid blows on Big Red, including an awesome crit by Fighter, but the PCs quickly run out of encounter powers. Wizard rolls high on his favorite stunning power that could have kept Big Red out of action for eight rounds, but still misses due to Big Red's insane defenses.
3. Big Red's fiery aura, breath weapon and melee attacks steadily eat away at PC hit points. Wizard keeps a safe distance, but Big Red is nevertheless able to make a stupid tactical decision to immolate him for significant damage with only a few HP loss from the paladin's mark. Paladin attempts to flank with Warlord, but is brutally knocked back by Big Red's tail.
4. With only at-wills left, the PCs can land only occasional hits against Big Red's high defenses, while Big Red can hardly miss even the defenders' ACs. The PCs are finally forced to use their second winds and Warlord uses two of his three inspiring words to heal Fighter and Rogue, while Big Red is almost down to 3/4 HP.
We decided to end the play test there, as it was clear that the PCs had no chance to win. Maybe the second play test will work out better for them, but this one wasn't exactly promising. Anyone else have experience with epic play, play test or otherwise?
TS
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I wanted to do a playtest with 4 30th level PCs against the Tarrasque, but I haven't even gotten around to statting the 30th level fighter yet.
I was worried that the PCs would quickly run out of decent powers, then hope their spammed At Wills would be enough. But I noticed some powers at higher levels can be recharged by other successful maneuvers, so I'm hopeful.
Your results are appreciated!
Out of curiosity, what kinds of magic items did they use? There are some pretty powerful items that a 30th level character could have, and they would probably have significant numbers of the higher end healing potions to get better usage out of their healing surges to make the party's HP last a bit longer.
Just my two cents there.
I wanted to do a playtest with 4 30th level PCs against the Tarrasque, but I haven't even gotten around to statting the 30th level fighter yet.
Why four PCs? Just curious, as five PCs is the assumed party number in 4e.
While I can see the point of no dailies, I don't understand the point of no action points, theirs a 50-50 chance of the party having the one and only action point they could use in the encounter anyway.
How do you mean? PCs normally get one AP per day, barring milestones.
Out of curiosity, what kinds of magic items did they use? There are some pretty powerful items that a 30th level character could have, and they would probably have significant numbers of the higher end healing potions to get better usage out of their healing surges to make the party's HP last a bit longer.
I didn't give the PCs magical items because I figured the most useful part of the items, their daily powers, would have been used for this play test. I did give the PCs +6 enhancement bonuses to attacks, damage, defenses and 6d6 critical dice. I'll be giving the PCs actual magical items for the next play test though.
What Epic Destinies did they have? An Archmage would be able to afford an extra Daily power in a fight, while a Demigod would be able to keep using Encounter Powers.
I suddenly feel very foolish...because I completely forgot that demigods don't run out of encounter powers. All the PCs are demigods. *sigh*
You mention the dragon had almost no chance to miss even the Defenders - how low a chance are we talking? Even with just armor and level, the dragon should be looking at a 1/3 or so miss chance, and closer to 1/2 if they have shields or other boosts to AC.
My defenders both have an AC of 46 meaning Big Red needed a 9 to hit. Okay so that's not quite 'can hardly miss' but it's a 60% chance to hit anyway. To hit with the breath weapon BR needs a 6 to hit Fighter and only misses Paladin on a natural 1. To hit with frightful presence it needs an 8 or 9 for Wizard and Paladin, and only misses anyone else on a natural 1.
Meanwhile Fighter's impressive +35 great sword attack needs a 13 to hit BR; other PC weapon attacks fare even worse. Wizard's +30 spell attacks hit BR's will (its lowest defense) on a 12 or higher.
Anyway I'm going to run another 'encounter powers only' play test, this time remembering the demigod ability and with magical items, then I'll run the 'everything goes' play test.
TS
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I wanted to do a playtest with 4 30th level PCs against the Tarrasque, but I haven't even gotten around to statting the 30th level fighter yet.Why four PCs? Just curious, as five PCs is the assumed party number in 4e.
No real reason, except to avoid prepping a 5th PC. I assumed a Solo L30 with 4 L30 PCs would qualify as a hard encounter, but still doable.
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This playtest is troublesome and does not bode well for the future of 4E. Apparently, the math of 4E is just as skewed towards excruciatingly long combats and TPK's at 30th level as it is at 1st level. It doesn't get any less newbie friendly than having players wishing the first combat of the game was over an hour earlier or watching their PC's get demolished by monsters with too many hit points and alarmingly high defenses. If you are just starting the game, would you want to come back if the first combat took 2 hours to resolve, and your party was TPK'd in the first module you ran through? Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence suggesting that this sort of scenario is all too common with 4E. I see dark storm clouds ahead for D&D.
This playtest is troublesome and does not bode well for the future of 4E. Apparently, the math of 4E is just as skewed towards excruciatingly long combats and TPK's at 30th level as it is at 1st level. It doesn't get any less newbie friendly than having players wishing the first combat of the game was over an hour earlier or watching their PC's get demolished by monsters with too many hit points and alarmingly high defenses. If you are just starting the game, would you want to come back if the first combat took 2 hours to resolve, and your party was TPK'd in the first module you ran through? Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence suggesting that this sort of scenario is all too common with 4E. I see dark storm clouds ahead for D&D.
I really have no idea what your Jump skill is to make the leap to that conclusion! (I figure you would appreciate the use of Jump vs. Athletics skill).
I hesitate to call them flaws, as the OP has made no statement trying to say that their scenario was in anyway scientific, but there are certainly some things that stand out (and have already been addressed by other posters) as not being totally correct. The scenario itself seems heavily weighted against the PCs. They are put into a very little fire power available to them. I honest don't think that this combat would drag on at all...I think the Dragon would end up wiping the floor with them. (I am assuming that if they have used their dailies, they have probably used at least half of their healing surges).
This really doesn't seem to be a good test of 4e vs 3.5 (And again, I am not insinuating that was the OP's intent). Really, how well would a group of level 20 PC's fare against a dragon if their magic users had only level 1 and level 2 spells left?
I am not bashing 3.5 and I am not trumpeting 4e, but it just seems wrong for you to take someone's posting about their personal experience and use this to your own end to trumpet the end of 4e. Especially when there is no evidence to support it, or that the OP was even suggesting anything to that end.
I do have my doubts that the high level math actually works out in 4e, but I'm definitely not comparing it to 3e either. If 4e math does prove to be unworkable, it at least will be easier to house rule a fix than high level 3e math. I have found even outside of this play test, in my low level 4e campaign, that combat takes a really long time because everyone has a lot of HP. But if it really becomes a problem there's always double damage for everyone!
TS
Or do what a lot of people suggest and half monster hit points.
I found similar problems both ways in 3rd edition, and I DM'd till 25'th level. At later levels (15th and above) I needed to adjust the enemy\monster\ npc to match the PC's even though all were at the right CR etc otherwise half the time the PC's would destroy the enemy within two rounds or the PC's would find themselves almost dead.
The artform became changing the challenge dynamically to challenge the PC's but not destroy them. I've also noticed that if the PC's do not have an in depth understanding of their powers, how the powers can effect the combat and aid the PC's, they would find themselves failing horrendously.
PC's in 4E need to work together to succeed, it doesn't have to be all the PC's necessarily but the majority must work together.
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Or do what a lot of people suggest and half monster hit points.I found similar problems both ways in 3rd edition, and I DM'd till 25'th level. At later levels (15th and above) I needed to adjust the enemy\monster\ npc to match the PC's even though all were at the right CR etc otherwise half the time the PC's would destroy the enemy within two rounds or the PC's would find themselves almost dead.
The artform became changing the challenge dynamically to challenge the PC's but not destroy them. I've also noticed that if the PC's do not have an in depth understanding of their powers, how the powers can effect the combat and aid the PC's, they would find themselves failing horrendously.
PC's in 4E need to work together to succeed, it doesn't have to be all the PC's necessarily but the majority must work together.
It's good to encourage teamwork, but demanding almost perfect teamwork (which 4E seems to) is taking things too far.
How do you mean? PCs normally get one AP per day, barring milestones
While technically true, this doesn't reflect the actual chances of a PC having an AP available in any given encounter. A Milestone is every second encounter, so a typical PCs day goes like this:
1st encounter - 1 AP2nd encounter - 50% chance of having an AP (if the PC didn't spend it in the first encounter)
3rd encounter - 1 or more APs (even if the PC spent their AP in the 1st or 2nd encounter, they get a new one after completing the 2nd encounter)
4th encounter - 50% chance of having 1 or more APs
5th encounter - 1 or more APs (even if the PC has spent both their 1st or second APs, they get a new one after completing the 4th encounter).
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I'm no statistician, but as you can see, for any given encounter the chances are higher than 50% (and on odd-numbered encounters exactly 100%) that the PC will have an AP to spend. IME, PCs tend to hang on to their action points for serious/boss encounters, so most PCs would have an AP available for this sort of "campaign ending" encounter.
...all using standard array...
This is very suboptimal. In 4e, much more than even in 3e, having your primary stat as maxed as possible is key. The extra +1 or +2 to hit that it gives you over the standard array is much more important than any advantage you'd gain with a more "balanced" array.
I'd suggest using the "standard" point buy of 18, 14, 11, 10, 10, 8 for these sort of playtests. Frankly, I don't know why WotC didn't make that the standard array for 4e - pretty much every PC I've seen takes that array (except for the few who take one of the 2x16 arrays)
Or do what a lot of people suggest and half monster hit points.
That'd just make the players too powerful compared to the monsters - which results in the DM facing them with much bigger monsters, that have more HPs and we end up back were we started.
Doubling the damage output for every attack avoids this problem - but makes attacks that do hp damage much more potent compared to other kinds of attacks.