Consider that these PCs spend 8+ hours a day hanging out with each other killing people for a living, I would expect them to develop some awesome synergies. I mean, Xena/Gabrielle, the Leverage crew and the Serenity crew manage to develop tactics and cons…why not your PCs?

And honestly, if there is one character with 18 int, or 16 Cha, it is no surprise that these SUPER GENIUSES have probably communicated some kind of strategem to the team before hand.

I mean, your average US Infantry Soldier is a by definition, average guy, 10 all across the board in stats, probably level 1 or 2. These guys rarely see full blown combats every day of every hour like PCs do, and they’re commanded by officers of ‘average’ ability. These are NORMAL people with fantastic ability to coordinate…why not PCs, which are the stars of the show?

I just wanted to highlight that even a story-driven group can put the tool in place to do this kind of thing while still keeping the pretense of fluff on.

Have to agree
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Is there an article or something on those classifications I can browse?

Let’s say, I want to say to Roco the rogue that I will move to flanking position so he should delay and wait for me to be in position. I could say in stead I point to the enemy and make a sign that we should both attack simultaneously. Same info one with mechanic the other with fluff in game.

Or lets say a want to tell you a counsel on your next course of action. An idea fuel by your past experience as come to you why not do this. Yes it is not you character but it’s as though the idea came from the character experience that is player does not have.

After a day of work we usually have our plate full as it is and we do not make the extra effort to keep the combat in story mode but a group wanting it, could do it and still be able to work as a team.

And that’s fine!

Oh man! When’s our next game already?

It’s a lot easier to describe the stuff with the mechanics. I don’t see the time to be uncalled for though. These character represent trained professional they would know how to access a situation and get the best out of what they can do probably more then the player playing them. Also they would talk to each other in a fight, although we do not play it, it is somewhat implied. So discussing your plan of action is note that much meta and giving counsel to another player can be view as insight the character could have that you as player do not.

All of this could be done in fluff if you want to preserve the impression that you are not meta but in the end it comes down to the same thing. To work as a team you need to communicate.

What probably accentuate the impression is that in our group we have two players that are somewhat risk averse and will try to use the best possible action. And then there is me which, after Phil, is the loudest at the table suggesting course of action to anyone without taking care to mask it in a pretense of story as I find it annoying at best to describe my attack this is the part where my tactical side takes over and my storyteller side takes the backseat.

The fact i went from a homebrew based on 3.5 to one based on a giant list of stolen ideas (i’m not going to kid myself and say it is an original system, more a frankenstein) has really helped me achieve everything i want in my game. Anyway this has nothing to do with 4e synergy and power curve, i just wanted to throw my two cents in. Hahah

Great post chatty and thanks for letting me steal your ideas for the gaming table

Scott

If it doesn’t come up, either because it never manifests itself or because the group chooses to stifle it, then the game still works and is actually easier to DM!

For example, as newbie characters, we encounter creatures that we know as players, but that our PCs should not be too savvy about. We try not to use our player knowledge.

We’ve once decided to roll against knowledge to see if the player actually knew a weak spot, failed the roll and skipped the “correct” strategy.

When a PC knows information and did not have a chance to share the info with the other PCs, we do not allow ourselves to use it.

We also try to respect the pacing – we won’t allow a 15 minute discussion on how to best use triggered abilities within a turn that represents a few second of time in game; meaning we won’t do our best combos if we don’t discuss strategy before the combat.

If we manage to stock to PCs for more than a few levels, we should see better strategies learned from less-than-optimal combats.

Of course, we still talk XP, HPs, healing surges, dailies and whatnot.

Playing with your group where (to my eyes) all meta was allowed was a very different experience. Then again, the PCs were much more seasoned than the ones we played at our table, so maybe we were role playing that
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I’ve no problem imagining a Storytelling-focused group go through a 4e combat with flourishly described moves AND the synergy bonus. We aren’t such a group. We create our stories after the fight in our retelling of our games and my reports.

In fact, I would challenge you with this… How much RP was going on in your 4e games during combat? Knowing how meta you become at the table you probably could not handle the crunch of the game AND a story on top of it. I’d bet our next beer on it.

And as I said before, if all players don’t have at least a bit of the Tactician/Slayer in them, 4e is not a RPG for them. In fact, given your less crunchy players, I would suggest Mouseguard in a minute if it didn’t threaten you with a brain explosion for worrying so much about GMing it right.

We don’t get that at our table – only 3 players could do it, and one is always the the DM… the other 3 players don’t care much about rules and synergy all that much. That, and we try not to go too meta so as not to kill the RP aspect.

I wonder if how this “efficiency factor” is affected by the meta-speak.
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@Mike Shea: I will most likely be adopting the “hard mode” you suggest, as I’ve been lamenting low damage lately in my encounters.

Also I wanted to mention that I’ve started using up player’s healing surges for addition things such as feats of great strength or if they want to use a ritual in a short amount of time mid encounter I’m happy to let them spend action points and surges to get particularly heroic and cool things done.

I have a total of seven players but its a rare night where all seven show up. Instead its usually six and six players with two leaders is pretty hard to challenge (now we’re at epic where its even harder).

A few simple house rules can make a big difference:

1. The above mentioned “elite solo” boost that reduces the power of dazes and stuns.

2. The “hard mode” boost that gives monsters +5 damage at paragon and +10 at epic (still playing with the math on this).

Those two alone can make a big difference and threaten a lot of parties.
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Interesting idea about the Rule of Winning at 4e. I’m almost sure that my players can hit most monsters with <10 right from the start of the encounter.

@ Chatty DM: I've really taken to Mike Shea's idea of adding a power to Solos that allows them to decrease the power of dazes and stuns on them. You don't want to eliminate it but stunning a solo just has soooo much more impact on the combat than stunning a Standard Monster.
.-= Dean´s last blog ..Challenging the PCs =-.

My PCs aren’t quite as synergistic, but they’re almost there. Part of the problem also is that they’re all very ‘risk adverse’ it seems (ie they all have emphasized healing or temporary hp and such), and the Cleric player has optimized his character into healing.

@Tiorn: Exactly. It’s a bonus, nothing else. However synergy and low-tension intra-party conflict isn’t exclusive in my mind. I believe that meaningful PC vs PC conflict should occur around significant, story issues… not about who gets to heal who and refusing to move one square to the left to allow combat advantage.

But maybe that’s just me.

@Jason: Oh man, I make a cliché sexually-biased generalization about women being communicators and you pull a triple LBGM on me? You win this round kid! Now I just need the ‘playing D&D with Porn Star’ blogger and we’d cover a large swat of D&D’s lifestyle range.

So rather than me doing my dumb hetero bit, let me ask you.. are you guys/gals communication-focused or play-focused or both around the table?

@Illum: Agreed. High level solos are probably expected to be used in conjunction with other monsters
and or other encounter elements. Your tricks and solutions mirror many that I have in mind for the next parts.
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