Barring dungeon crawls I don’t really do trivial encounters, that long progression of ‘gimmie’ fights that a DM puts a party through to do a slow drain on their resources to soften them up for the BBEG encounter at the end of the work day. I certainly run multiple fights in one work day but typically they’re not quantified as ‘trivial’. Each one has a chance to result in death for someone other than the NPC’s.
Let’s face it, the vast majority of us have limited play time and expending that playtime in fights that are ‘gimmies’ seems wasteful. Many of these single type encounters can be done using Narrative rather than combat. But there are times that you do need to show the wear and tear on the group as they go through a long series of encounters but breaking out the mini’s for each one just eats horribly into the time you have to play.
Lately I’ve been using skill challenges to drain surges from the group to simulate small but pointless fights as they flee pursuit through the swamps or try to hide from the hobgoblin tribes while making their way home.  But those seem rather flat.
So I’m considering something more combat encounter based and let the party use their combat values against some defensive value, kind of an abstract combat.
The key question is how, I like the 3 rounds and you’re out system I use for skill challenges (duh or I wouldn’t use it right?) rather than the three strikes and you’re out that is the official system. And right now three rounds of combat are close to typical for the group at the level it’s at and seems like a good place to start.
So primarily how to abstract something as tactical as 4th Edition combat is the big question. I need to work in a way for the players to gain some benefit from the various level of powers, at-wills, encounters and dailies with the understanding that a daily used during an abstract combat encounter is a daily they will not have during that work day. And we need a simplistic way to simulate buffage.
So my thinking is on any of the three rounds the players can elect to use an At-Will (base), Encounter (bonus), Daily (bigger bonus). They will take their Attack value for that power, added the bonus for encounter/daily, and then roll against an abstract defense of their opponents. This isn’t so much to abstract their ability to hit as it is to abstract their ability to do damage. Encounters and Dailies = more damage output.
Enough failures and they will be forced to expend a surge for each round.  So the most they can cost themselves is 3(4) surges per A.C.E. which isn’t out of line with a trivial encounter.
But we also need a way to more equitably spread out the surges lost. As we all know barring really hard fights it’s typical for some (defenders) to go through an asston of surges while classes that can remain out of harms way might spend none.
So as a first draft let’s see how this flies -
Abstract Combat Encounter System or ACES
Purpose:
To simulate resource drain for a fight the party is expected to win without much risk but without having to take the time to move to a tactical simulation.
Procedure:
The party will negotiate 3 rounds of abstract combat. In each round each member of the party will pick one of the following, At-Will, Encounter, or Daily. They will roll a d20, compute their attack roll and compare it to the appropriate DC for the encounter using the AC/F/R/W values as set by the DM.
On any round that there failed rolls are equal to or less than successes the members of the party will lose one surge.
On any encounter that the party does not garner at least one success they will be penalized an additional surge.
Details:
Characters /Attacks -
During each of the ACES rounds each member of the party will choose one of their powers to use. If the power is an attack power that targets a defense, the character must roll against the appropriate DC/Defense as set by the DM.
If the power also enhances another member of the party then the player may grant/add a +2 bonus to another character’s roll using the Aid Other rules. If the power does not make an attack against an AC/F/R/W attack but it grants a benefit to another character then the player rolls against a DC+encounter level. If they succeed then it counts as a success and grants a +2 bonus to the other character’s roll. [NOTE: Yes this grants higher 'value' to non-strikers in general but what the hell let's give them a time to shine.]
If the power is not an At-Will the character receives the following bonuses where appropriate:
- Encounter +5 to attack roll / Additional +2 bonus Aid Other.
- Daily +10 to attack roll / Additional +4 bonus Aid Other.
Monsters / Defenses / DCs –
The DM will determine the defenses / DC’s of the encounter using the average AC, Fortitude, Reflex, Willpower of the encounter creatures. You can also use the following values as an overall average across all monster types
- AC = 14+Encounter Level
- F/R/W = 12+Encounter Level
All encounters are assumed to be at the Easy level. If you wish to simulate a normal or harder fight then add +2 per increase in difficulty that you wish to portray.
Experience / Loot-
The party will earn loot for the encounter just like they would have if it had been played out tactically.
They will earn full experience of the encounter divided by 3 multiplied by the number of rounds they succeeded at with a minimum of 33%, even failure teaches us something. i.e. if they only succeeded on two rounds then they get 2*33% or 66%.
If they win two out of three rounds they’ll also typically earn some mundane items of value. By winnign three out of three rounds they’ll also earn some items of higher value or items of a magical nature.
Sacrifice –
One per encounter a character can elect to sacrifice a surge and take one for another member.  More than one character can sacrifice for a member but each character can only sacrifice once per encounter.
Major Failure / Death-
If the group fails all three rounds then one player determined randomly is assigned a Death Strike which counts toward their three death strikes for the day and as such can only be removed after an extended rest.
Long Term Usage / Wave Attacks -
Sometimes you might want to simulate a lot of minor attacks, wave situations for instance where the party might have to face 5-10-20… etc trivial fights.
In this case you could instead of each encounter being three rounds, you just decide how many rounds per wave you want simulate.  Each round rather than once per encounter a player may sacrifice a surge for another player.
If a character runs out of surges they’re considered out of the combat and the remaining characters incur a cumulative -2 penalty per out of commission character on their die rolls to simulate them being forced to ‘take up the slack’. If all characters are reduced to 0 surges the encounter is considered lost.
High Level Example: Goblin Warrens for Level 1 Party
Setup: The party has been tasked with cleaning out a goblin warren on one of the caravan trails. The creatures have been causing issues with the caravans, stealing things at night from the strong ones, attack and pillaging smaller ones after driving off or killing the guards.
Attacks against the goblins have proven of little use with only a few killed. But now the location of the warren where they’re holed up has been found and the party has been sent to insure that one way or another the raids stop.
It’s assumed that trying to deal diplomatically has failed and there’s no point in talking to anyone but the leader of the goblins and the outside chaff won’t talk.
So the DM figures it’ll take 3 minor encounters to get to the inner sanctum of the goblins. He chooses to do this with ACES to leave time for the big boss fight whether that turns tactical or roleplay.
The first two encounters are truly easy so the DC’s for those are going to be AC: 15, F/R/W 13 as they’re level 1 encounters. The third one will see the goblin boss throwing in some of his personal bodyguards so he’s going to crank that difficulty up one notch and that fight will be at DC’s of AC: 17, F/R/W 15.
The final boss battle will be played out normally.
Encounter 1 – Party of 5:
- Round 1 – 4 successes – Result: No loss
- Round 2 – 4 successes – Result: No loss
- Round 3 – Only two success – Result: 1 lost surge
Total: 1 surge lost. The paladin elects to sacrifice a surge for the cleric and loses two and the cleric loses none. Experience gained equals 66% of the total.
Encounter 2:
- Round 1 – 3 successes – Result: No loss
- Round 2 – 4 successes – Result: No loss
- Round 3 – 5 successes – Result: No loss
Total: No additonal surges lost. Full experience gained.
Encounter 3:
- Round 1 – 2 successes – Result: 1 lost surge
- Round 2 – 2 successes – Result: 1 lost surge
- Round 3 – 3 successes – Result : No Loss
Total: 2 additional lost surges per party member. The fighter sacrifices for the wizard and loses three surges while the wizard only loses 1. The paladin does the same for the cleric losing three surges and the cleric loses 1.  Only 33% of the encounter experience gained.
ACES results –
- Wizard – Down 2 surges
- Paladin – Down 5 surges
- Fighter – Down 4 surges
- Cleric – Down 1 surge
- Ranger – Down 3 surges
Comments? Thoughts?
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