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I'm having issues with the length of combat, and I'm trying to determine if it's the group, or if it's just the way combat is in this system.
Players: A fighter/cleric, warlord, wizard, rogue and ranger. Rogue and fighter are level 11, others are level 10. All players play competently, though perhaps not perfectly.
Enemies: An umber hulk (12 elite brute) and a mind flayer infiltrator (14 lurker).
Terrain: Red Dragon's Lair (the map that came with the Gargantuan Red Dragon-- basically a large, mostly open cave with a couple random spots of lava, but I actually ruled the lava as water).
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Not sure of the exact time it took us, but we started the game shortly after 6 and the combat ended around 9:00, so I'd say about two and a half hours.
How many rounds did the combat last? Did you or the players search for rules much? What happened that the combat lasted the time that it did?
I haven't played high-level 4E games, but combat shouldn't last more than 1 hour (IMHO) when there are so few enemies.
AR
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I play in a 13th level campaign, and combats against few ennemies rarely last an hour, sometimes only 30 minutes. We are only 3 characters in the party though but as a counter, our DM is dm'ing again after about 18 years break, so he is quite rusty still.
Especially when we get down to the last monster, it gets sawwed in half (brutal scoundrel ftw) and rarely lasts more than a few minutes.
There's really not much else to say. I use a program (Turn Watcher) to keep track of HP and initiative, so those processes are actually sped up faster than average.
I don't know how many rounds the combat lasted, but if I had to estimate I'd say 5-10 (I know, broad range. Like I said, I don't know how long it took!).
There might have been one or two instances where we had to look up a power in the book, but they've all got their powers written down on cards. The books weren't opened very much as a rule-- I had the stats for the Umber Hulk written down on a separate page, and I had the MM turned to the Mind Flayer.
So it looks like I've got to work with my group to get turn times down... if it was 7 rounds, that would mean an average of about 3 minutes per turn, which is definitely way too high.
Here is what I think is the most important question: How long have the players been playing these characters? Have they been playing them from levels 1-10/11? Or did they start using them more recently?
The slowest combats I've seen have often been due to players unfamiliar with their characters, and thus having a slower process deciding what to do, figuring out how powers work, etc.
If it wasn't something like that, then I'm just not sure - especially for an encounter with only two enemies, even with the amount of dazing going on, it sounds like it took much, much longer than I would have expected.
Few, high-level enemies lead to lots of misses, frustration, and general angst. It also leads to slow combats. It is generally more fast and furious to fight many, low-level opponents. Especially if you ad minions to the mix.
I can't really see it taking much more than 60-90 minutes... Less, probably, unless I'm missing something. By that level, the characters should have some really outstanding Encounter/Daily abilities...
Few, high-level enemies lead to lots of misses, frustration, and general angst. It also leads to slow combats. It is generally more fast and furious to fight many, low-level opponents. Especially if you ad minions to the mix.
Just my 2 cp
I hear you. I wish our DM would understand that just a little better. He keeps throwing high level single opponents against us and though we beat them with the use of pretty much all of our resources, it just isn't fun to see 90% of your attacks miss...
Those are between level+2 and level+4, so I wouldn't think hitting would be too much of an issue, unless the characters are way sub-optimal. Going against something higher (like our level 4 characters going against a level 11 elite devourer - effectively about level +7-8) can result in a miss-fest, but I'd think they'd do fine, as long as their tactics were decent - flanking, using ally hit-boosing powers, monster debuffs, etc.
To echo what MrMyth said: How long have they been playing these characters?
Unless you guys play a couple times a week, started before the books came out, or started above level 1 I don't know how you'd be up to Paragon by now as our group that started at level 1 three weeks or so after the books came out and have played every weekend are just scraping level 7. By now, 3/4 of our players are familiar enough with our characters that our turns take an average of two minutes to resolve and the DM can usually do a monster's turn a minute or so, a bit more for an elite or solo.
If I scaled that encounter to our group's level, I'd estimate it would take 30 minutes, an hour tops if people were rolling poorly.
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The rogue and fighter have been there for every session. The wizard has been there for the past 3-4 sessions, the warlord for the 2, and the ranger for 2 of the past 3.
It's everyone's first time playing 4th edition. It's the Rogue's first time playing any kind of D&D. It's the warlord's first time playing any RPG ever.
The fighter's turns tended to take a bit because he spent much of it dazed (20 will, and the umber hulk has something like a +16 to daze as a minor action) and thus had to decide what to do with his single action. At one point I was sure it was going to be a TPK*, so healing was desperately needed and he had a bit of it available to make his decisions harder.
The wizard took her turns quickly in general. The ranger was also quite expedient for the most part.
The warlord received help choosing her actions, but still took a while. I'm not sure how long exactly.
The rogue was a bit on the slow side, though not by much.
And of course, keep in mind that this is all from memory, and I have a terrible memory, not to mention a terrible sense of time, so I could be pretty off here.
*They ended up coming back and doing relatively well; the wizard had her brain sucked out, but I don't think anyone else even ended the combat bloodied.
Oh, I'll also say this: the umber hulk's defenses seemed really high. 33 fort, 30 AC, 28 and 27 will/reflex (don't recall which was which). To put that in perspective, the mind flayer's highest defenses were 27s, and he's 2 levels above the umber hulk, though not elite. Going by the DMG's guidelines, the hulk should have had defenses in the upper 20s. So there was a lot of missing against it.
Oh, I'll also say this: the umber hulk's defenses seemed really high. 33 fort, 30 AC, 28 and 27 will/reflex (don't recall which was which). To put that in perspective, the mind flayer's highest defenses were 27s, and he's 2 levels above the umber hulk, though not elite. Going by the DMG's guidelines, the hulk should have had defenses in the upper 20s. So there was a lot of missing against it.
Elite is +2 to 3 defenses; soldier also helps.
Default is AC 30, other defenses 26/24.
It has AC 30, Fort 33, Ref 28, Will 27.
Yes, the other defenses are higher than you'd expect. AC is spot on.
I hear you. I wish our DM would understand that just a little better. He keeps throwing high level single opponents against us and though we beat them with the use of pretty much all of our resources, it just isn't fun to see 90% of your attacks miss...
The 4E game I'm running just got to player level 2. I'm a bit relieved, because encounter design has been hard to this point for exactly that reason. And at level 2 there's still not very much flexibility — most opponents are just gonna be higher level.
I wish the MM had a few more interesting level 1 monsters, and even some level zeros — just like the scale goes on up past 30.
Missing seems to be the culprit with opponents with very high defenses. Here's how our group overcame that feeling of ineptitude.
The joy of damage without rolling or my dice suck; take damage anyway.
Rein of Steel - Daily (fighter) + flaming sphere - daily (wizard) + Reaping strike - at will with high str (fighter) = about 30 HP of damage without you needing to hit high defences. The adventurers vault gives you items that lets you spam dailies so you can have these running for 2-3 enounters if you need to.
We ground down a adult black dragon this way last night, we were level 10 and it was a 12 solo with crazy defences in its zone of darkness.
Leading the charge.
In the other game I play in I am a big fan of leading the charge (tac. warlord). The +5 power bonus I give to my allies to hit the solo / elite makes hitting a breeze for the encounter.
Aid other
Rather than have everyone miss why not try and hit AC10 so you can set-up the rogue to land his daily which probably comes with some nice status nerf for the villain.
Last edited by Monkey Boy; 2nd October 2008 at 04:42 AM..
The 4E game I'm running just got to player level 2. I'm a bit relieved, because encounter design has been hard to this point for exactly that reason. And at level 2 there's still not very much flexibility — most opponents are just gonna be higher level.
I wish the MM had a few more interesting level 1 monsters, and even some level zeros — just like the scale goes on up past 30.
I agree with this. I threw some hobgob soldiers at my level 1 group and their high defences sucked the fund right out of the game.
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4E has rituals, use them, they're magic;
Want to see the greatest thing you will ever see? then 
You can use “Earth” as a D&D 
The Rouse 
One can appreciate both old and new D&D.
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