Making battles faster.... much much faster.

Evenglare · Mar 31, 2012

cool, I may just end up doing the half HP thing . It seems to be working well for everyone. This would lead to an interesting 5 tiered approach of monsters... something like minions, underlings?, monsters, elites, and solos. I like this, because the regulars monsters sit right in the middle. This also adds a nice symmetry to it as far as hp goes (1, half, normal, double, quadruple) Thanks !

SpydersWebbing · Mar 31, 2012

I use my own damage table, which is slightly higher (on average) than MM3's math. I find that upping the threat level on the monster's end speeds up things for the simple reason that the PC's have to start looking for other ways to fight the monsters. I almost always grant much higher damage for things that involve improv. This makes the game more imaginative and faster, if a little more swingy. Most of my players have responded by MCing to a leader class, but that only makes me step up the threats... Lot of fun though!

Tymophil · Mar 31, 2012

S'mon said:
Adding 50% monsters (approx EL=PL+2 instead of EL=PL) maintains the same overall challenge level, or slightly increases the danger.
I would add monsters of the same type; or run the PCs through an adventure written for PCs 1-2 levels higher.

So imagine an encounter with 1 elite or solo (artillery) along with 2 standard brutes and 3 minions (soldiers). You would halve all hps, and add 1 standard brute, and 1 or 2 minions right ? Keeping damage as they are in a MM3 format.

S'mon said:
I used to give 2/3 XP for 50% hp monsters. This made advancement very slow (as did full hp monsters worth full XP). Now I give full XP for 50% hp monsters, which keeps advancement to about 1 level per 3 3-hour sessions, a rate I like. Otherwise we'd only get in 1 or 2 fights/night and advancement would need around 5 3-hour sessions, even with all the bonus & quest XP I give.

Personnaly, I give lots of xps for quests of all kind, so xp are never an issue, and the pace is what I want it to be. Moreover, my players get the notion that the plot is more important than the genocide of monsters. Sometimes, most of the times in fact, solving a problem in a clever way rather than brute force is more rewarded than pure and simple slaughter.

S'mon · Mar 31, 2012

Evenglare said:
cool, I may just end up doing the half HP thing . It seems to be working well for everyone. This would lead to an interesting 5 tiered approach of monsters... something like minions, underlings?, monsters, elites, and solos. I like this, because the regulars monsters sit right in the middle. This also adds a nice symmetry to it as far as hp goes (1, half, normal, double, quadruple) Thanks !

Well, I tried that, but I found it worked much better to halve all monster hp, rather than having a special category of half-hp monsters.

S'mon · Mar 31, 2012

Tymophil said:
So imagine an encounter with 1 elite or solo (artillery) along with 2 standard brutes and 3 minions (soldiers). You would halve all hps, and add 1 standard brute, and 1 or 2 minions right ? Keeping damage as they are in a MM3 format.

OK, what I actually have tended to do in practice is to run published encounters as-is (except for the half hp) perhaps with PCs 1 level below expected level, or else do the easy thing of turning standard monsters into elites - but I've learned it's a bad idea to have more than 1-2 elites in a fight as if they all go together & spend their Action Points at once you'll often kill some PCs, esp at low level.

For an encounter with 1 elite, 2 standard & 3 minions, if I think it's too easy at half hp then probably the best thing to do would be either add 2 standard monsters, or add 1 standard & 4 minions, yes. But I may just use aggressive/optimised monster tactics, terrain, increased damage (if it's below L+8) and other things that don't increase playing time. Increasing monster damage by 50% gives a very similar effect to increasing monster numbers 50%, and plays quicker. Sometimes I'll increase monster damage while reducing status/control effects, turn ongoing damage into direct damage, turn a secondary attack into auto damage, and other tweaks for faster play.

Aiden_Keller_ · Jan 18, 2019

Evenglare said:
Do you have any house rules of your own for faster battles?

I roll initiative at the beginning of a Session and that is the characters initiative for the entire Session.
This SEVERELY cuts down on how fast battle begins and the players know already when they will react and how they are playing (tactic wise) for that Session.

GreyLord · Jan 18, 2019

An idea that can get swingy...

Increase the effectiveness of criticals.

When something is hit by a critical there is a chance for instant death (or if that is too strong, to lose 1/4 of it's HP, or 1/2 of it's HP instantly). To see if it dies roll percentage dice (or 1d20). If it is 5% or lower, the thing dies (or a 1 on a d20). Each time it receives a critical it has to roll again, but the result is cumulative. The second time the chance is 10% or lower (2 or lower on D20) the third time 15% or lower (3 or lower on a D20) the fourth time 20% or lower (4 or lower on a D20).

Etc...etc...etc.

Aldarc · Jan 18, 2019

13th Age, which is something akin to a 3e/4e hybrid, uses escalation die (as explained and expanded upon here) to speed up combat. It may be worth looking into a conversion of the principle for 4e.

Jacob Lewis · Jan 18, 2019

2012?? I hope there was a quicker solution than the rate of this thread...

Myrhdraak · Jan 19, 2019

I did another approach to the issue of long battles. If you compare 5th edition adventure design you see that they are mixing short, medium and long battles. 4th edition took the approach that every battle is supposed to be strategic. By changing certain parameters I got 4th Edition to work with the 5th Edition design methodology. So far it has allowed me as a DM to mix encounters much more and given me more control on battle length. Some boss fights can be 6-7 rounds really strategic and dangerous fights, while other are smaller and much faster, but even though the later they tally on the PC resources. You can see more in this thread:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?518514-Changing-the-Combat-Parameters-of-4th-Edition

/Myrhdraak

Making battles faster.... much much faster.

Evenglare

Adventurer

SpydersWebbing

First Post

Tymophil

Explorer

S'mon

Legend

S'mon

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Aiden_Keller_

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GreyLord

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Aldarc

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Jacob Lewis

Ye Olde GM

Myrhdraak

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