Combat takes way too long?

[Verdande]

My players aren't satisfied with combat.


A little backstory- We've all played Dark Heresy and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and 0e retroclones. Some of us have played AD&D and some White Wolf games, like Mage. We're used to systems where death is possible and gruesome, where combat can take maybe three rounds before somebody's dead.

But in 4e, it honestly feels like we're hitting dudes with Nerf bats instead of swords. My brother, who I've been playing roleplaying games with since we were both wee lads, asked how in the world goblins had 30 hit points.

My girlfriend wondered why she shot a man with a Scorching Burst and it only gave him what amounted to a scratch.

I'm the same way, honestly. I'm used to (spoiled by?) combats that last maybe a handful of rounds, and are over in maybe fifteen minutes. I'm using a good number of minions, and a mix of monster types whenever I can. A couple of skirmishers, a soldier or two, and maybe some artillery or a lurker.

I even have some enemies flee when their buddies are (eventually) cut down. I make sub-optimal strategies for them, like having them get charged by skirmishers, or having soldiers move less than they're able.

But I digress. Is there any good way to make combat feel more "lethal" without overly affecting game balance?

 

[Amaroq]

It is sort of one of the design assumptions of the game: 1st level humans and humanoids have 25-30 hit points or so. A sword does d8 damage - when you hit with it, you're not laying a deep gash into his side, you're barely connecting, drawing blood but not incapacitating. Three such hits, and the guy is bloodied, breathing hard, but still upright .. it takes four, five, maybe six to drop him.

If a round is 6 seconds, that still makes combat very quick and lethal .. and you have minions to give you that one-hit-kill heroic feeling.

It turns out that using monsters above the characters' level really drags combat out as the bad guys' defenses are higher and they have more hit points; the good guys miss a lot. Monsters at or a level or two below the party's level will be a lot easier to drop, but can still threaten the party if given Surprise, favorable terrain, additional numbers, etc.

You could also try "two-hit-kill" minions; I've had a lot of success giving minions hit points at a level where an At-Will critical should kill them, an Encounter or Daily power for 2[W] should kill them, but the average At-Will will just bloody them. Gives you epic opposition numbers, and the bad guys go down easily .. just not trivially with "cleave" or other splash damage.

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

I hear you.

I addressed this a bit in a recent blog post:

Arcane Springboard: 4e Combat is Too Damned Long - What We're Doing About it.

I'm also planning to add to that soon. In the mean time, one suggestion from Mike Mearls is to halve monster hp, but give them a damage bonus equal to their level.

 

[Amaroq]

The other suggestions I've got are all table-mechanics items:

- Put the Initiative Order in a public location; we use a white board.
- Put all status effects in a public location (prone, immobile, etc).
- Use Character Builder character sheets.
- Pre-calculate all your bonuses so people aren't calculating at the table.
- Have the DM's monsters go as quickly as they possibly can.
- Have the DM have print-outs, sheets, etc, of his monster stat blocks.
- No reference books during combat.

The little things add up. If you're the DM, you might consider keeping track of time spent on certain aspects, to identify and speed up your group's "worst offender", whatever aspect of the game that is.

In my experience, though, the sense of "grind" in 4e seems to come from the moment where the party figure out that they've won, but there's one or two sticky bad guys who just won't go down, but who can no longer effectively threaten the party - Brute, Elite, and Solo monsters seem to be the biggest offenders, especially Solo Brutes.

I think the trick to being an effective 4e DM is to be able to correctly identify that moment, and to have the monsters correctly identify it as well. So, for example, the monsters change their goal to "survive this nightmare" whether its surrender, escape, parole, flight, hostage, whatever technique they might have for it, they switch to that.

You can also build very effective combats where "kill 'em all" isn't the goal.

- Stop the ritual
- Complete the ritual
- Complete the in-combat skill challenge
- Defeat one specific monster
- Rescue somebody from a time-delayed-threat
- Can work for mounts, pets, NPC friends, and even Grabbed PC's.
- Escape the room before a time-delayed-threat
- Cross the room before a time-delayed-threat makes it impossible
- Grab the McGuffin and get back out

I think those are the type of encounters where the 4e system works the best; "Clear the Dungeon" crawling doesn't feel like it is as fun in 4e as it was in some previous editions.

The ideal 4e session, I think, includes one or two "grind" encounters with which to wear down Dailies, Healing Surges, etc, and two or three challenging encounters, where the victory condition feels unique and tense in its own right.

 

[jstomel]

The solution I have most often heard is to reduce monster hit points by 1/4 and up their damage by 1/4. More lethal but they go down faster.

 

[DreamChaser]

My players aren't satisfied with combat.


A little backstory- We've all played Dark Heresy and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and 0e retroclones. Some of us have played AD&D and some White Wolf games, like Mage. We're used to systems where death is possible and gruesome, where combat can take maybe three rounds before somebody's dead.

But in 4e, it honestly feels like we're hitting dudes with Nerf bats instead of swords. My brother, who I've been playing roleplaying games with since we were both wee lads, asked how in the world goblins had 30 hit points.

My girlfriend wondered why she shot a man with a Scorching Burst and it only gave him what amounted to a scratch.

I'm the same way, honestly. I'm used to (spoiled by?) combats that last maybe a handful of rounds, and are over in maybe fifteen minutes. I'm using a good number of minions, and a mix of monster types whenever I can. A couple of skirmishers, a soldier or two, and maybe some artillery or a lurker.

I even have some enemies flee when their buddies are (eventually) cut down. I make sub-optimal strategies for them, like having them get charged by skirmishers, or having soldiers move less than they're able.

But I digress. Is there any good way to make combat feel more "lethal" without overly affecting game balance?

First off, HP do not equal injuries....there is a system here somewhere that talks about making HP into a "power" to better describe this...

Your gf didn't hit the goblin with scorching...the goblin damn near threw his back out dodging out of the way to avoid being torched....the strain and exhaustion sapped his reserves (he lost 11 HP).

D&D combat has always been lame and impossible to relate to when you assume that you literally "HIT" with every attack. no human can survive a dozen arrows or several direct axe hits.

Now, to focus on the matter at hand, if every combat is a grindfest hit until literally every enemy hits 0 hp then yes combats take forever. and if players and DMs don't take the time to learn their powers then combat takes forever.

make combats have a point. if there is a leader, make the followers strength / ferocity / loyalty / morale based upon that leader.

use more minions! (if you have area attackers) or fewer if you don't.

use monsters that play to your party's strengths...they will feel more heroic this way.

hit them hard. if you want to increase the danger, use powerful creatures that challenge them.

a common numeric approach is to reduce monster HP by 25% and increase damage across the board.

DC

 

[keterys]

As long as folks want it to go both ways, just alter hp or damage across the board.

For instance, halve everyone's hp.

Or double all damage dice (not the same as doubling all damage).

Or somewhere in the middle. Or do both, and things will wrap up very fast indeed.

It's a lot more rocket tag-y than I like (who goes first? they kill something, their side probably wins kinda thing), but eh, to each their own.

 

[mkill]

4th edition is a very combat-centric system, and a lot of design went into making the combat fun. More than other RPGs, including previous D&D editions, it's an RPG with a tactical miniatures wargame at its core.

If your group is used to RPGs with a different attitude towards combat, such as mere conflict resolution, combat narrative etc., it does involve a change of perspective. D&D combats are designed to take that long, because that's what the designers enjoy.

Of course, it's up to you and your group how to use the system. I suggest you try to play the game as it's meant to be played, with long, epic combats. Plan your sessions to have one big, impressive fight, maybe two, and forget about the rest. It's boring to beat up some human rabble that goes down after a two strikes in a back street, when you can have a fight with zombie pirates on a burning, sinking ship, complete with rope swings, tar barrel throwing, cannon shots at point blank, and flaming zombie monkeys.

To sum it up, the problem of your group is not that the combat took too long. The problem of your group is that they were bored during the long combat.

- Make opponents more interesting
- Make the scenery more interesting
- Encourage players to let their PC do awesome things
- Rather have one, big, breathtaking combat than 4 short, boring ones
- Read what Amaroq said about streamlining the number crunching and other boring parts. You'd be surprised how much more smooth combats go if all players have all powers precalculated and summed up on cards

 

[Garthanos]

First off, HP do not equal injuries....there is a system here somewhere that talks about making HP into a "power" to better describe this...

Thinking of hit points as a power I mention here.

http://www.dyasdesigns.com/roleplay/RoseMagic.html

and also...

I came to realize the abstraction was a tool I could use to help characterize the heroes.
Visualize hit points based on their nature and there capabilities. Lucky Heros, Skilled Heros, Tough Guy Heros and Magical Ones using there gifts to minimize the impact of attacks.. but it looks different for each. A bloodied tough guy might have bunches of little wounds that only worry him... until he gets his heart in to it... or a skilled hero looks winded and maybe has his first minor flesh wound as a sign he is starting to slip and the mage might be sweating profusely and distracted (his faery servants all complaining and jibber jabbering -> the theme for his magic is that he manifests feylings) My halfling Rogue/Warlord is freaking out questioning if any of this is necessary with his eyes darting about making sure he knows where the exit is. .. his defenses are frequently him lucking out.

Some of this makes it in to actual play by using the UA trick of players making all the rolls and letting them describe how they defend themselves (or even if a fluke results in crappy performance by the bad guy... my daughter likes it when the bad guy stumbles in some funny way for instance maybe barely missing) and so how the hit point loss manifests is individual. Not all players like doing the describing themselves (my daughter) but for those who do its one more can of awesome.

I would also like to add that Villains can and do have the same... archetypal hit points/defensive style mentioned above but there are some which are truly monstrous and can soak ludicrous amounts of real damage they might be an exception like a sea serpent mayhaps.

A dragons defenses/hit points may be the lucky kind... Smaugs luck ran out after tremendous volleys of attacks by the cities archers and his ego didnt allow him to withdraw from the fight of course even though a part of him probably knew he was pushing his luck.(ie running low on hit points). Sure the hero did make a crit roll... and that crazy halfling did use a Warlord power to give Bard an extra jot of insight to improve the chances of the crit.... but.

Note having the players rolling a defense gets them more involved out of turn... I've found it a good way to keep the players focused.

 

[Rachel]

The solution I have most often heard is to reduce monster hit points by 1/4 and up their damage by 1/4. More lethal but they go down faster.

Toying with a pet idea on hp shaving for humanoids:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan...id-monster-hit-point-shaving.html#post5126486