Combat speed - works for our group; one-hour encounters

[DNH]

Having been back playing 4e for a while now, following about 15 months off, our group (and me in particular, as DM) was getting fed up with the extended combat encounters. We found that we were seemingly unable to finish a single combat encounter in less then three hours, which was clearly too much. I looked at the reasons for it and investigated a number of options as proposed by any number of blogs and forum posts and what-have-yous online. Here are some of my findings and conclusions ...

• We play using a VTT. We are a group of old friends who have played since we were at school together 25 years ago and more, but we all now live in different parts of the UK and so VTTs are our only option.
• Despite all its bells and whistles (or possibly because of them), the VTT was probably slowing us down somewhat. It takes time to select your targets, click on the right character sheet, the right power, apply all the modifiers and all that.
• So we decided to try a more lo-tech approach. We now use a different VTT (MapTool) as a purely representative battlemat thing - no character sheets in there, no macros, nothing. We now play old-school with paper character sheets and actual dice.
• But that wasn't enough.
• I had previously introduced a morale system for ending fights before that "total massacre" point. In short, if an NPC is bloodied, if its leader or half of its allies has died or fled, or if an NPC successfully Intimidates it, it makes a saving throw or flees.
• And that was better ... but still not quite enough.
• I read that Combat Speed article on DDi and promptly dismissed all of its suggestions as either already being done, too drastic or not suitable for our group.
• I reached the conclusion, and have since read something similar online, that the *only* thing that is going to make a significant difference to the speed of your combat encounters is having players who know their characters, and their character's powers, well. Too much time is lost to uhm'ing and ah'ing.
• Unfortunately for our group, we don't get to play often enough (once a week for three hours) to gain that kind of expertise. And none of us is going to sit down and study hard for a game.
• So that meant I had to take another look at those DDi measures ... and so I took the plunge and halved all the NPCs' hit points.
• That worked! We put away a good combat encounter in about an hour. What is better, none of the players really noticed; certainly not enough to comment.
• The NPCs were still hitting as hard and as often as before, so they were still a threat. They just didn't last as long.
• And it occurred to me that some of the weaker NPCs, now with halved HPs, are essentially some kind of uber-minion.

Our group rather plays for the story. Sure, combat encounters are fun but when they become a bit of a chore like they were doing, that's less fun. My players (and me, certainly) would much rather get through two or three quick encounters and have the story progress throughout the session, than spend each week plodding through a single combat encounter and not really achieve anything more than that.

In summary then, we are now enjoying a game that has increased in speed by a factor of three, due to the following ...

1. Less reliance on a fancy VTT
2. A system to end combats without having to kill EVERYONE!
3. Halving all NPC hit points

Like I say in the post title, this works for our group and I realise it's not for everyone, but I wanted to post a little success story instead of the usual gripes!

 

[Lexeme]

I'm glad to hear others have found solutions to this that meet their needs, as I had wrestled with it, too.

Here is what I have done with my group (not online) to try and address combat length:

1) Halve HP of monsters, increase their damage.
This is a place I try and be a bit careful. Depending on monster role and combat situation it may be 2/3 HP and anywhere between 50% to 100% increase in damage. Other times, I simply throw in more monsters instead of increased damage.
This, overall, has worked well. Combat still feels threatening/deadly, and heroes feel quite powerful as they mow down the baddies.

2) Negative reinforcement
We're all friends, and the table has taken to gently mocking people when they become distracted and aren't ready for their turn. Obviously, this isn't for everyone, but as long-time friends it hasn't been harmful. The best part of this is that we're all on the same side. We want to keep things moving along, and it's all in jest. If I felt someone was taking it poorly, I'd put the kibosh on it.

3) Positive reinforcement
I bought a few hourglass style sand timers that count out about 30 seconds. If a player completes their turn in less than 30 seconds, they get a "+1 card." This card can be used to add a +1 to any roll. You can only use 1 at a time, but you can turn in 3 for a +2 or 6 for a roll on a chart of fun effects. I've found this to be moderately successful, but in the longer-term the novelty may wear thin.

4) Make people aware of who is "on deck."
Initiative boards that players can't see make it hard to know when their turn is coming up. Using a deck of cards and putting the initiative order in front of the players (first in order gets the ace, second gets the two, etc) makes it very obvious when you'll be up soon, reducing the odds that a player has that awkward "oh, it's my turn? *shuffles through papers*" moment.

The above don't all help with online play, but hopefully they help someone.
I know several of these are common ideas that come from a variety of sources - blogs, these forums, etc., but I figured I'd share them. If anyone knows of sources, I'd be happy to add links.

I haven't read the WotC DDI article yet, so if you have a link, I'd love to read it. Else, I'll hunt for it after work.

Again, I'm glad your group worked through the combat issues.
Happy gaming!

 

[lostingeneral]

I run a pretty large group. At one point it was huge, totaling eight players besides myself, and so I had to adapt a bunch of these things to keep combat flowing.

Our group does a lot of what was mentioned above, and some other stuff as well. To elaborate:

- Cut monster HP to 75%, increase damage by 1/2 level. I've tried other increases in damage and decreases to health, but in my experience this has led to encounters that are too tough or too easy, respectively. If the health is too low many monsters won't be able to really show off their range of abilities, and if damage is too high you'll wind up with a TPK here and there.

- Turn timers. I have a few players who like to really, really take their time on their turn, so I have a rule: you have 30 seconds to declare your actions and roll your dice. If you're not done in that time, you're on Total Defense. I know that might seem harsh, but it works.

- I post initiative where it is clearly visible. When we started out, I didn't do this; I kept initiative to myself. Eventually, though, I found an unused computer monitor in my basement which is now mounted on the wall when we play to display an initiative list. Players can see the turn order at any time.

- I delegate when the group is large. This doesn't make much of an impact when there are fewer people around, but if I have a full table I'll assign people things to do. Usually I have somebody keep watch on the initiative screen to tell people when their turn is coming around and who is up after them, while somebody else keeps track of monster damage, and another person still keeps track of ongoing effects, when they end, and who has saved. This reduces workload for me by a lot.

- I roll initiative for all minions together. This is a minor one, but I didn't always do this, and now I basically play the minions as one coherent blob unless there is a reason not do. It has saved a lot of time.

- I don't fudge anymore. I don't know if this is a problem for a lot of people, but at one point I was fudging once in a while to keep things interesting. Whether or not it achieved that is up for debate, but certainly when I decided to stop that combat started moving much more smoothly.

- We all started rolling damage with the attack rolls. This didn't seem intuitive, strangely, but once we got into the habit it worked quite well.

- No rules lawyers! We have a rule that when there is a rule ambiguity, I (as DM) will make a call and look it up after the battle if necessary. I'll compensate the player if I was significantly wrong, but this will never happen during battle.

There might be smaller stuff as well that I'm not thinking of at the moment, but that's the bulk of it. Hope this helps somebody.

 

[S'mon]

Halving NPC hp works great. If it makes an important character too fragile I bump Standard to Elite, Elite to Solo.

 

[Quickleaf]

One thing a fellow DM did that sped up combat was hanging notecards with enemy defenses over the top of the DM screen. This eliminates the "do I hit?" for the most part, and makes decision making of which power to use a bit easier for the newer players.

One I can take credit for is "super-minions", where they could be defeated with a critical hit, with a specific type of hit according to their vulnerability, with 2 hits, or with a hit that deals bloodied value damage for a standard of the same level. I almost liked these "super-minions" better than regular minions and standard monsters.

 

[Gronin]

3) Positive reinforcement
I bought a few hourglass style sand timers that count out about 30 seconds. If a player completes their turn in less than 30 seconds, they get a "+1 card." This card can be used to add a +1 to any roll. You can only use 1 at a time, but you can turn in 3 for a +2 or 6 for a roll on a chart of fun effects. I've found this to be moderately successful, but in the longer-term the novelty may wear thin.

!

I like that idea -- gonna have to give it a try. Any chance you could share the "chart of fun effects"?

 

[DNH]

- Turn timers. I have a few players who like to really, really take their time on their turn, so I have a rule: you have 30 seconds to declare your actions and roll your dice. If you're not done in that time, you're on Total Defense. I know that might seem harsh, but it works.

I do similar but make them delay instead. Come to think of it though, I prefer your solution. It makes more sense in a "real" combat situation - "What shall I do? What shall I do?" while defending yourself.

- I roll initiative for all minions together. This is a minor one, but I didn't always do this, and now I basically play the minions as one coherent blob unless there is a reason not do. It has saved a lot of time.

I *never* used to group monsters by initiative. Never. It just went against the grain, didn't feel right, didn't feel natural. But suppose you have a combat encounter with four different types of protagonists. Every time the initiative ticks over, you have to "change heads" and think about what the protagonist is going to do. Grouping the monsters so that all the bugbear stranglers go on the same slot and so on, is another speed tip, as it means you get a pattern going and get to know your monsters better.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I found that halving hitpoints just trivialized tactics. There's really no point whatsoever in bothering with control. Having a leader is good to the extent that they can grant surges in a pinch and greatly extend the value of each surge, but you rarely really need lasting debuffs. Fighters aren't hit so bad, mainly because they can put out some good damage. The problem is with even haphazardly optimized strikers a good hit with an encounter power, sometimes even an at-will, is a killing blow.

It speeds things up, but the problem is it isn't speeding up melee rounds, it is just making half as many of them happen. With 3 round average combats you really don't need much beyond 'do lots of damage'. The game gets pretty lopsided.

 

[Havrik Stoneskimmer]

I would say most of my combats last about 45 minutes to an hour, with anything over an hour or so being pretty rare. I haven't done anything in particular to keep things moving, but here's a few things that might affect it:

I use Monster Vault monsters whenever possible. They tend to do more damage, but often have lower defenses than monsters from older sources, so the fights are often brutal but usually quick. Even longer combats don't feel like a grind.

There are only four PCs.

We are using classes from Heroes of the Fallen Lands. This means that two of the players (the knight and the thief) don't generally have to deliberate too much over which power to use. The warpriest and especially the mage can take a bit longer, but even then it's not too bad.

Maybe the most important: my players are usually very good about knowing what they want to do as soon as it's their turn. Everyone seems to stay very involved during combats and I don't have to deal with Monty Python quotes or checking cell phones during combat (sometimes that happens during role playing or exploration, but even then they are good about getting back to task quickly).

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

One thing a fellow DM did that sped up combat was hanging notecards with enemy defenses over the top of the DM screen. This eliminates the "do I hit?" for the most part, and makes decision making of which power to use a bit easier for the newer players.

I do this, and it's a huge help. I also keep a note card behind the screen with all the PCs' defenses, so I'm not continually asking them if monster attacks hit.

One I can take credit for is "super-minions", where they could be defeated with a critical hit, with a specific type of hit according to their vulnerability, with 2 hits, or with a hit that deals bloodied value damage for a standard of the same level. I almost liked these "super-minions" better than regular minions and standard monsters.

Dude, you totally stole my brainwave! Well, okay, my goons aren't exactly the same but close enough to be freaky. And I totally use goons more often than minions.