Keeping track of combat length (for posterity)

[Jdvn1]

Do you think any of your players would be willing to keep track of it? It's not really that much work either way, and kind of an interesting exercise.

Maybe, depending on which game I'm running. I don't know if DDE is a stable enough game to trust a player to do that... not that the players aren't trustworthy, but I don't consistently have the same players.

I'm thinking it might not be too tough if I just had a little table with columns I could tally things up in.

 

[blargney the second]

Also, the player seems to better visualize what his powers actually "look" like, as opposed to his paladin powers that he doesn't even describe.

Yeah, he was uber creepy... it was cool!

I really like the direction we're going with my minotaur fighter/barbarian - the ancestor spirits angle is awesome. I enjoyed using primal spirits to herd enemies towards me to describe how my Come and Get It works.

I'm thinking it might not be too tough if I just had a little table with columns I could tally things up in.

When we start a combat, I just write down the start time and get into the action. After it's done I note the end time, then get the other players to help me remember what we all used while the DM figures out the XP. It's fast and non-disruptive.

 

[Jdvn1]

I'm calling a mulligan on my last game. As a player this time. I don't think the GM is great about keeping things moving along, though that we had eight players was a problem.

1) 2 hours, 105xp, 6(ish) rounds v I think 8 critters. At least 1 daily used, at least 2 crits, 2 APs used.
2) 15 minutes, 1 round v 1 critter. 0 dailies, 0 crits, 0 APs.

Things dragged on due to the number of players, obviously, but I also try to keep my games going much faster than this.

Party make up: Psion, Monk, Shardmind, Druid, Warlock, Warlock (yep, two), Cleric, and Warden (I think he was a Warden, anyways).

 

[blargney the second]

Session 6
#1) ~50 minutes, 800 XP, 2 crits, 0 dailies, 0 action points. 3 rounds vs 8 minions, 2 brutes, 1 controller (leader).

Tonight marked the beginning of a chapter of wilderness travel. Wik's prepared a sandbox/hexploration scenario for us to play around in as we search a large wilderness area for the final part of the cure. For now, we're following a road alongside a river up into the mountains. Our best leads indicate that the ingredient is in a region of the mountains near the river's headwaters.

Not long after leaving the redcaps we defeated at the dolmen, we came across a band of thirteen drow warriors. Three of their number sported a variety of mutations - they had been obviously infected by the abominations. A tense and terse conversation ensued, and very little actual information was shared. They did tell us that there was an army of "unfortunates" at the village of Arien.

A few hours later, the road finally cut across to the north side of the river. The bridge was a 200' span across a chasm 150' deep. A pair of very large creatures stood impassively on the near side of the river. One was made of rocks and stones, with black stony eyes. The other was dirt and earth covered in grass and shrubs. They gave us the option of paying the toll (blood and/or bones) or answering a riddle. The creatures were obviously disappointed when the bard correctly solved their puzzle. We continued across the bridge, picking up some shinies from the bodies of travelers who didn't fare as well as us.

Not long after the bridge, we came to a fork in the road. A sign pointed along the road toward the village of Arien, and a small game trail that had seen a lot of foot traffic over the last year led away from the river and the direction we wanted to travel. We decided to continue following the river.

Another few kilometers down the road, our party was ambushed by almost a dozen drow abominations. Their leader had a nasty trick to make her drider and scorrow allies explode into a huge swarm of biting spiders. We made sure that she didn't repeat the attack with the usual tactic of "stab her until she stops moving".

 

[the Jester]

I thought D&D Encounters were basically pick-up groups... how do you know in advance that you've got a lot of strikers?
-blarg

LOL, no that's my regular game.

That said, my D&D Encounters group is pretty regular- but 2 pcs died last time and we all missed last week, so I'm not sure what the next session will look like.

 

[Jdvn1]

Working at least partially from memory:

Session 0: ~7 hours
#1) 105 minutes, 500 XP, 2 crits, 0 dailies, 0 action points, 9 rounds vs 3 skirmishers and 2 artillery
#2) 45 minutes, 550xp, 1 crit, 0 dailies, 0 action points, 8 rounds vs 3 skirmishers and 1 trap.
#3) 70 minutes, 675 xp, 2 crits, 1 daily, 2 action pints, 8 rounds vs 4 minions, 2 artillery, 2 brutes, and 1 trap.
#4) 90 minutes, 850 xp, 0 crits, 3 dailies, 4 action points, 10 rounds vs 2 artillery, 1 skirmisher, 2 soldiers, 1 artillery (leader), and 1 trap.

My party consisted of a cleric, a wizard, a druid, and a paladin. My target time per session is 6-8 hours, run twice a month (less this month). This is "Session 0" because I ran the back-of-the-DMG adventure as a "practice session"--my players are all new to 4e, or generally unfamiliar with D&D, and one had never even heard of a roleplaying game before, so I wanted to give them a chance to try out character options before "finalizing" them (I'll let them change stuff around anyways), try out the rules, and get a feel for the game.

If you're familiar with the adventure, you'll notice we only got to four out of five encounters--we ran out of time. If you use the Lord Warden hook, they get the item they need in the fourth encounter anyways (you might be able to tell I did very light prep for this, though it still turned out great), but since this was a "practice session," the party never actually decided to continue onwards or to head back. So, I can use this a plot point later on in the "main game" since they're using different characters.

I'm not so sure they would have survived the last encounter anyways--I forgot to scale the encounters for a party of four. I had a fifth player lined up that cancelled, and it didn't occur to me that I needed to scale the adventure. Oops! The fourth encounter was relatively close, but the party got through it okay. I'm glad I got to teach the players the dying rules, and the guy with 2nd edition experience now respects kobolds.

In light of all that, the players and I all had a blast! I hope to get to our "main game" in short order.

 

[blargney the second]

What levels were the PCs?

 

[Jdvn1]

I would further like to mention:

I was pretty proud of my players. They said I explained the game really well, but either way, they picked up on tactics really quickly and were very creative. Still, they haven't learned to be efficient with their turns. We don't use markers for conditions (I need to buy some, probably, but don't know what to use), we don't roll attack and damage together, we don't pre-calcuate anything, and so on.

It being a 1st level game very likely helps, but the game rarely seemed to drag, and the players were pretty constantly focused (towards the end there was some fatigue, and one guy is a little ADHD-ish, but it still went very well). In the future we'll be able to take more breaks. At alleviate that.

What seemed to be a big factor in the time was the party focusing their attacks to take down baddies quickly. Shortening my turn makes the game run noticeably faster, and makes the encounters easier for the players.

 

[Jdvn1]

What levels were the PCs?

The back-of-the-DMG adventure is a level 1 adventure, and my players were level 1.

2 played pregens and 2 used the character builder.

 

[blargney the second]

I just noticed that your group's combats seem to take more rounds and more time than ours do on average. I wonder how much of that is related to the number of strikers in the parties? (0 in yours, 2.5 in ours)