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Suggestions for Speeding Up Combat
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<blockquote data-quote="buzz" data-source="post: 4151609" data-attributes="member: 6777"><p>I think it's important to remember that D&D play generally rises to the level of the most adept player. I.e., they will determine how tactical/crunchy the game gets. Problems arise when gulf between that player and the next most adept one is too great.</p><p></p><p>When Adept Guy is the DM, you get players who feel they're being hammered by difficult encounters that take them forever to defeat. When Adept Guy is a player, he's either bored by the easy (to him) encounters, or else he's starting an arms race among the rest of the group who are desperately trying to kick as much ass as he does (since he's probably easily beating the encounters, which sucks all the fun out of it for the others).</p><p></p><p>So... Cobblestone, assuming you're the most adept player in the group, and you're the DM, one option (if you don't want to just use a different game, which is still my recommendation) is to simply scale down the difficulty level and complexity of the game. E.g.:</p><p></p><p>1. Eliminate or simplify more complex aspects of combat (grappling, movement, cover, etc).</p><p></p><p>2. Encourage players to use classes that are easy to manage, like warlocks, warmages, rogues, favored souls, or barbarians. Don't allow wizards, warblades, or other classes that require lots of resource management and bookkeeping.</p><p></p><p>3. Scale down the encounters. Shoot for CRs/ELs that are little bit under the typical guidelines for the party's level.</p><p></p><p>Once you've played like this for a while, you should be able to gauge whether the players want to start adding the complexity back in as they get familiar, or whether they want to stay where they feel comfortable.</p><p></p><p>Still, what it really comes down to is the nature of the game. If combats taking too long is an issue, it may simply be that tactical combat is of no interest to your group. If that's so, D&D is absolutely the wrong game for them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="buzz, post: 4151609, member: 6777"] I think it's important to remember that D&D play generally rises to the level of the most adept player. I.e., they will determine how tactical/crunchy the game gets. Problems arise when gulf between that player and the next most adept one is too great. When Adept Guy is the DM, you get players who feel they're being hammered by difficult encounters that take them forever to defeat. When Adept Guy is a player, he's either bored by the easy (to him) encounters, or else he's starting an arms race among the rest of the group who are desperately trying to kick as much ass as he does (since he's probably easily beating the encounters, which sucks all the fun out of it for the others). So... Cobblestone, assuming you're the most adept player in the group, and you're the DM, one option (if you don't want to just use a different game, which is still my recommendation) is to simply scale down the difficulty level and complexity of the game. E.g.: 1. Eliminate or simplify more complex aspects of combat (grappling, movement, cover, etc). 2. Encourage players to use classes that are easy to manage, like warlocks, warmages, rogues, favored souls, or barbarians. Don't allow wizards, warblades, or other classes that require lots of resource management and bookkeeping. 3. Scale down the encounters. Shoot for CRs/ELs that are little bit under the typical guidelines for the party's level. Once you've played like this for a while, you should be able to gauge whether the players want to start adding the complexity back in as they get familiar, or whether they want to stay where they feel comfortable. Still, what it really comes down to is the nature of the game. If combats taking too long is an issue, it may simply be that tactical combat is of no interest to your group. If that's so, D&D is absolutely the wrong game for them. [/QUOTE]
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