Suggestions for speeding up our 4e game

[malraux]

It also matters somewhat what your role distribution is. With 7 players, I'd probably want 2 defenders, 2 strikers, 2 leaders, and 1 controller, but I'd be willing to trade that last controller for another striker, and if you can convince several players to multiclass to leader roles, then another striker for one of the leaders. Especially if you can get multiple ranged strikers, you can focus a lot of fire really really fast, and take down opponents fairly quickly. The more strikers, the faster combat will be.

 

[Sadrik]

4 strikers (dex ranger, str ranger, warlock and my avenger), 1 defender (fighter), 1 leader (cleric), 1 controller (wizard)

When my wizard died (yes we had two of them) I switched to a premade avenger the DM had. I tweeked him a bit but mostly the same.

 

[Piratecat]

We may be guilty of this a bit, we often make jokes and laugh a lot at the table. It is fun for the first hour of combat but then player fatigue sets in and then we all look haggard waiting for our action and taking our turn, not to mention the night is wearing on and it is getting later in the night too .

I'm all for laughing! But there's a difference between laughing at something that someone's character did, and laughing about a Monty Python sketch or the episode of TV your friend watched last night. The first is great, the second less so if you want combat to be efficient.

And interesting: we have three strikers, and combat goes fast with no hint of grind. Those suckers do a lot of damage.

 

[blargney the second]

How good are you guys at picking one target and taking it out completely? Or do you spread your attacks around the enemy?
-blarg

 

[S'mon]

If the players are really only taking a minute or so to resolve their action, you shouldn't have a problem - unless the GM is slow? 8 people x 5 rounds would be 40 minutes to resolve a 5 round fight.

 

[Pickles JG]

Not going to happen. Although the daughter of one of the players has offered to drop out. Although I think we want to be as inclusive as possible so this is not an option. Is the game really going to break down with 7 over 5 though?

It makes a very noticeable difference going from 5 to 6 players so 7 will kill you. (er would kill me - you do need to really speed things up with 7)

Everyone is obviously aware of the issue so should be on board with the game-speeding tips suggested before.

Having some bossy player manage initiative is good as they can chivvy everyone including the DM along. They also need to be able to decide what they do themselves - a friend of mine used to be very good at running initiative but never thought about his own character so slowed everything back down. I was the other way round & stuck my oar in everywhere but in actually running the tracker (I am better now though probably still a bit too ready to advise...)

Other DM centric tips are fudging things:-
Play fast rather than trying to come up with the very best plan ever.
Call out whether PCs hit or miss on their dice rolls if they start adding +11 to the 17 they rolled - 17s always hit
Don't sweat if you get the odd monster rule wrong - reusing an encounter power or "choosing" your reroll dice this will balance the ones oyu foget to use.
Take approximate monster HP - if a player gets a big hit on a bloodied enemy remove it.
Close the fight down once the PCs are down to a couple of monsters & the tension is gone.
Help the players focus fire (this is the best most basic tactic - so the monsters can do it a bit & emphasise they are doing it so the PCs may pick up on it.

 

[Sadrik]

How good are you guys at picking one target and taking it out completely? Or do you spread your attacks around the enemy?
-blarg

We are decent enough with this tactic. Though we often have enough figures on the board that there really is a target anywhere you look and we often need to attack the closest opponent. We did some good tactics though against the lizardmen, for instance I used my avenger channel divinity dealy-bob to allow the warlock to roll twice to hit with his daily.

 

[S'mon]

A couple of things I do:

1. Group based initiative: When alternating, we don't track when each player acts relative to each other. They can all go in any order they like. Then all the monsters go together.

2. Tell the players the target number before they roll. Yes, this makes it a bit easier for them. But I find it (a) heightens tension pre-roll and (b) saves a lot of time figuring out mods, for the less mathematical players, because success or failure is usually obvious after the die roll.

 

[Sadrik]

If the players are really only taking a minute or so to resolve their action, you shouldn't have a problem - unless the GM is slow? 8 people x 5 rounds would be 40 minutes to resolve a 5 round fight.

Well we obviously are taking a lot more time. And to have 8 people including the DM take only 1 minute each round is a little unrealistic for this game. There are rounds in which you need to resolve more things: ongoing damage, save ends effects, "does that dazed effect end on my round or their round?", "what does dazed do again?", "while dazed can I do...?", "I want to do a flip over him and then power attack him oh wait that is going to give me an ad hoc penalty well then I'll just attack him as normal", wait let me look up the item I think it as an ongoing effect, no it is a minor action. The point is a lot of crap can come up and a 1 minute round might look good on paper but between initiative "whose up" and resolution of all those tactical mini effects being resolved, dividing the DM's attention 7 ways and table talk it is a burden to run this game.

The DM is separating all the different monster types to have their own initiative so he is taking 5 turns (at least) to our 7. I would personally think doing all the monsters at once despite differing initiative modifiers would speed things up.

 

[Sadrik]

A couple of things I do:

1. Group based initiative: When alternating, we don't track when each player acts relative to each other. They can all go in any order they like. Then all the monsters go together.

2. Tell the players the target number before they roll. Yes, this makes it a bit easier for them. But I find it (a) heightens tension pre-roll and (b) saves a lot of time figuring out mods, for the less mathematical players, because success or failure is usually obvious after the die roll.

Both excellent suggestions, the first I can see having an immediate impact on the speed of the game. And the second requires a lot more compliance and buy in from the DM. Not sure if he will be there during the game with that.