The 30 Minute Skirmish

[Saeviomagy]

Nobody has anything to say about my skirmish rules suggestion? Nobody?

I'd like some feedback.

Looking at it, it seems like it would make combat take longer and be a lot more boring, due to nobody actually doing anything other than smacking their enemies with at-wills.

Modifying XP is poison for any pre-written adventures because it mucks up expected levels.

Now as a mechanic, having a counter stack that builds during rounds of combat is not a bad idea: add a proportion of the stack count to perception and insight of monsters in the adventure as things progress. In a dungeon it represents the dungeon gradually alerting, in a city it represents the opposition's growing awareness of the PCs.

 

[Firebeetle]

Looking at it, it seems like it would make combat take longer and be a lot more boring, due to nobody actually doing anything other than smacking their enemies with at-wills.

Modifying XP is poison for any pre-written adventures because it mucks up expected levels.

Now as a mechanic, having a counter stack that builds during rounds of combat is not a bad idea: add a proportion of the stack count to perception and insight of monsters in the adventure as things progress. In a dungeon it represents the dungeon gradually alerting, in a city it represents the opposition's growing awareness of the PCs.

Did you read the opening post? The idea is quick combat in which combat is not the focus. These are not meant to apply to every situation and definitely would not be applied to pre-written adventures without a total rewrite.

I do like your other ideas for a counter stack as an alert system, but that's another thread. Good idea that deserves exploring.

 

[Daern]

NECRO: Mike Shea posted his latest thoughts on his blog.
I actually like the ideas that we came up with in this thread better. Particularly, I think removing the grid helps speed up battles. Look up thread for a link to my own skirmish and "fight challenge" rules.

 

[eriktheguy]

For shorter combat
I would suggest using no battle-board/minis like someone suggested earlier

I would suggest using passive initiative to save some time. You mentioned seating players according to initiative for combat, but you could make the default seating according to passive initiative (placing yourself at 1/2 party's level +2).

You could also give all monsters a heavy HP reduction and a little bonus damage, in addition to choosing lower level monsters. This should help them die fast without making them an insubstantial threat. It also avoids the whole minion route if that's not your thing.

I'm in the boat that restricting to at-wills only is a bad call.

 

[S'mon]

IME the big time soak is monster hit points. The solution then to having a good quick fight is to have as few monster hp as possible on the board. I find what works best is a small number (1-3) of standard monsters, no elites or solos (probably actually best to convert these into standards), plus 8-16 minions. This takes about half as long to play as a typical 5 standard monsters battle.

 

[nnms]

I think Firebeetle's ideas from the earlier part of this thread have a lot of merit and am glad the thread necromancy brought them to my attention.

I really like the idea of an XP clock that declines the longer the combat goes and the more resources it takes up. Obviously this is not for a normal fight (this whole thread is about non-standard encounters). One change I'd implement is that I'd add chips for the minimum rounds as well. So if you want the minimum rounds to be three, you'd have 13 chips and remove one at the end of each round. That way the players have the clock ticking right from the get go.

There is a bit of a conflict between prioritizes time and discouraging higher damaging powers (encounters and dailies drop the experience gained by 10% or 20% respectively). It ends up being a trade off. Use only at-wills and take more turns or use encounters and take less turns.

The problem is that lower level encounters where the PCs just use an encounter each and it's over might be fast, but they're hardly exciting. Losing 50% of the already small amount of experience for doing so might be a suitable deterrent. But not doing so means that there's more chance to take damage and reduce the daily healing surge resource.

I think there's a lot of potential here, but I'm going to need to think more about how to deal with the contradictory effects and goals.

 

[Nytmare]

When I want to have a quick fight, I do a variation of tough minions.

I have one, two, and three hit minions. One hit will bloody a tough minion, regardless of how many hits they can take. Encounter powers deal two hits, and daily powers deal three.

As for a ticking clock, maybe it would work better if you just offered an XP bump if the combat only takes a number of rounds equal to the number of bad guys * 1.5?

 

[eriktheguy]

Ok, here's a CRAAAZY idea for saving time with initiative!

• Use passive initiative for monsters (and don't break the monsters into more than 2 separate initiative groups).
• One player in the party rolls initiative, and all players use this roll.

This way the party always acts in the same order relative to each other. However you are tracking initiative, you only have to insert the monsters without moving the players around. You can seat the players according to their initiative modifiers so that turn proceeds in clockwise order, and everyone always knows when they are next.

 

[eriktheguy]

I have one, two, and three hit minions. One hit will bloody a tough minion, regardless of how many hits they can take. Encounter powers deal two hits, and daily powers deal three.

What about a sneak attack at-will? That's got to be more damage than a wizard's encounter. I see a lot of people use the HP=Fort rule for those tough minions; two hits kill, but so does one hit of Fort damage or higher. Of course a smart DM making good calls on the fly works just as well, and I get the sense that's how you do things

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Just a warning that our group tried "sit in initiative order" with a flat initiative, and no one liked it. This was with a modified 3E. Actually, the players hated it with the heat of a thousand suns. For them, it was very much crossing a line. If it takes longer to play, but they can sit where they want, then that is a price that will be paid.