Reducing PC HP for more challenging fights? By how much? (Shorter fights problem.)

One player thinks the fights should be shorter, since I've been running fights that were Level + 2 recently, 4 times a day. (Though I think the players could be much quicker with their decision making, but they're all new RPers, and we've been having big gaps between sessions recently.) I'm not entirely sure if I've struck the right balance there, but Level + 0 is way too easy.

So, I've been thinking of running Level + 0 fights, but to keep the fights challenging, reducing PC HP. So what about reducing PC HP by say, 20% or 25%. Any input or thoughts in general? Maybe I should use that logarithmic force of fire chart I saw someone post once...

I suppose I'd have to buff Second Wind as well... maybe a +4 defense bonus rather than +2?

If you want quicker fights, I would advice against touching the PC's hit points. Way too complicated to get the balance right.

Instead do what I do. Remove 33% of all monsters' hit points, and add +50% damage (2d10+7 becomes 2d10+16). Coupled with my own 20 sec rule (to state what you do), we have 15 minute fights (L+0 or L+1) now.

The big problem with reducing PC hitpoints is that you run the risk of one-shotting people, which is never a fun thing.

Instead do what I do. Remove 33% of all monsters' hit points, and add +50% damage (2d10+7 becomes 2d10+16). Coupled with my own 20 sec rule (to state what you do), we have 15 minute fights (L+0 or L+1) now.

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I'll keep that in mind, though I kind of enjoy the ability to use a monster's stat block straight from the book. (I do adjust minion damage, +1/2 level, but writing that into the book isn't tough.)

Saeviomagy said:

The big problem with reducing PC hitpoints is that you run the risk of one-shotting people, which is never a fun thing.

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Do you mean killing or KOing? Since I've had a cleric PC who wasn't at maximum HP (but close) survive a triple crit. He was level 4 or 5, and one of the crit'ers in question did additional damage on a crit (a level adjusted Human Knife Fighter), and the other two were Dwarven Bolters who were getting their additional 1d6 or so damage. He did drop, but he didn't die.

A DM can also limit his focus firing tendencies. My current group has no defenders, for instance.

"Conventional Wisdom" on this issue (i.e. what you will find repeated over and over) is that way to approach this is twofold:

1) Decrease the monster's hit points.
2) Increase the monster's damage proportionally.

The reduction of the monster's hit points makes the melees go faster (in theory) and the increasing of the monster's damage has roughly the same effect as decreasing the player's hit points but allows the changes to be entirely behind the DM's screen.

I have used three different formulas so far:

Monster hit points 2/3, damage +50%
Monster hit points 1/2, damage doubled
Monster hit points 3/4, damage increased by one die, recharge values reduced by one.

Of these, I like the latter the best although it is not strictly mathematically correct (unlike the others). The others tended, imho, to make high damage attacks even more so, making the game far more swingy. They also tended to go down very quickly in response to moderately powerful AoE. The fights in which I used the 1/2 hp variant resulted in the players commenting that the fights seemed easier lately.

In contrast, by increasing all attacks by one die, the weakest attacks were increased the most (proportionally) and the strongest attacks were increased the least. Again, not mathematically correct, but it seemed to work the best and avoids the swingyness problems created by doubling some of the already nasty attacks.

Carl

I agree with the others, lower monster hp, increase damage. Your players aren't the first to notice this problem and it just shows how experienced they are that they have noticed.

We have been playing with 3/4 monster HP's and adding 1/2 level damage for a long time and it has helped with combat speed while maintaining the 4e feel/pace to the game. But it wasn't quite enough.

We tried something new last session and it made a MASSIVE difference, although it won't be fun for all groups. All PC's and monsters used average damage (not half, and there is a difference) and this made a big difference. For example, if a PC does 2d6 + 10 damage it would be 17 (3.5 on each of the dice + 10).

2 players were particularly against this feeling it took away from the game, but by the end of the session EVERYONE went - Wow, what a difference - and everyone liked it.

Just to provide a bit more info about our group so you can compare it to yours - we are tactically sound, most of us have played since 2e or earlier. We have rolled damage dice at the same time as to hit rolls and the players/DM generally know what they will do when their turn comes up.

Fact is, there are a lot of reasons for slow fights and we have tried a lot of things. Doing average damage (while maintaining the change to monster HP and damage) has had the single greatest impact of the speed of a fight.

I can't urge you enough to try 1 session with it to see if you like it.

Pale Jackal said:

Do you mean killing or KOing?

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I actually mean KOing, but if KOing is common enough, the point where the two become synonymous will happen a lot more often (ie - if everyone is KOed, the fight is lost and there's a lot of foes who don't have much reason to keep PCs alive).

Since I've had a cleric PC who wasn't at maximum HP (but close) survive a triple crit. He was level 4 or 5, and one of the crit'ers in question did additional damage on a crit (a level adjusted Human Knife Fighter), and the other two were Dwarven Bolters who were getting their additional 1d6 or so damage. He did drop, but he didn't die.

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Then your cleric is more robust than many characters. I know that in our game it's not uncommon to go from healthy to critically hurt in a single round, and that's against monsters normal at-will powers, and not even taking lucky crit streaks or fully focussed fire. Encounter and recharge powers tend to be a lot worse. If HP were halved, I expect that our party would have been TPKed multiple times.

Markn said:

Doing average damage (while maintaining the change to monster HP and damage) has had the single greatest impact of the speed of a fight.

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I'm definitely receptive to the idea, maybe I'll have my players give it a try. I know one player often has trouble grabbing the right dice! I even make sure to give him dice of different colors (e.g. blue d10s, etc.) As I remember this, I'm DEFINITELY going to try this.

If HP were halved, I expect that our party would have been TPKed multiple times.

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Well, I proposed a 20% or 25% reduction, and I think I'd lean towards a 20% reduction given the warnings here. Another reason I'd prefer not to fiddle with monster HP is that impacts the effectiveness of controllers. I'll keep an eye out for my PCs and see how often they'd hit the 20% KO zone.

Markn said:

We tried something new last session and it made a MASSIVE difference, although it won't be fun for all groups. All PC's and monsters used average damage (not half, and there is a difference) and this made a big difference. For example, if a PC does 2d6 + 10 damage it would be 17 (3.5 on each of the dice + 10).

I can't urge you enough to try 1 session with it to see if you like it.

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What an interesting idea! I'm definitely going to suggest this at my next group. Basically you just have to write static numbers on your damage cards from now on (of course you will need separate values for critical and normal hits). But what an idea. I suppose attack rolls add enough variation that damage rolls are kind of redundant. Moreover, this could eliminate the need for any die other than a D20 (other than some special powers, and maybe if you let the players roll extra damage dice for critical hits).
PS
Brutal 1 weapons deal on average 1/2 extra damage per [W]
Brutal 2 weapons deal on average 1 extra damage per [W]
Brutal 1 weapons with 2 damage dice (mordenkrad etc) deal on average 1 extra damage per [W]
Vorpal weapons the average damage per die is:
D4: 3.3
D6: 4.2
D8: 5.1
D10: 6.1
D12: 7.1
So the average damage on a vorpal falchion is 3.3 + 3.3 = 6.6 per [W]
and the average on a vorpal greataxe is 7.1
If you use your house rule further you might want to alter the rules on rounding fractions or alter vorpal/brutal specifically.