Combat takes too long

[SDOgre]

Not according to my measurement.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=234620

The human rogue with a rapier in the party I ran absolutely slaughtered everything in those fights he could get combat advantage, which was most fights (he's a brawny rogue). When he couldn't, he wasn't near as effective (as would be expected).

The ranger is more consistent, but couldn't compare to the 3d8+9 (2nd level) per attack the rogue was pumping out when he getting combat advantage.

Oh, and it helped when the rogue traveled up front with the paladin. It's a different way of thinking, but he wanted to be the first in the fight to take advantage of First Strike, thus guaranteeing he'd get CA on his first attack.

 

[Dausuul]

The rounds took longer and the number of rounds was larger than any 1st level 3.5 adventure I've ever played.

Well, sure. But that's because in 3.5, everybody dies in one or two hits at 1st level. A better comparison would be a 6th- to 7th-level 3.5 adventure, which is the standard 4E was aiming for.

If you are fighting several creatures with a 19 AC and 86 hit points when most of your party has a +4 to hit and does about 6 points of damage on average, it's going to take a long time, regardless of tactics and luck.

Um... wha? +4 to hit versus AC 19, and 6 average damage per hit? What the heck were you playing? And what were you fighting?

A typical sword-and-board fighter should have +6 to +8 to hit (+2 to +3 proficiency bonus, +1 fighter weapon training, +3 to +4 Strength) and do 7.5 to 9.5 average damage (1d8 to 1d10 + Strength). And that's just on a basic attack, which you should never use except for an opportunity attack.

Also, 19 AC and 86 hit points is pretty darn high for a 1st-level monster. Even for an elite, that's substantial.

 

[Bumamgar]

Keep in mind that Rogues only get sneak damage to ONE ATTACK per round. It's hard to get used to that change from 3x, but that's how it is

 

[BASHMAN]

the problem is enemies have too many HP. Kobolds with 30 hp? Ridiculous. You used to kill one with a single swordstroke. Now all kobolds except minions are as tough as PCs?

The reason they have too many HP is they fell into the trap of falling the same rules for monsters as for PCs on the issue of HP-- adding their CON to a base ammount defined by role & level.

It would have been far better iMO if they made it CON only for low level monsters and higher level ones get more HP. Or Role & Level +Con MOD for "regular" enemies, and add the CON score for Leaders, Elites, etc.

However, the problem is easily remided now by just cutting all monster HP in half. They basically begin with their "bloodied" ammount of HP, and are bloodied at half of that.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

If you want an enemy that falls in a single hit, the DM should make it a Minion.

It is usually not worth the effort to clog up the battlemat with many very weak foes that are so unlikely to be effective against the PCs.

 

[timbannock]

the problem is enemies have too many HP. Kobolds with 30 hp? Ridiculous. You used to kill one with a single swordstroke. Now all kobolds except minions are as tough as PCs?

I have a player that voiced a similar opinion. The player was horrified that kobolds lasted a few rounds. Like it was an affront to civilized society. It was a fun fight: it was challenging, lots of back-and-forth and lots of tactical choices and movement. The fight was a blast.

But for some reason, that one fact made it anathema. Why?

 

[Sanzuo]

the problem is enemies have too many HP. Kobolds with 30 hp? Ridiculous. You used to kill one with a single swordstroke. Now all kobolds except minions are as tough as PCs?

The reason they have too many HP is they fell into the trap of falling the same rules for monsters as for PCs on the issue of HP-- adding their CON to a base ammount defined by role & level.

Not everyone believes that's a bad thing. What they've done is simply make enemies that are capable beings instead of just fodder. If you want a more choppy game where your players carve through dozens of cannon fodder then just add a lot of minions and make the monsters with hit points the leaders of the mobs.

And don't underestimate minions either. An ambush of 20 minions against a level one party is somewhat dangerous, especially if the players don't have much control. They'll cut down lots of minions but chances are, the minions will get a number of hits in especially with special abilities and flanking.

Want to make it even more exciting? Create an encounter with an endless stream of minions adding on every round. Watch the party's gleeful slaughter transform into panic as they realize they're being overwhelmed and they must decide when to escape and how.

 

[pallen]

To answer a few questions:
As far as my wizard goes, in both of those encounters nearly everyone had a 16+ REF save so that meant I needed to roll a 12+ to hit with my wobbley wizard damage. Human level 1 wizard (cloud of daggers, scorching blast, MM, force orb, flaming sphere).

This is a bit off topic, but I wanted to address this specific point that the OP brought up.

IME, one of the key aspects of the wizard is that they have attacks that work against all three defenses. So while they don't get some of the bonuses that other classes get, they can generally pick the right attack to use against their opponent for decent accuracy. You happened to pick all powers that attack vs. reflex, so against creatures with high reflex defenses (like kobolds), you're in for a tough night.

I'd suggest talking your DM into letting you switch one of those at-wills for ray of frost (attack vs. fort), so you have another option against small, quick opponents. You'll hit with it a lot more often which will make these combats less frustrating.

 

[Sanzuo]

Although to be honest, I have yet to run a really high level encounter. I am very curious as to how the combat dynamic changes as monster's HP gets really huge. So far the level 1-2 encounters I've ran have all been a blast.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I have a player that voiced a similar opinion. The player was horrified that kobolds lasted a few rounds. Like it was an affront to civilized society. It was a fun fight: it was challenging, lots of back-and-forth and lots of tactical choices and movement. The fight was a blast.

But for some reason, that one fact made it anathema. Why?

Many people have a long standing specieist attitude toward kobolds.
They believe that other than clever traps and ambushes kobolds are nothing but weakling push overs and cowards. No more misrepresentative debasement of the noble kobold.


To the OP- My group did its first combat heavy session of 4e last week. We played about 3 1/2 hours and did 4 1st level encounters in addition to regular dungeon exploration stuff.
It was our 2nd session we're a party of 4 1st level PCs (Tiefling Paladin, Dwarf Warlock, Human Ranger, Dragonborn Cleric).