Suggestions for speeding up our 4e game

[Dice4Hire]

At our table, we always do players-monsters-playersetc, with the only initiative rolls being who goes first in each encounter. Letting us do avctions in any order for the players works to set up more 4E goodness, and we usually have a player announce, "Let me go first." or go later as it really adds to the tactical abilities of our group. We only ahve two players so it is not that hard to do this even though the DM runs a character also.

_The slowest part is our DM, to be honest, as he usually has two or three monster types and needs to think about what they will do, especially as we are going through Wizard's AP and most monsters are set up with synergies. Using hte synergies is important to kjeep us on our toes

Or to TPK us last week, as two players went down and could not use healing surges or regain hit points thanks to the hag's abilities.

Of course failing saves no-yes-no-no for one character and no-no-no for the second did not help.

 

[Negflar2099]

Here's a few ideas that worked for my group

- Cut monster HP down and decrease monster defenses. If you still want a monster to be challenging try increase its damage by a few points.

- DM prep (as others have suggested). Having all the monsters and their hp all nice and spelled out ahead of time really speeds things up.

- Give the entire group 2 minutes at the start of each round to decide what they are each going to do that turn. While they do that the DM decides what the monsters are going to do. Then we go in order of initiative. This has sped things up quite a bit. Initially I was worried that do to how fast things change in combat that people wouldn't be able to stick to their initial plan but that really hasn't been a problem.

- It helps if each person knows their character really well and comes up with general strategies that they will use. For instance a wizard might use scorching burst whenever there are bunched groups of enemies, and use another spell for other situations. The better they know their characters the faster combat goes.

- Along the same lines having up to date characters printed from the character builder really helps. Not having to do math on the fly has made the game much faster.

- If someone misses a session don't have someone else play their character. It just takes too long for the other person to decide what the character they are unfamilar with is going to do.

- Most importantly don't try to make every battle a challenge because not every battle has to be. In fact at least half of the battles should be cake for the heroes. Save the challenges for the boss fights. Otherwise you get a lot of fights that really drag out. The PCs don't accomplish as much and everybody feels like the game is a grind. If most battles are easy then the opposite happens. People enjoy the game more and feel that their characters are powerful heroes (in my experience anyway, your mileage may vary).

Good luck.

 

[Stalker0]

One thing we have learned playing 4e is that certain ranges of numbers always hit or miss.

If someone rolls a 15+ on a roll, unless the enemy is flat out godly, they are going to hit.

This lets us avoid a bit of math, if you see that roll, you know they hit.

 

[S'mon]

_The slowest part is our DM, to be honest, as he usually has two or three monster types and needs to think about what they will do...

I resolutely avoid this as GM. I suppose if I were playing a combat-genius monster and had omitted to plan its tactics pre-fight, it might happen, but I have a strong general rule to act within 6 seconds, just like I enforce on the players. If the monsters' tactics are sometimes sub-optimal, that is realistic. I don't see it as my job to get a TPK, and I tend to be a vicious GM and risk killing the PCs anyway; anything that gives the players a slight advantage is good.

 

[Pickles JG]

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.

A caveat to the first one. The more tactical players (which may be everyone) may try to plan the whole turn for the group. This can be slower than just getting on with it - essentially there are more options when everyone is acting together. Of course if you find this an issue you can just revert to the standard initiative.

 

[S'mon]

A caveat to the first one. The more tactical players (which may be everyone) may try to plan the whole turn for the group. This can be slower than just getting on with it - essentially there are more options when everyone is acting together. Of course if you find this an issue you can just revert to the standard initiative.

Yes; the player who seeks to treat the whole group as his pawns can certainly be a problem. I encouraged that guy to leave my game, though.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

1. Have players sit in order of initiative bonus & either add 10 to their bonus or make one roll for the group. The players then act in that order.

That... that is a really good idea. I might put that into play in my own game (wherein I have 7 players when they can all attend). Think I'll stick with getting them to roll one d20 for the party, though.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

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.

That's your problem right there, it seems to me. If you're stopping to ask "what does Dazed mean?" then you need to make sure that someone has a list of conditions printed out, or memorized, so that when the question comes up the answer is instant.

If you can nail that kind of talk by helping players learn this kind of stuff, you'll find everything goes much faster. And roll attack and damage together - I can't stress this enough. It makes everything go so much faster!

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I've recently adopted a houserule to halve all enemy hitpoints and double all enemy damage. We've gone from 1-2 combats per session to 3-4 and the combats seem to be a more appropriate challenge. We went from levels 6-10 without a single character even getting close to dropping in combat. I adopted the houserule when they hit 11th level. I don't think anyone has gone down yet (they're 12th level now), but they have been in much more worrisome positions than in the past.

 

[La Bete]

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...?",

DM screen helps a lot with this for me.

And roll attack and damage together - I can't stress this enough. It makes everything go so much faster!

Feh.