Slow combats

[Mathew_Freeman]

I really like the sound of that Ars Ludi system, I can see how that would make a big difference. It is more "gamey" and less realistic, but then I like the other ways in which it'll help. Plus, whatever is good for the players is good for the monsters.

IMC, I've adopted the technique of putting all the monsters and players on index cards, folding them in half and hanging them on my DM screen in initiative order. When someone has their turn, I move them to the extreme right-hand-side and shuffle everyone else along. It worked really well in the first session.

Now the players have had a chance to get used to their characters, I'm also going to start hurrying them along a bit more and keeping the pace.

The other thing I can really suggest is about how you DM - if you DM quickly and decisively with your monsters, the players will pick up your pace and energy and respond in turn. If you dwell for ages on your monsters, looking up what they all do and thinking slowly and carefully, the PC's will do the same.

 

[Jack99]

Try running fights with only one or two normal monsters, with the rest minions. Those fights are easier, but it seems like you might want that in a shorter fight.

Something as simple as putting one fewer monster than normal in the fight speeds things up, too, maybe even dropping two.

Any suggestions if you just want shorter fights, even for the difficult fights?

 

[catsclaw227]

How much time is spent on things in-between encounters? If this is an urban campaign, then these PCs sure are fighting in the streets and sewers a lot!

Have you considered keeping the number of encounters to 2 and filling out the rest of the time with other RP items, so that the length of the combats don't feel as long?

Also, 45min combats isn't too bad. What level are your PCs?

One thing I think that slows fights down is that players mull too long over the perfect action combination for that moment. Real fignts aren't that well planned. They often have people taking non-optimal actions because they are in twitch mode.

Maybe give each player only 1min to decide what they do, or else they start delaying? I am not sure how well that works in game, though. Anyone else time the player rounds?

 

[DaveMage]

Also, 45min combats isn't too bad.

Wow. Really?

 

[malraux]

How many players are we talking about? I've found that there's a shockingly bad effect in slowing the game down going from 5 to 6 players. I think in play with 5 characters, focused fire still works, but with 6, it gets much harder to focus fire, dragging out the encounter.

That said, you might want to poll your players and specifically ask them if they want 3 45 minute encounters per session or if they want 2 45 minute encounters and then the rest RP/exploration/etc. What your group wants is the important thing.

 

[Novem5er]

I'm surprised nobody has said this yet:

Monsters have too much HP.

There. It needed to be said. It literally takes too long for monsters to die (especially brutes). Soldiers have lower HP, but they have higher defenses, which means they don't get hit as often, and thus the fights last longer.

Let me clarify: I believe that 4e as written is just fine. If you have a bunch of tactical players who really memorize their powers, think ahead, and don't get distracted at the table... then I think combat is awesome.

For my group (and I wager a lot of groups), it's just too much and it takes too long. My group of mixed-experienced players (some newbs, some vets), a normal combat was easily taking us 60-90 minutes. Much of this was player delay (cross talk + unfamiliar powers), but much of it was the fact that a level 6 Gnoll has 84 HP!

For that last 4 sessions, we've changed the rules:

Monsters have 1/2 HP, but they do bonus damage equal to 1/2 their level (sometimes +1).

So a level 6 Gnoll brute now has 42 HP and does 1d8 + 11 damage on a hit.

I didn't think i was adding enough damage, but my combats have been hard hitting! Players are always burning through healing surges, and it's not uncommon for someone to drop, or almost drop.

And the combats are over in 1/2 the time! Now are combats are down to 30-45 minutes, which is just perfect for us. Trust me, the players LOVE being able to bloody a monster with a single good hit. My players were getting pissed that they'd do like 25-30 damage in one round and not even Bloody a dang thing.

Love 4e much more now.

 

[ggroy]

I guess that could work. I've had bad experiences with minions in the past - too much XP for too little risk - but they would run by much faster. (That was mostly my fault though, inexperience.)

The thing is, I want to maintain the challenge, but get along to other things as well.

Do you recommend dropping monsters and levelling up the others? That is, keeping the XP budget the same?

I've tried modifying minions, such as:

- requiring two or three hits to die instead of just one
- increasing their AC slightly

For a two or three hit minion, they're bloodied after the first or second hit, depending on how much numerical damage a player makes.

For a minion with a slightly higher AC, I sometimes used them as guards. Typically I would make it such that the most powerful players had to roll an 18 or higher on their d20 rolls to hit them. I usually didn't make these particular minion's attacks more powerful than usual, but sometimes I made their attacks slightly weaker.

For badguys which mainly do ranged attacks from hiding positions or from far away positions from the players, I typically make them 1-hit minions. They do enough ranged attack damage to the players, before the players are able to reach and kill them.

 

[Stalker0]

There are two parts of 4e that slow down combat:

1) Game design aspects
2) Player choice aspects.

The 2nd one involves players waiting to choose their powers, not knowing how they work, and not having the math done before hand. Much of that can be cleaned up.

However, the game itself does have mechanics that slow down play. The constant changing conditions to me slows down the game. Your marked, now your not marked. Now you have ongoing 5 damage, now you don't. Now your dazed and weakened, but have a +2 to attack rolls and will knock prone anything you hit....etc.

Conditions are a core part of the game, and create their own benefits, but from a combat speed standpoint they don't help.

Further, the design of the game can slow down player choices.

For example, a player might have decided on his next turn to use an at-will power. He's knows what he's going to do, he's ready to go. Suddenly the player before him uses a power that gives a +5 bonus to attack to hit the main guy. Whoa!!! +5 to attack! I can't waste that with at will! Maybe a daily then...let me look at the sheet.

While I do not miss the all day type buffs, I miss encounter long buffs. I think they are much easier to keep track of and speed up the combat.

 

[Infiniti2000]

45 minutes! What's your secret for such fast combats?! I only wish ours were that quick.

For example, a player might have decided on his next turn to use an at-will power. He's knows what he's going to do, he's ready to go. Suddenly the player before him uses a power that gives a +5 bonus to attack to hit the main guy. Whoa!!! +5 to attack! I can't waste that with at will! Maybe a daily then...let me look at the sheet.

This is the main culprit in our game and we've talked about it as a group, but no one seems able to come up with a solution. No one is willing to make a rushed (in game) decision, so everyone considers and reconsiders the combat scenario at the start of their turn. I've tried to speed that part up, but it's really the main (only?) bottleneck for us. The calculations and stuff are the easy part I think.

 

[ggroy]

For that last 4 sessions, we've changed the rules:

Monsters have 1/2 HP, but they do bonus damage equal to 1/2 their level (sometimes +1).

So a level 6 Gnoll brute now has 42 HP and does 1d8 + 11 damage on a hit.

I didn't think i was adding enough damage, but my combats have been hard hitting! Players are always burning through healing surges, and it's not uncommon for someone to drop, or almost drop.

And the combats are over in 1/2 the time! Now are combats are down to 30-45 minutes, which is just perfect for us. Trust me, the players LOVE being able to bloody a monster with a single good hit. My players were getting pissed that they'd do like 25-30 damage in one round and not even Bloody a dang thing.

Love 4e much more now.

I've tried similar things with varying degrees of success.

I've tried adding a +level adjustment to all damage from both players and monsters. It made combat move a lot faster, but at the expense of players going through healing surges a lot more quickly.

I've also tried having maximum damage on all hits, with double max damage on critical hits + bonuses. (Essentially this eliminated the damage rolls). This also made combat move a lot faster, but also at the expense of players going through healing surges a lot more quickly.

The second case of max damage on all hits, made combat encounters significantly shorter to around 30 minutes or less for many encounters. But some players didn't like this as much. Some players actually liked rolling for damage.