Faster Combats in official Adventures

[plancktum]

Hi.

First of all: I'm from Germany, so sorry for my english. It isn't that good.

I'm playing the 4e Adventure Path from WotC (H1: Keep on the Shadowfell, H2: Thunderspire Mountain, ..., E3) with my players.

At the moment I realize, that the Combats are getting longer and longer und that this makes the game very slow.

So I've read a few articles, threads and so on but many (good) ideas are not that useful for the use with official adventures. I really don't want to completely change every encounter.

The (more or less) trivial things like "players should make faster decisions" and so on is already ok in our group. So theres not much space for futher improvement.

Now I'm asking for your help: Have you any good ideas to speed up combat, beside changing every encounter?
I'm totally ok with slight changes to monsters, but most of all I would appreciate play style or slight rule mechanic adjustments.

One more thing: It is important that the encounter difficulty does not change very much. In contrast the balancing is not that important.

However, the idea of double monster damage, half monster hitpoints sounds not very appealing to me.

To everybody wo could help me: Thank you very much.

Best regards
plancktum

EDIT: By the way, next week we're starting with H3: Pyramid of Shadows

 

[S'mon]

(1) Halve all monster hp. Don't double monster damage, just make sure you've updated monsters to post-MM Level+8 damage norm. This is +1/2 their level for most old monsters.

(2) Cut out unnecessary combats. If it looks boring or silly to run, cut it out. As a default, aim to cut out 1/4 to 1/3 of combats. Maybe the monsters are out on patrol - you can keep those encounter groups up your sleeve for later if eg you need 'wandering monsters'.

(3) Look to have the PCs be 1-2 levels below the expected level (the fights you cut out in (2) mean less XP, so this should happen naturally over time); this will balance against the halved monster hp. Or run at-level, but with 3-4 PCs. The latter also speeds things up a lot.

(4) Profit.

 

[GreyICE]

Hmmm, I'm afraid the nature of the problem is not apparent. If each player chooses their actions, rolls their dice, and announces the result in one minute (60 seconds, not a super-tough benchmark) and the DM does it in 3 (DM is like... Never the holdup) then a round takes 8 minutes. That's a 32-40 minute combat, roughly. If you want it faster

- monsters retreat when bloodied, as long as the PCs "have a handle on things."
- double damage, halve hp is good for early material SOLOS. Those are interminable.
- see Soldiers in the encounter? Find a similar Brute. Replace. If you can't, just do -4 AC, +2 dice size (upgrade d10s to 2d6, d12 to 2d8) as a rough eyeball of it.
- cut fluff encounters, add XP later. Basically if you think "why are the PCs doing this" that's bad.

Note: if combats take more than 40 minutes the group can speed up.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

First thing first: welcome to ENWorld, plancktum!

I found the bookkeeping 4e entails to be the main culprit for slow combats. So apart from the good avice given in othe rreplies, how about some tool assistance?

There are quite some computer aided tools for speeding up combat floating around.

If you run prepared adventures like the HPE series you mentioned in your post, you might not get much mileage from the powerful Masterplan.

Personally I prefer the more light-weight Combat Manager.

Apart from those tools there are even more possibilities, the fans of which will no doubt give you some pointers to.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

1. Welcome to ENWorld!
2. Do what the posters before me said.
3. Do not run Pyramid of Shadows unless you want your group to either give up on D&D completely or demand that you never run 4E again. It really is that bad.

 

[Jhaelen]

Imo, first, drop at least half of the combat encounters. Keep only the significant ones (and beef them up as desired).

Second, you might try replacing some of the standard monsters with minions (adjusting the numbers to keep the same xp budget).

Definitely adjust the damage expressions, though. Otherwise the WotC adventure path won't be challenging at all.

If you notice a combat is already decided and it becomes a matter of grinding it out, let the opposition flee or give up.

If you haven't done so yet, I 'd also recommend to stop tracking xp. Simply award everyone a level after completing part of an adventure.

 

[Ferghis]

In addition to what the others have said (particularly about removing soldiers, especially any elite ones), make sure to violate marks and draw OAs whenever reasonably plausible. This not only accelerates fights, it makes them more fun, since players get to use characters' special abilities.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Avoid grind, as has been noted above. If you have a monster that inflicts penalties on attack or damage rolls, consider having it inflict penalties on defenses instead.

If your players have things that inflict attack penalties, look into house rules.

Triggered actions suck up the most time. I've seen charts used to help DMs with monsters that have triggered actions. (Reactions are the most time-consuming; something like Power Strike, which just triggers on a hit, is easy to recall.)

PCs have so many abilities that players tend to forget them. Often a class (eg the cleric) will have numerous minor triggered abilities, along with triggered utility abilities, and of course item abilities. It's easy for players to get confused, and it only gets worse when an encounter seems to be turning against them. IMC, one PC has bloodcut armor, and it's effects on combat are astonishing... and a little grindy too (since it lets him ignore some damage).

 

[plancktum]

Thank you for you comments

(1) Halve all monster hp. Don't double monster damage, just make sure you've updated monsters to post-MM Level+8 damage norm. This is +1/2 their level for most old monsters.

So I just jave to halve the HP and add +1/2 lvl to damage?
Or is this system more complex? Where can I read about it? At the moment I only possess the MM1/DMG1.

(2) Cut out unnecessary combats. If it looks boring or silly to run, cut it out. As a default, aim to cut out 1/4 to 1/3 of combats. Maybe the monsters are out on patrol - you can keep those encounter groups up your sleeve for later if eg you need 'wandering monsters'.

Up to now I don't liked cutting out combats.
But maybe this changes in the next time. I will read Pyramid of Shadows and then take a look at unneccassary combats.

(3) Look to have the PCs be 1-2 levels below the expected level (the fights you cut out in (2) mean less XP, so this should happen naturally over time); this will balance against the halved monster hp. Or run at-level, but with 3-4 PCs. The latter also speeds things up a lot.

Nice idea! But I like the one with 3-4 PCs. One of my main problem with the official adventures was that they're designed for 5 PCs. In the next months one player will leave our group and then we are 4 PCs. From time to time one player is absent, so effectively were 3-4 PCs and I can give full XP!

3. Do not run Pyramid of Shadows unless you want your group to either give up on D&D completely or demand that you never run 4E again. It really is that bad.

Hmm... I read the chapter about diplomacy and I want to play the adventure at parts in that style.

If you notice a combat is already decided and it becomes a matter of grinding it out, let the opposition flee or give up.

This is something I'm doing already.

If you haven't done so yet, I 'd also recommend to stop tracking xp. Simply award everyone a level after completing part of an adventure.

Hmm... I really like giving XP to my Players. But I would give them XP for combats I've cutted out then.

Definitely adjust the damage expressions, though. Otherwise the WotC adventure path won't be challenging at all.

Ok. I will take a look at that. Are there any links to good articles?

I found the bookkeeping 4e entails to be the main culprit for slow combats. So apart from the good avice given in othe rreplies, how about some tool assistance?

Another point I have thought about a while ago. But I don't liked it there.
But now this could be some good point.
At the moment I scan the monsters and print them out on index cards and sort them in initiative order.
But if I must adjust them a tool could be useful.

BUT there is one drawback: I'm a Mac User and the tools you posted are Windows Only. For my Shadowrun Group I've programmed a tool.
Maybe I could do this in a "small" amount of time for D&D, but I don't like to, cause I've many other things to do.
Does anybody know a Tool which works an a mac?
Alternatively I could install Windows, but for only one tool this is a little oversized...

One last point: Changing Monsters is not really my style. If I play combats I like them how they are. Maybe a fewer and faster ones, is a good agreement.


Wooh... Long Post. What do you say about my responses?

best regards
plancktum

 

[S'mon]

Thank you for you comments


So I just jave to halve the HP and add +1/2 lvl to damage?
Or is this system more complex? Where can I read about it? At the moment I only possess the MM1/DMG1.

Here:
Monster Manual 3 on a business card Blog of Holding

If you want to avoid grind you MUST increase monster damage to Level+8 (+25% for Brutes) as noted. Also, all monsters should attack at Level+5 vs AC, Level+3 vs FRW.