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I can't really do much to change the pacing. I run a monthly 6 hour game, and attendance of players is unpredictable. This means I run an episodic adventure that lasts at most six hour each session, so I don't have to worry about who will or will not make it each month. I've changed resource...

Right now every encounter I run is the the "hard" range according to the DMG (N+2 to N+3). I am uncomfortably stepping it up any further. I don't want every encounter the PCs face to be at the highest level of difficulty suggested in the rules. I am worried I will cross some mathematical tipping...

I am not out to kill my PCs. I regularly throw N+2 and N+3 encounters at them, and no one has every been seriously at risk of dying. I manage to knock one PC down to 0 hit points in about 50% of the fights, and in the other half the fights, no PC goes down at all. No PC has ever been down long...

I advance the party at a fixed rate (1 level per complete adventure), so the number of monster killed has no bearing on their rate of advancement. The player in question simply can't stand to let anything that has ever attacked him live to tell the tale :)

I do have the enemies run when it is appropriate, but my PCs are frequently fighting genuinely evil fanatics, undead and demons that care nothing for their own lives. A lot of the time, it doesn't make sense for the enemies to run. Also, I have a couple players that refuse to let enemies escape...

I am making up rules because I don't want to hand-wave the end of every combat. That feels anti-climactic to me. Those last 2 or 3 rounds do have an effect on PC resources. They generally lose a few healing surges worth of extra hit points. On the other hand, those last 2 or 3 combat rounds...

This. 4E works best when the whole party has the same level. Most DMs I know in my area use some variation on this rule. Personally, I only use XP as a tool for judging encounter balance. I level up the whole group at a fixed rate, and don't track accumulated XP at all.

Two complaints I've been getting lately is that combats are running long and are not brutal enough. I have an idea for how to address both issues. At the beginning of any combat round where it is clear the PCs will probably win a fight (generally when about half the monsters are down), the...

I was just going to say what firesnakearies said. I find that the open/closed bullet-icon are much easier to parse in play, since they are on the right of the power instead of embedded in the text. I use them for all my monster descriptions, not just NPCs. I use them on my PC sheets as well.

In my last session, the group entered a cavern with a shallow river running through it. The PC side of the cavern was clear (no cover) but the monster side had plenty of cover (stone columns). The river was 5 squares wide and difficult terrain. All the monsters had ranged attacks. None of this...

My combats last about an 60 - 75 minutes. I run 5-6 hour sessions, typically 2-3 combats and a mixture of skill challenges and role playing for the balance of the session. My group has 7 players, but only 5-6 show up for a given session. We have every PH1 class except a Cleric, but group...

Magic rituals are your friend here. Simply invent a ritual with an appropriate effect and give it to your NPC. To keep it out of the hands of your PCs, either make the ritual secret or give it unpleasant ritual components. "Sure you can use the same ritual the vampire used to charm the Duke ...

I used to worry that 4E combat involved little narration, and considered adding stunt rules to encourage it. In the end, though, I decided that it didn't need it. For me, the goal of extra narration is to make the combat more interesting and exciting, and 4E combat is already interesting enough...

Here is a simpler breakdown. For each level that they advance, each character should receive the equivalent of a (Level + 1) item. For example, as they advance up to level 4, each character should roughly get a level 5 item. A 5th character should have the equivalent of 4 magic items, levels...

Don't make your PCs fight Githyanki in the first adventure. Have the slave overseers be some low-level subordinate race that the PCs can actually beat in a fight. This way, as your PCs level up to the point where they can actually defeat one of the main villains, they will feel a real sense of...

I pitched alignments in earlier editions. I quite am happy that 4E makes it easy to ignore alignment completely. It makes it much easier to have more complex, nuanced morality.

Give out one a level X+1 item each time the PCs advance to level X. This is 100% consistent with the treasure advancement rates in the rules and is a lot more palatable than big mounds of treasure.

OK. How about the following: Lance (Military Weapon): 1d10; +2 prof.; 15 gp; 6 lb.; Spear; Versatile Heavy Lance (Superior Weapon): 1d12; +2 prof.; 30 gp; 10 lb.; Axe; Versatile Other than the weapon group, these are identical to Battleaxe and Waraxe. Lance Fighting [Feat] Your gain a +4...

How about this: Lance (Military Weapon): 1d8; +2 prof.; 10 gp; 7 lb.; Spear; Versatile; does 1d8 extra damage on a mounted charge. Long Lance (Superior Weapon): 1d10; +2 prof.; 10 gp; 7 lb.; Spear; Versatile; does 1d10 extra damage on a mounted charge. Those are comparable with a longsword...

Hmm. Taking reach away from the lance certainly does solve a lot of problems. I keep thinking of a jousting lance, but that's a tournament weapon. In real combat, you would probably want a more flexible weapon, a shorter spear that could be used when not charging.