D&D 4E 4e Combat in PbP

[Camelot]

How should the DM run 4e combat in a play-by-post game so that it will be engaging but not take weeks?

 

[Teemu]

Visible enemy defenses and hp. Update every day, use at-will powers for players who miss an update. Use equal-leveled monsters.

My heroic tier combats take 4 to 5 days.

Also, fewer combats per level. I do only about 2 to 4, though they tend to be more difficult.

 

[Mentat55]

Pretty much what the Finnish Flash said. I have made all my monsters do +33% damage and have 75% normal HP, so they die more quickly. Players that do not post quickly enough either use an at-will, sustain a power, or go total defenses. I use lots of minions and have started posting enemy defenses. I ask players to post if they want to use immediate actions in response to certain conditions.

For each level, I run about 3 combats. All are level +3 or higher, usually. I make sure the combat is plot important or super awesome, otherwise it is not worth the time it takes to run it.

On average, I think my PBP combats take 1 week.

 

[MortalPlague]

This is more a formatting thing, but I've been in a few Pbp games, and the most successful one I was in had great combats. When a round started, the DM would post a current battle map, and a list of the combatants in initiative order. As they took their turns, he'd fill in their initiative line, indicating what they'd done on their turn. So at a glance, you could see all the actions people had taken and follow it really quickly.

 

[Camelot]

Those all sound like good ideas, thanks.

What would you consider "plot-relevant combat?"

 

[Gort]

I've seen PbP games where the first combat took six days to carry out. Dear God.

 

[ourchair]

This is more a formatting thing, but I've been in a few Pbp games, and the most successful one I was in had great combats. When a round started, the DM would post a current battle map, and a list of the combatants in initiative order. As they took their turns, he'd fill in their initiative line, indicating what they'd done on their turn. So at a glance, you could see all the actions people had taken and follow it really quickly.

That sounds pretty awesome.

I imagine that kind of approach takes well to Google Wave, since you're able to easily revise monster actions as players fill in their turns and apply interrupts that change up what happens.

 

[Teemu]

I've seen PbP games where the first combat took six days to carry out. Dear God.

That's fairly fast in PbP.

Interrupts should be handled by the DM. Players should avoid taking a lot of them, and the DM can activate them as necessary (frex encounter immediates as soon as triggered).

 

[Katana_Geldar]

A lot of things you can hand over to the DM as it works faster that way. I'm not always around to hand out the bonus for my Bard's Virtue of Valour, so I just told the DM if I didn't specify to go to who needed it the most as that is what I would do anyway.

Encounters can take weeks in PbP.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I run a lot of games via Yahoogroups, and combat is always slow and has troubles with anything that can interrupt an action. If you can run a round a day, you are doing great great great.

I do try to limit combats as much as I can, which I have found is a real problem with 4E as most fights are balanced on an attrition basis and it could take 3 months to do 3-4 fights so most of my fights are level +1 at least and frequently higher.