A radical solution for dealing with 4e grind - halve ALL HP

[Truename]

My concerns might be that focussing attacks on individuals would become too powerful - it might be easily possible for monsters played well to take out the party leader in one round, before players have a chance to do anything.

I've been doing a lot of focus-fire lately, particularly against the back rank (with one monster distracted by the defender). One round of attacks is generally enough to bring a (5th level) PC just barely away from death. It's so consistent I think the system was balanced for this type of combat. It ratchets up the tension nicely, too.

So if you're cutting HP in half you'll have to be very cautious about focusing fire on the PCs, I think.

 

[Lanefan]

The half-h.p. idea for 4e I've suggested before in here somewhere...but there's a plan B that works for all editions:

Make sure the magic items found (or bought) by the party are mostly offensive rather than defensive. Ditto for what the enemies are equipped with. (corollary to this, of course, is to NOT allow the characters to build their own items; or make it take so much time as to be impractical)

Module have the boss wearing a suit of +2 plate mail? Remove it, and give him a 2-handed sword +3 instead. Random roll show a +3 shield for sale in town? Ignore the roll, or sub in a longbow +2. And if you must have magic armour, make it lower-grade armour to begin with - chain or scale or studded leather, rather than splint or plate - so the end-result AC is still rational.

Over the long run, this will make your combats go faster; by the simple math of the to-hit probability being higher.

Lan-"it took me 23 years of DMing to realize this"-efan

 

[alleynbard]

I have, and it's a great guide, but here's the thing -- if I have to carefully plan tactics/roles/levels every time to get a satisfactory combat resolution, then by definition there are tactical/role/level combination that really can't be used at all.

When I run a combat, I'd like be able to improvise a quick tune from time to time, not write a symphony.

That's great. If you are looking to be able to improvise, slicing hit points might be your best bet. I would take Stalker's advice and not cut them as deeply.

As I think on it, there is a great deal of risk in cutting PC hit points along with creature hit points. Some creature damage is likely to take out a PC rather quickly if you aren't careful or don't adjust attacks. Lurkers, artillery, and controllers would become rather nasty, I think. At least that is how it feels without any major playtesting on my part. I will admit my initial inclination could be way off.

I regularly bring my PCs to the brink of death as it is. It is a rare battle where no one reaches the bloodied stage.

There was a thread concerning this subject with some interesting guidelines.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/247839-adjusting-monsters-faster-combat.html

Have you seen this one?

 

[blargney the second]

The half-h.p. idea for 4e I've suggested before in here somewhere...but there's a plan B that works for all editions:

Make sure the magic items found (or bought) by the party are mostly offensive rather than defensive. Ditto for what the enemies are equipped with. (corollary to this, of course, is to NOT allow the characters to build their own items; or make it take so much time as to be impractical)

Module have the boss wearing a suit of +2 plate mail? Remove it, and give him a 2-handed sword +3 instead. Random roll show a +3 shield for sale in town? Ignore the roll, or sub in a longbow +2. And if you must have magic armour, make it lower-grade armour to begin with - chain or scale or studded leather, rather than splint or plate - so the end-result AC is still rational.

Over the long run, this will make your combats go faster; by the simple math of the to-hit probability being higher.

Lan-"it took me 23 years of DMing to realize this"-efan

Oooh, I like this one. That's some great cross-edition advice, right there. Running around with gonzo weapons is just plain old fun, no matter how you cut it.
-blarg

 

[Switchback]

This isn't a math based answer, but upon hearing the idea of 1/2 HP, it seems to me immediately that healing would become much stronger. Players have a lot of it, and it is now worth double the value it once was, but most monsters don't heal and instead appear to have been given surges and the like right built into their often enormous HP pools. Cutting them in half is effectively cutting their resources in a way that it doesn't for the players.

 

[Renshai]

Whenever I start to run into grind, which isn't very often as the party boasts three strikers, I just decide when the monsters die. That way nothing is set in stone, and you can judge each situation yourself.

 

[Baz King]

My solution (and it's pure theory at the moment) is to do as you say and halve monster hp, but in a different way.

When they get to Bloodied, they become a minion.

Requires zero book keeping. Allows for Bloodied effects to still go off, and death effects too. They are still a threat unless dealt with.

Thoughts?

 

[Novem5er]

I've just been reducing monster HP by a smidgen at the beginning of each battle. A level 3 monster with 47 HP is just immediately is rounded down to 40. What's that; about an 18% shave?

I find that just taking off that little bit saves us a round or two at the end of a combat. I get so annoyed when there's two mobs left with less than 10 HP and my players whiff round after round

Stalker0's guide has been great! I've always tried to make balanced encounters, but his guide really spelled it out. I'm actually making a dragon encounter for tonight's game and, instead of using a higher level dragon, I'm actually going L-1 and am adding in a nasty hazard/trap to balance out the XP.

That, and I'll never run an encounter with 4 soldiers again

 

[Odysseus]

Then I noticed that 1-2 combats were taking 75%+ of the session time, and things got less fun. Players noted that combat often felt like chopping down a tree, where it took a lot of actions to take down an enemy.

This may depend on what sort of monster the party is fighting & party composition.
With the party I'm Dming for at the moment. I found that if a monsters hit points are more that 25 per level. The I know the parties going to have a tough time bring him down. So either i shave so hit points off him. Or if he's important ,plan what he'll do accordingly.
Also at the other end of the scale monsters with hit points down at 10 per level, I often just treat as minions, cause the go down so easily.

Also as a sidenote.
I just ran a conan adventure with 4E. The only rule changes we're , some grappling options,some weapon changes, some of which crit on 19&20, and adding 1/2 level when apply an attribute to damage. None of the encounters run so far ,lasted longer than 4 rounds. Whereas normally combat is anything from 2 to 12 rounds.

 

[TerraDave]

Another thought might be to have your monsters flee or surrender if they are bloodied and the fight doesn't look like it'll have a tense resolution.

One thing about the current 4E approach is that it does allow for more epic combats, but you probably don't want those all the time. On the other hand, one short, less epic fight after another can also be repetitive and another kind of grind.

As implied above, one approach is to avoid marginal battles all together. Another is to have the monsters just leave when the combat seems or becomes marginal--this also has the advantage of being more realistic and, yes, slightly less brutal. Then, when it looks like the PCs are really challenged, let things keep going. Epic when you want it, but not all the time.