D&D 4E Any tips for speeding up the game? 4e is slowing me down!

[grickherder]

Everyone needs to be planning their turn during everyone elses turn. Encourage them to think of it in terms of what they would do if they had another turn right after their turn. Then another person goes, and another and so on, until the initiative order bringing their turn around again. During this whole time, they should be adjusting their plan to the new situation so that when they're turn comes up, bam!, they can immediately say what they're doing.

 

[Paul Strack]

It's been suggested before, but I find that a printed summary sheet of each PCs power list with all the attack and damage bonus pre-calculated helps a lot. I find this a lot more useful than power cards, myself. You should be able to fit it all onto one page.

On my sheets, I put a bullet (●) next to at-will powers, an open circle (○) by encounter powers and an open square (□) next to daily powers, so that they can be easily distinguished and the encounter powers and dailies can be marked off as they are used.

Now that my PCs have access to magic weapons with crit bonuses, I am including separate damage numbers for non-crit and crit damage (1d8+3/11+1d6).

EDIT: Here is an example of what I do:

[sblock]
Racial Features, Class Features and Feats
● Group Awareness: Non-elf allies within 5 squares gain +1 to Perception.
● Wild Step: You ignore difficult terrain when you shift.
● Astral Fire: Gain +1 damage to fire and radiant powers (bonus included).
○ Elven Accuracy and Elven Precision: You may re-roll one attack roll. Gain an extra +2 on this second roll. You must use this roll, even if it is lower.
○ Divine Fortune (Channel Divinity): Gain +1 to your next attack roll or save.

Attacks: Your special attacks (prayers) use your holy symbol.
● +1 Frost Long Bow: +7 vs AC, 1d10+4 damage (14+1d6 crit), range 20/40. You may choose to inflict cold damage instead of normal damage.
□ Frost Bow Power: As a free action when you hit with your long bow, inflict an extra +1d8 cold damage and your target is slowed (Speed 2) until the end of your next turn.
● Spear: +5 vs AC, 1d8+2 damage, 1d8+3 damage if used two-handed.
● Lance of Faith: +5 vs Reflex, 1d8+5 radiant damage (13+1d6 crit), range 5. If you hit, one ally you can see gains +2 to his next attack on the same target.
● Sacred Flame: +5 vs Reflex, 1d6+5 radiant damage (11+1d6 crit), range 5. If you hit, one ally you can see either gains 2 temporary hit points or may make an immediate save.
○ Divine Glow: +5 vs Reflex, 1d8+5 radiant damage (13+1d6 crit) to enemies within 3 squares. Allies within 3 squares gain a +2 power bonus to their attacks until the end of your next turn.
○ Turn Undead (Channel Divinity): +5 vs Will, 1d10+5 radiant damage (15+1d6 crit) to undead within 2 squares. Push targets you hit 4 squares and immobilized them a turn. Misses inflict half damage. Cannot be used in the same encounter as Divine Fortune.
○ Daunting Light: +5 vs Reflex, 2d10+5 radiant damage (25+1d6 crit), range 10. Hit or miss, one ally you can see gains a combat advantage against the target until the end of your next turn.
□ Cascade of Light: +5 vs Will, 3d8+5 radiant damage (29+1d6 crit), range 10. If you hit, you target gains vulnerability 5 to your attacks (save ends). Misses still inflict half damage.
□ Bless: Allies within 20 squares gain +1 to all attacks until the end of this encounter.

Minor Actions
○○ Healing Word: You or an ally within 5 squares may use a healing surge. Your target gains an extra 1d6+3 hit points with the surge. May only be used once per round.
□ Holy Symbol of Life Power: Your healing powers heal +1d6 hp extra until the end of your turn.
□ Potion of Healing: Drink as minor action, spend a healing surge and regain 10 hp.
[/sblock]

 

[Nail]

.....On my sheets, I put a bullet (●) next to at-will powers, an open circle (○) by encounter powers and an open square (□) next to daily powers, ...

Your board-fu is strong....how do you get those bullets )closed, open, and square) in your post?

 

[keterys]

Very cool Paul.

 

[Emirikol]

Can you explain party group?
Is/Does your party know their abilities or do they have/having to look up things alot? What are you facing? Are people paying attention or are they distracted alot? I need to know what is going on on your end first, please.

Here's what our group is made up of:
1) 30-40 -something year old professionals
2) Characters are: fighter, paladin, wizard, cleric, rogue (5 players)
3) We use power cards. Some players have them cut up, others on one sheet..I'm inclined to believe that one-sheet makes more sense and is faster to reference.
4) We're playing KOTS and the party is level 2
5) We don't get off on side-talk, but comparing to 3e where you just rolled two dice and told the DM what you got, 4e is really slow because people are constantly referencing the power cards (it's like the D&D game wizards of old!) The quickest guy now is the wizard player..how pathetic is that compared...
6) I have initiative on cards on a tray out front of my DM screen. Doesnt' take but a second to set them up and reference them. Everybody knows when they're up. I use SINGLE initiative for the monsters (that has sped up the game). When a person's turn is up I say, "Bob, you're up. Jason, prep your action."
7) Consistently, there's typically one person who isn't the quickest responder for their turn, but why does it feel like such a chore for EVERYONE's TURNS? By now, everyone knows their character. We rarely have to look up rules. I'm thinking it's not the fault of the player or DM, so I'm looking at in-game things that can speed stuff up (who knows, maybe we need to go back to a faster system like 3e or Kz's "statement" about GURPS).
8) Rechan has excellent suggestions: roll both dice, 10-second rule, rules-look-up guy, HAVE A DM's screen with conditions on it.
9) We use stickers for "marking" mini's...but its like every stinking round there's a stupid nickel-and-dime modifier going on. SHould I get rid of marking or make it permanent until that monster is dead so there's no changing around every round?
10) Blargney, I like the character sheet
11) I may house rule something simple to speed combats up: Increase monster damage by 2 or 4 and decrease their hit points by 5-10. That will significantly speed up combats I'm thinking. Right now 4e has higher hit points, but less damage than 3e.
12) All players roll their attack and damage dice together.
13) I tell the players the monster's AC's a the beginning of combat
14) We're playing face to face (not online)
15) Paul, good suggestions
16) I want players to be at least rudimentarily descriptive in their action..such as I hit with my SWORD for 12 points of damage and cleave, rather than "take 6 to that goblin there[point]," but to date, we've not been able to do that to sacrifice role playing to somehow keep up with the bogged down system. Perhaps a couple more sessions will iron a few more things out. Thanks for the suggestions so far.


jh



..

 

[jaelis]

It sounds like you all basically know what you are doing, and you are keeping things reasonably well organized. If combat still feels like a chore, then maybe you just don't like the game. If you like 3e better, you might as well just stick with it. (I'm a little surprised you feel 3e was significantly faster, but maybe it just worked well for your group. I'd have said they were pretty similar.)

But if you do like the basic framework and just think the combats go on to long, then yes, I'd day reducing all hp by some factor would be the obvious solution. Like, reduce everyone's hp by 1/3.

 

[blargney the second]

I'm glad you like the sheet, Emirikol. I can provide you with an editable version if you'd like.

How good are their tactics and teamwork? I've found that when our 4e group focuses on taking down one enemy at a time, the fights take far less time than when we're spread out. In particular, the whole group should be doing their level best to make sure the rogue is hitting with sneak attack every round.

On a related note, how good are their attack bonuses? Did they start with 16s (or better yet, 18s) in their attack stats? If they miss lots, combats will necessarily take longer to resolve.
-blarg

 

[Paul Strack]

Your board-fu is strong....how do you get those bullets )closed, open, and square) in your post?

The bullet, open and closed circles are just regular characters. So, I just cut and paste.

If you want to get technical, it appears that the forum software on Enworld supports the full UTF-8 character set (which is just about everything, including international characters).

For fun, here is some Japanese:

私がテストのためにタイプしている日本句

 

[Paul Strack]

JH, maybe your expectations are off. I find that 4E combats take 6-7 rounds, as opposed to 4-5 rounds for 3E combats. I find that standard 4E combats take about 45 minute of play, though, less than my 3E combats. Boss-fights take a bit more than an hour generally.

Maybe you are making your encounters too hard? The encounters in KotS are (in my opinion) too numerous and too difficult. My formula for adventures is 3 encounters, two at about equal-level and one final boss fight at about Level + 3. I end up with about 50-60% combat and the rest of the time in role-playing and skill challenges. I generally finish within 5-6 hours. With quest awards and XP awards for skill challenges, each adventure still works out to about a half-level, XP-wise.

 

[Emirikol]

I've calculated a couple simulations and I think I can decrease the number of combat rounds by 1-2 by increasing all damage dealt by any creature by at least 2 points. Then I don't need a complicated system, combat becomes sleightly more deadly, but mainly it speeds things up.

Any thoughts on this?

jh