jaelis
Oh this is where the title goes?
Seems to me that would make low level creatures and minions more powerful relative to high level or solo creatures. (Since the % damage increase would be more for creatures with lower damage.)
D&D 4E Any tips for speeding up the game? 4e is slowing me down!
- Thread starter Emirikol
- Start date
Seems to me that would make low level creatures and minions more powerful relative to high level or solo creatures. (Since the % damage increase would be more for creatures with lower damage.)
Raven Swords
First Post
This would make combat faster, but I'm thinking it's probably unnecessary to increase monster damage. Monsters do more than enough damaged at the moment (look at all the TPK's)! Simply give your players a magical item that increases damage across the board by 1 or 2 points.
This could be for example an artefact they find, a gift from a happy NPC or maybe a symbol of authority for whatever unifying force holds your group together and if later you find this was a mistake simply steal or corrupt it.
Obergnom
First Post
Instead of increasing damage of the players, I would decrease Monster HP (try -2 per level). Monsters staying longer than you wish is the basic problem 
This would be better in terms of keeping the balance even, as a +2 to damage means more to a defender than to a striker, as the striker has a higher base damage.
And it is a lot easier then improving the damage based on a percentage...
This would be better in terms of keeping the balance even, as a +2 to damage means more to a defender than to a striker, as the striker has a higher base damage.
And it is a lot easier then improving the damage based on a percentage...
Raven Swords
First Post
reducing the monster hp was my first thought and is technically the correct way to solve this problem. However I felt that this would be easy to overlook/difficult to keep track of for a DM in mid flow...
Increasing damage to all players in the game effectively does not have an effect on character balance. If you were to give the bonus to some characters and not others you run into problems.
however at least by reducing hp you skip messy questions about power damage multipliers etc.
PS In my 3rd ed games I quite often reduced my monsters to single hit kills if I thought a fight was raging to long or it added to the drama of the game. So I guess it would be really easy in 4th ed to turn some monsters into minions on the fly and award less xp.
Increasing damage to all players in the game effectively does not have an effect on character balance. If you were to give the bonus to some characters and not others you run into problems.
however at least by reducing hp you skip messy questions about power damage multipliers etc.
PS In my 3rd ed games I quite often reduced my monsters to single hit kills if I thought a fight was raging to long or it added to the drama of the game. So I guess it would be really easy in 4th ed to turn some monsters into minions on the fly and award less xp.
jh,
I'm running a similar kind of group and I've found that having one person track initiative and call it out is huge (probably does the same thing as your cards).
On conditions, there's one person who's responsible for tracking the different conditions on enemies and allies which has made a big difference.
Another player is responsible for keeping track of damage on enemies as well as the damaged/bloodied list. That way, anyone can look at the list to see who needs healing or which targets are most hurt, etc. We have numbers on all the minis so that you can distinguish them clearly. All conditions/initiative/damage are recorded directly on the battlemat for easy reference.
good tips
There are a lot of really good ideas here.
I have a group with five to six players that play every wednesday. People are happy but the rounds do take too long. A couple of the players are strategy nuts who like to really plan our their move. Their happiness goes down if they're rushed or other players are rushed into making foolish moves. It loses the strategy for them.
Others don't like sitting for 10 minutes until its their turn to roll and miss again.
I'm using a lot of the tips here. I delegate initiative. I have the monsters ready to throw on the table when combat happens. We tell the next guy to get ready while the first is going. I haven't houseruled any other initiative stuff and I don't really want to. I want to play the game as close to the books as I can.
Some of our players don't have their sheets worked out ahead of time, thats something I plan to push more. It's hard right now because there isn't a good computer-based way to do a character sheet that isn't very complicated or difficult. Printing them out in a word doc is probably the easiest but some of us are on macs, some on linux, some on PCs. One of our players uses power cards and that works well for him. Another has to look it up in the book all the time but he just hasn't gotten around to writing it all out. I, myself, in our other game, use the one-sheet idea based on the Delve characters at D&D Experience. That works very well for me. I take about 15 seconds to do my round when its my turn. Just decide, move, and move on.
When my name is called its all action, not decision.
Anyway, some very good tips here.
There are a lot of really good ideas here.
I have a group with five to six players that play every wednesday. People are happy but the rounds do take too long. A couple of the players are strategy nuts who like to really plan our their move. Their happiness goes down if they're rushed or other players are rushed into making foolish moves. It loses the strategy for them.
Others don't like sitting for 10 minutes until its their turn to roll and miss again.
I'm using a lot of the tips here. I delegate initiative. I have the monsters ready to throw on the table when combat happens. We tell the next guy to get ready while the first is going. I haven't houseruled any other initiative stuff and I don't really want to. I want to play the game as close to the books as I can.
Some of our players don't have their sheets worked out ahead of time, thats something I plan to push more. It's hard right now because there isn't a good computer-based way to do a character sheet that isn't very complicated or difficult. Printing them out in a word doc is probably the easiest but some of us are on macs, some on linux, some on PCs. One of our players uses power cards and that works well for him. Another has to look it up in the book all the time but he just hasn't gotten around to writing it all out. I, myself, in our other game, use the one-sheet idea based on the Delve characters at D&D Experience. That works very well for me. I take about 15 seconds to do my round when its my turn. Just decide, move, and move on.
When my name is called its all action, not decision.
Anyway, some very good tips here.
Odysseus
Explorer
There seem to be two issues here.
The length of the round and the number of rounds.
IMO the length of the round in 4E is much shorter, but if your finding it a problem there seem plenty of ideas in this thread.
The number of rounds is a more difficult problem. There does seem to be a lot of variation because of party composition, PC builds and PC teamwork. But overall the combat in 4E does seem take alot more rounds. And some fights are short some long. If all your fights are long, you should be asking why every fight is taking so much time. Looking at some of the threads about playing KotS , the combats are lasting under 10 rounds.
If every combat is taking too much time , then perhaps some house rules are necessary. Increasing damage, decreasing hp, decreasing defences or use more action points(using an extra action to save time, may seem a dubious idea, but you may find using an extra action ends a fight sooner, and saves an extra round or two)
The length of the round and the number of rounds.
IMO the length of the round in 4E is much shorter, but if your finding it a problem there seem plenty of ideas in this thread.
The number of rounds is a more difficult problem. There does seem to be a lot of variation because of party composition, PC builds and PC teamwork. But overall the combat in 4E does seem take alot more rounds. And some fights are short some long. If all your fights are long, you should be asking why every fight is taking so much time. Looking at some of the threads about playing KotS , the combats are lasting under 10 rounds.
If every combat is taking too much time , then perhaps some house rules are necessary. Increasing damage, decreasing hp, decreasing defences or use more action points(using an extra action to save time, may seem a dubious idea, but you may find using an extra action ends a fight sooner, and saves an extra round or two)
Foxman
First Post
Some things from my game:
Init - I use clothes-pins - labelmaker a name, and there you go. (wooden ones and a marker works too) I put them up on my dm screen and move the activated ones to one side, the unactivated on the other and the acting in the middle
I use power cards (yay!)
Tracking marks/conditions - office supply store and a box of coloured paperclips - PC's are responsible for placing them on thier own minis or targets minis (red bloodied/blue fighter/yellow paladin/purple warlock/green ranger - leaves black and white for other effects)
Laser pointer!!! Instead of getting up and moving stuff around the table I can just point and ask someone to move a monster - saves a LOT of time. Can be had at a dollar store for CHEAP!
======================================
I found this thread looking for otherways to speed up combat, here are some things I've seen and I'm considering:
* One other thing I've heard is halving monster's HP's. Not sure about this, but it should speed things up.
* Making all players powers reliable, that is if you miss with your big to-do its not wasted. (roll twice for normally reliable powers)
* Adding half-level to damage for the PC's (be easy to do for monsters too...)
I wouldnt suggest using more than one of these...
Init - I use clothes-pins - labelmaker a name, and there you go. (wooden ones and a marker works too) I put them up on my dm screen and move the activated ones to one side, the unactivated on the other and the acting in the middle
I use power cards (yay!)
Tracking marks/conditions - office supply store and a box of coloured paperclips - PC's are responsible for placing them on thier own minis or targets minis (red bloodied/blue fighter/yellow paladin/purple warlock/green ranger - leaves black and white for other effects)
Laser pointer!!! Instead of getting up and moving stuff around the table I can just point and ask someone to move a monster - saves a LOT of time. Can be had at a dollar store for CHEAP!
======================================
I found this thread looking for otherways to speed up combat, here are some things I've seen and I'm considering:
* One other thing I've heard is halving monster's HP's. Not sure about this, but it should speed things up.
* Making all players powers reliable, that is if you miss with your big to-do its not wasted. (roll twice for normally reliable powers)
* Adding half-level to damage for the PC's (be easy to do for monsters too...)
I wouldnt suggest using more than one of these...
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
I agree, I am glad somebody bumped the thread so I could see it.
My solution for long fights (on top of all the stuff to speed up round by round): have the monsters run away after a while if it looks like the pcs have the edge, and you are getting bored. (As an aside, this has the benefit of being a normal thing to do, fighting to the death is not that natural for most animals or people).
A correlary to this is that, unless you give a clue that the opponent is seeking to warn others, don't punish the players for letting the monsters get away. Maybe single that they are clearly defeated or chastened, heading to the hills to trouble you no more, etc.
One advantage is that this still leaves open the occasional big, massive, smackdown where the monsters hold there ground.
WizarDru
Adventurer
My experience has been that it depends on the player. I prefer separate cards, as I take them out of my hand as I 'spend' them. Some of my players have them in Excel reference sheets.
Emirikol said:
And here is where I think your real slowdown is...you're still getting used to the system. My group just finished KOTS, and by the end we were positively running through combats, as we had a grasp of our characters tactics and abilities. That and fully grasping all the marks and new concepts (marked being a status, for example) that take some rethinking to grok on the fly. All of the other stuff sounds like nickel-and-dime time savers that will end up being more of hassle than they're worth, IMHO.
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