Brainstorming - Making short-normal combats

[ArcaneSpringboard]

One of the problems with 4e is that while it does the dramatic set-piece battle extremely well (and by far is the best at it out of all the versions), it has a tendency to try to make all combats dramatic.

Unfortunately this has the effect of lessening the impact of the epic fights and making the 'lesser' encounters take quite a long time to run. It also makes it more difficult to run introductory encounters of similar monsters before the big fight.

For example, in the past when attacking a lair of a certain creature (say goblins), you'd go through several encounters of lesser monsters before fighting in the main chamber. Part of the appeal of this is to introduce the different types of monsters to allow the PCs to get used to their abilities ahead of the big epic battle.

But when each combat can take 90 minutes at Paragon, this just isn't feasible.

What we need, like Torg, is some way to differentiate the standard encounters from the dramatic ones. I've gone through a few on my blog, but wanted to start a thread for brainstorming other ideas how to do this.

This is admittedly accepting that the PCs will pretty much roll through the encounter, but I can accept this if there is a reason for the encounter (if only to introduce the different types of monsters).

I'm not really looking for a pro-con discussion yet...just throw ideas out no matter how wacky they are.


- cut hp by half

- start the encounter with fewer creatures (like 3 instead of 5)

- one or two standard creatures and minions (or an elite and minions)

- all minions

- free action point for all PCs this encounter

- PC's get +2 or +4 to all attack rolls this encounter

- monsters make 'fear save' when bloodied to run back to main area.

 

[Wik]

Why not just throw smaller groups at the parties? One elite monster will go down quickly - it won't feel "epic".

I ran a fight against my 5 PCs where the foes were just two lurkers of the same level as the PCs. the PCs dominated - and the fight took maybe fifteen minutes.

Not every fight needs to match up to the Expected Experience guidelines.

Making monsters run is a great choice for combats, especially if you stress that players get full XP when the foes run, and you aren't too picky on having the monsters ring alarms on their escape.

Try also running lower-level monsters, but in large numbers at the PCs. My level 11 or so PCs at the time fought a bunch of level 6 & 7 spriggans - and the fight breezed by.

Terrain features that deal a buttload of damage when triggered are anotehr way to speed up mini fights like this - if your fighter can push over a wall onto that goblin, and it deals 3d10+15 damage or something stupid, you can beter that goblin is going down in one hit.

Mind you, D&D is meant to be an action film. And in any action film, there are never simple fights. Each is a scene onto itself. "Throwaway Fights" just seem to slow the pace of the game down even more, in my honest opinion.

 

[Wik]

Oh, yeah. Only use one type of monster at a time. If the GM only has to keep track of one stat block, you'll be amazed at how much quicker the fights run!

 

[LostSoul]

I wrote a system that is supposed to speed up combats that I'm playtesting now. It's meant to supplement the regular combat system. The rule is that the players decide which combat system, not the DM.

 

[the Jester]

Set your xp budget low and it should work out fine.

For instance, in an "assault the goblins" adventure for level 1 pcs, assuming you want to rachet it up as you go but have 'easy' encounters until the last couple, you might have the following encounters:

Guards Outside XP 50
2 goblin cutters (lvl 1 minions)

Entry Hall XP 150
2 goblin cutters (lvl 1 minions)
1 goblin archer (lvl 1 skirmisher)

Common Room XP 400
8 goblin cutters (lvl 1 minions)
2 goblin warriors (lvl 1 skirmishers)

Trash Room XP 325
4 giant rats (lvl 1 minions)
1 dire rat (lvl 1 brute)
1 rat swarm (lvl 2 skirmisher)

Shaman's Turf XP 500
1 goblin hexer (lvl 3 controller)
1 goblin skullcleaver (lvl 3 brute)
8 goblin cutters (lvl 1 minions)

Chief Gobbellin XP 675
1 goblin underboss (lvl 4 elite controller)
1 goblin sharpshooter (lvl 2 artillery)
8 goblin cutters (lvl 1 minions)

What's especially cool about this kind of thing is that the pcs are encouraged to forge ahead without a rest (after all, who needs to expend any per-encounters to take down 2 minions?) and the dm can have encounters reinforce each other without being completely overwhelming.

 

[Mesh Hong]

One thing you could try is to have the enemies cut and run much sooner, falling back to reinforce other encounters or the main fight at the end.

This would allow you to keep the important round 1 and 2 of a combat (where the monsters are generally more danagerous) then retreat in the face of a superior force. This would probably cut the combats down to 2 to 4 rounds, with 2 serious rounds and up to 2 rounds of trying to hold up the PCs while most of the remaining monsters retreat.

You could distribute the surviving monsters among the remaining fights (minus a few that are too wounded to fight) or add them to the main fight. If you did this repeatedly you would end up with a main fight that would be truely epic and contained monsters that already had experience of the PCs brutality and tactics. The PCs would also have more of a connection to the fight because they would recognise the little buggers that got away.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I have done a couple things that have kept combats reasonable in my campaign.

1) Normal monsters - I cut HP to 60-75% of the listed amount. For damage I increase the at-will attacks to 1 extra die.

2) Semi-Minions- I wanted some monsters that didn't take a long while to deal with but also couldn't be taken out with a single spitball or in droves with large, low damage AOE attack.

Semi -minions HP totals are represented by a certain number of hits followed by a threshold. If the threshold is met or exceeded by a single attack the creature is down. Example:

Zombie Brutes: HP 2/15. This means that one successful hit will take out a zombie only if it scores 15 or higher damage. Otherwise, 2 lesser hits are needed.

This way, powerful attacks are not "wasted" on minions. A crit or high damage attack can have meaning. Also, HP totals still don't have to be tracked. Just a check mark for a hit is enough.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Personally, while I like the idea of minions, the execution is lacking.

Specifically, minions aren't similar enough to the real deal, so they can't train the PCs for confrontations with full blown monsters.

Easily fixed though: just create minions by reducing a normal monster's hitpoints to 1 and quartering the XP they're worth instead of using specially listed minions.

Counterwise, some of the minions in the game have cool powers that warrant them being upgraded to full monsters.

 

[Cute-Hydra]

What I did to address this problem was:

Cut all monsters hp in half, but double all damage from attacks. (not aura's, ongoing damage etc): this as I see it replicated moments in films where the bad guys even the tough ones, soldiers and brutes still go down in a few choice attacks. But they hit so much harder that occasionally an important character dies. I mean in the films, a death scene is rarely someone being stabbed by a dozen minion blades. Normally its an arrow to the chest or a blade in the back etc. I don't pretend that this doubling of one and halving the others is an equal balance and if anything it does make it harder for the players. But it is really satisfying getting a crit on an encounter power and 1 shotting a soldier. Secondly, we have a 6 man group so it is large enough to have a decent amount of damage output and healing potential. But this does speed up encounters a lot.

I also have drawn up cards of the monsters, with name and hp on and initiative. I also have one for the players and so initiative order is rolled and then the players are slotted into the monsters. Then the deck of cards is played out with them going to the bottom when finished. I also preroll initiative order for monsters so its already written on the cards. Then the players are slotted in.

Use of traps, if you have a trap that can be disarmed afterwards as opposed to a classic death trap. You can spice up the environment and speed it up a lot as well. E.g a player does not have to kill a pit trap, but it can endanger them the way a monster can.

Say something gently, if a player is really slow, I am not rude, but if someone spends 5 mins working on one move. I'l say something.

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I do like the idea of semi minions as it encourages the controller to take encounter burst damage, as I have often seen them take at will burst to kill minions and then spike damage encounters.

Cute-hydra