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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cute-Hydra" data-source="post: 5212512" data-attributes="member: 90808">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.---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</blockquote>

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