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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5118278" data-attributes="member: 80487">From my perspective, it has -- by design -- become a lot more than the original "heart". Combat length and adventure pacing are key to a pretty radical shift in focus.The tie-in with a game of "builds" is also very significant to my eye.For me, the whole package is problematic -- but that is because I prefer to get rounds and combats over with as quickly as in the old rules-sets actually designed for that purpose. Once the real tactics are in place, I don't want to get bogged down in fine points of fencing (or else I would play, e.g., Rapier & Dagger or maybe Amber Diceless Roleplaying).However, I have seen a similar problem even without anything like the complications of WotC's games. That problem is "individual initiative", especially as practiced in 4E. Player E tends to want to see the results of the moves of Players A, B, C and D -- and whatever monsters are interleaved -- before making his or her own choice. Old RuneQuest similarly has "strike ranks" (different from the Mongoose version), but the round starts with a Statement of Intent Phase. That in my experience speeds things up a bit. In old D&D, I have often used "simultaneous moves", which can be even faster, but I think that probably would not work well in 4E.It might seem counter-intuitive that one can do that, or at least that one can force the other two ogres to "take a number" instead of using the very same local superiority. Turning to an unengaged foe a backside that effectively has "clobber me" painted on it is generally not considered good tactics in other contexts of my acquaintance.My experience is about half that, with 45 minutes being epic tops. That refers to pretty "down to business" play, though. As I mentioned in another thread, the group in which I am lately a player has brought (basically doubled) it up to your range with a lot of distractions. I blame (at least partly) the DM's "plot line" scenario structure that makes the fights basically not of our choosing and commanding no great investment of interest.The 4e feats and powers have a lot of fiddly bits that interact with other fiddly bits -- including the 30 pages of general combat rules, and sometimes the skill rules -- to make the combat game complicated, and complications take time to sort out. The combat game in turn is the primary arena in which the products of the game of builds get to "strut their stuff". Moreover, more stuff is getting added book after book.</blockquote>

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