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Message: <blockquote data-quote="crash_beedo" data-source="post: 5118704" data-attributes="member: 18781">I've been running a weekly 4E game since the beginning, but only have a limited time slot (9pm to midnight on Saturdays, after everyone's kids are asleep).  I would also say my group of 40-year olds agonizes over every move, of every round.  (Except the optimized artful dodger drow rogue, who just kills things).I was finding it was typical we'd clear 1 fight per night, sometimes two per night if there was minimal roleplaying or exploration.  Our session time wasn't going to increase, so about 2 months ago I went with the houserule...Half hit points for monsters in a non-boss fight, monsters get a damage boost equal to their level.It's taken fights down from 1 - 1.5 hours to about 45 minutes (4-5 rounds or so), keeps a high threat level for the players, and gives us extra time for more exploration, roleplaying.  Obviously something this drastic has side effects (most monsters die in 3 hits, so they may not get a chance to do all their cool stuff) and the PC's usually end the fight with encounters/dailies intact - rarely/never hit the at-will grind space.Unfortunately, the primary campaign is still going through the WOTC modules (P2 currently) and they are long combat-fests.For the next campaign, I'll definitely make heavy use of delves and smaller 3-encounter adventures that support better pacing and resolution within our typical session length.</blockquote>