Combat length

[samursus]

In the game I run, I have 2 completely new to Roleplaying players, who seem to have trouble remembering what to do every turn!! <sigh> (well just one in particular). She has about 10 games under her belt, and still has problems picking out her d10 vs d8. She uses the same at-will over and over, and still forgets what she is doing... she is the type that doodles on the battle mat between turns. I keep planning on taking some out of game time to do a little tutorial with her on combat and her powers specifically. I am also realizing that the CB Power Cards are a little bit confusing to neophytes... the 3 new players in my game always seem to take a while to find their Attack and Damage lines. I don't know if this is applicable, but they are all women. I was looking at other, more visually appealing, Power Card designs (especially Tintagels) and wonder if its worth the extra effort and cost to use those...

The point is, I wish I could get 10 minute rounds...

 

[Alan Shutko]

Data point: six 11th level characters (one healer, 5 strikers) against 3 wisps and 3 chuuls. Ok. Just over two hours when we finally called it.

Just timed the next round of the next combat. 20 minute round, monsters taking 8 minutes, players between 1 and 3.5 minutes.

 

[coyote6]

We had some 2 minute rounds in the last 3.5e session. Of course, one PC was dead, two were stunned, the fourth was either hiding behind his tower shield and spellcasting or missing, and the two bad guys were missing (cf, "tower shield").

 

[Raven Crowking]

I had a combat between one PC and three NPCs last night that lasted six seconds of game time and about 2 minutes of real time.

A 2nd level monk kicked the....attitude....out of three fellow prisoners (2 normal man thugs and one rogue with a shiv) in one round. It was fun and impressive.


RC

 

[Hussar]

Data point: six 11th level characters (one healer, 5 strikers) against 3 wisps and 3 chuuls. Ok. Just over two hours when we finally called it.

Just timed the next round of the next combat. 20 minute round, monsters taking 8 minutes, players between 1 and 3.5 minutes.

A question - why was the DM taking so long? IME, the DM's turn is usually on par or even faster than the players. Your players seem to be right on the ball, but the DM is dragging a bit. Not badly, just a bit.

But, in any case, a 20 minute round for seven players (including the DM) is not bad at all.

 

[Henry]

A couple weeks ago, someone here said they offer +1 to damage when a player completes his turn in under a minute. I tried it last game and it really made a difference, not in just how combat played, but the intensity of the game increased. Everyone worked to make sure they were ready to go and combat did seem to go quicker.

Capitalism at its finest.

Games of 4E for my old groups were around 30 to 45 minutes for a 5 person group, 1st to 7th level, with about a number of monsters equal to the party level. What killed my speed was anytime I'd introduce a monster who was 3 levels or over the party -- combat time almost DOUBLED.

 

[Alan Shutko]

A question - why was the DM taking so long? IME, the DM's turn is usually on par or even faster than the players. Your players seem to be right on the ball, but the DM is dragging a bit. Not badly, just a bit.

But, in any case, a 20 minute round for seven players (including the DM) is not bad at all.

Good question. I didn't think the GM was necessarily taking overly long: he was dealing with six monsters. Should that be faster?

In any case, we feel a 20-minute round is too long for us. When I am actively doing something for a minute out of twenty, I get bored. Our group is looking for more variety in combat lengths. A big set piece encounter for an adventure makes sense to be 2 hrs. But I don't want a random encounter to take that long.

 

[Wombat]

The rule of thumb for our group is "If combat takes up more than 1/3 of our game time, we are doing something very, very wrong." We don't really keep track of rounds, but combat is the spice of the game (whatever game we happen to be playing), rather than the focus. And miniatures are only used as an afterthought, if at all.

This probably also explains why our group drifted away from D&D, SW, GURPS, and other games designed around combat.

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

We've decided that we're going to dump miniatures. Ulimately I think that the consequences of using them in 4e is what is causing the issue with long combats:

Arcane Springboard: 4e Combat is Too Damned Long - What We're Doing About it.

 

[Ariosto]

What killed my speed was anytime I'd introduce a monster who was 3 levels or over the party -- combat time almost DOUBLED.

I'm looking at this with a lack of 4e expertise relative to those who have played it a lot. At first glance, that strikes me as very strange. Especially with 4e's basically reciprocal "easier to hit you = harder to get hit by you" setup, that seems like a pretty notable advantage.

(1) If the PCs are going to lose, then I would expect that to be clear and resolved -- whether by surrender, withdrawal or slaughter -- sooner rather than later. Is not greater likelihood of defeat normally reflected in greater rapidity, e.g., in HP loss?

(2) If the PCs win, then that is not likely to have been a product of giving unfavorable odds more time to assert themselves! 4e, like casinos, is designed on that principle. A win against the odds is much more likely to be a result either of (A) a lucky fluke of chance; or (B) a stratagem that changes the odds dramatically, perhaps more than temporarily due to cascading effects. In either case, a finish if not sooner, then at least not so much later, than in the case of an even match seems to me expected.

Based on that, I suspect that the problem is that your high-level monsters did not in fact so shift the odds. In that case, the outcome (maybe even the cost in resources) is probably not much more in doubt than if the fighting power were made up of lower-level foes.

However, the multiplying double whammy of having more HP and better defenses makes the high-level monster take longer to wear down. The excitement factor is probably less than if players were able to mark progress by felling foe after foe. I guess it might add interest if the damage the monster dishes out were enough more to put individual characters significantly more at risk -- but that seems to me not the way 4e tends to go.

So, maybe a "higher level monster" is really worthwhile mainly when the total challenge is remarkable -- either when PCs "ought to" lose a fight (if they ill-advisedly start one), or when there is some cunning way for players to tilt the odds at least back to even.