Combat takes too long

[Xorn]

The first encounter we ever did took like two hours for a level 1 encounter. (Raiders of Oakhurst.)

The first session of KotS the group finished up with Irontooth and made and took an extended rest in his cave. Our game went five hours, with about an hour of RPing in town and exploration.

The Irontooth encounter didn't go more than 6 rounds. (They wiped out the first wave on turn 2.) Hell the fighter readied an action to smash Irontooth in the face when he go in range--he actually hit Irontooth as he charged. Irontooth also went from barely non-bloodied to dead in the span of one round. The figher-rogue-ranger are good at selecting a target and executing it.

 

[Ulthwithian]

While my experience has not given a 3-round combat, most of them were probably around 6 rounds, possibly a bit more. However, when almost all of the decision points are over after 3 rounds, the rounds after that become a lot faster.

Just a little nitpick, but there is at least one good reason to Scorching Burst a single target. Area effects ignore Concealment, and when you're having to fight Gnome Arcanists or Goblin Hexers, that can be quite useful.

 

[keterys]

Combats for my Paragon group have tended to be in the 6 to 12 round range. They started off taking at least as long, especially as they started to learn their abilities. Last night's combats all took an hour or less each though (wanna say like 30 mins, 45 mins, and 40 mins).

So, at least as fast or not faster - and only after a few sessions. And boy oh boy did more interesting stuff happen than in our 3e combats.

 

[Sadrik]

To answer a few questions:
Our group consisted of 5 players: a wizard (me), a ranger, a rogue, a paladin, and a cleric. (We had an extra wizard our first KoTS session)

We have played several times.

We are playing KoTs now and we have done approxamately 6-7 encounters in two sessions. The first night we burned through about 4 or 5 in 6 hours and the next session we literally did two encounters in 4 hours. We did a hobgoblin torcher chamber encounter and we did an encounter at a site with some dragon bones. Both went on forever. That turning point, that was mentioned was reached, everyone was out of encounter powers and dailies and was sitting there boinking their bow or zapping their power

As far as my wizard goes, in both of those encounters nearly everyone had a 16+ REF save so that meant I needed to roll a 12+ to hit with my wobbley wizard damage. Human level 1 wizard (cloud of daggers, scorching blast, MM, force orb, flaming sphere).

Some of you have said that you are finishing these encounters in 3 rounds. I don't understand how that is even possible! I need some clear guidance because our group is so obviously playing the game wrong.

And again, shifty kobolds and goblins are very interesting but they take a lot of time to impliment on the battle map.

 

[ForbidenMaster]

Each encounter is supposed to take about an hour as per the DMG, and even then thats a lot less time then in 3.x.

 

[Jasperak]

I just did some quick statistical analysis in another thread that showed the KotS dwarven fighter would need about 6 rounds to take down 1 kobold skirmisher/soldier at the same level. Granted I did not factor in using encounter or daily abilities which would quicken the battle. Wanna know why?

Because in the limited experience I have with 4e, my party had to long rest after 2 combats because we had to use our half our dailies in one fight and the rest in another. Counting on using your encounter abilities is not so good because at least for the fighter it may only work a little more than half the time anyway. If it does work though I figure it would shorten the fighter's combat by about a round or so.

Combats are much more dynamic and fun, but I still see the 15 minute, short rest, 15 more minute days ahead. The people I play with might be tards though.

 

[ForbidenMaster]

I just did some quick statistical analysis in another thread that showed the KotS dwarven fighter would need about 6 rounds to take down 1 kobold skirmisher/soldier at the same level. Granted I did not factor in using encounter or daily abilities which would quicken the battle. Wanna know why?

Because in the limited experience I have with 4e, my party had to long rest after 2 combats because we had to use our half our dailies in one fight and the rest in another. Counting on using your encounter abilities is not so good because at least for the fighter it may only work a little more than half the time anyway. If it does work though I figure it would shorten the fighter's combat by about a round or so.

Combats are much more dynamic and fun, but I still see the 15 minute, short rest, 15 more minute days ahead. The people I play with might be tards though.

Were these standard level apropriate encounters? Because if so, something must have been really unballanced for you to have to spend all of your dailies so quickly. Are you sure you actually had to use your dailies? How many healing surges did you have at the end of the day?

 

[SDOgre]

I have found that encounters of your level go quickly if your players work together. 3-4 rounds is very doable.

I have also found that if it's your level +2 that everything changes and suddenly encounters can take 8-20 rounds.

All it takes is one of your guys to go down in the beginning of a fight (which can happen in a +2 fight) and you're in for a 3 hour marathon.

Oh, and if you have a defender work with a rogue, a rogue can pump out even more damage than a ranger. But without the teamwork the ranger rules.

 

[Jasperak]

Were these standard level apropriate encounters? Because if so, something must have been really unballanced for you to have to spend all of your dailies so quickly. Are you sure you actually had to use your dailies? How many healing surges did you have at the end of the day?

I only have experience with KotS. I understand the Kobold lair being brutal, but the rest? Even the ambushes were difficult. It seemed that there were always more monsters than characters if you count 4 minions for one character.

Everyone was rolling fine but I have yet to land an encounter power. Thank goodness the fighter's daily is Reliable. Luckily I never ran out of healing surges but most others did. Defenders FTW!

 

[keterys]

Counting minions as 1:4, the first ambush has 4.25 monsters and the second has 5 (no minions). The outside of the lair has 5.5, the burial site has 5, the first keep encounter has 5 (no minions)...

The fights tend to be relatively standard encounters of n or n+1 level, with a few exceptions. It's certainly no cake walk, but I'd suspect either the party is working insufficiently well together, the DM is making things harder, or there has been some weird luck at work.

Given it's a new game system, I'd bet on the first if I were forced to. It was funny running a combat for a new group and watching them flail around to do things, scattered to the wind doing different things and not working together, then later in the week running for my usual group and them rolling through things like a well oiled machine.