Combat takes too long

[s0l0m0n]

Indeed, hit rates were about 40-ish percent, with 1 roll per round, and usually no damage on a miss for everyone but the mage, it took a long time for opponents to go down. If they did, it was only after a long and arduous roll-out in rounds 10-15. Add to this fact that enemy controllers at those levels can quite easily stun or at least immobilize melee fighters with Greater Ice Storms and whatnot, they're not getting any hits in whatsoever for 30% of the time. In 3e (for the record, I believe 4e is still better), it was a russian roulette, you could dish out 50% of an enemy's hp in damage in one round, and get the same treatment the round after. With 4e it's more like chess, far more intelligent and tactical, but with less visceral exitement. We'll see, hopefully with a little practice and a little tweaking of encounters, things will speed up. As for starting over at a lower-level: going from 30 in 3e to 30 in 4e is starting out at a lower level. Once you level to epic, you never want back.

 

[loisel]

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.

Not according to my measurement.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=234620

 

[Shazman]

I agree. The WWGD adventure I played in had fights that took way too long. The rounds took longer and the number of rounds was larger than any 1st level 3.5 adventure I've ever played. The monsters' ACs, defenses, and especially hit points were very high compared to the PC's attack bonuses and damage. If you are fighting several creatures with a 19 AC and 86 hit points when most of your party has a +4 to hit and does about 6 points of damage on average, it's going to take a long time, regardless of tactics and luck.

 

[Mr Jack]

My experience is that a typical fight is 3-6 rounds, and takes a bit less than a hour. That applies to encounters of level+3 as well. It might change at higher level, but so far I'm pretty happy with the handling time.

 

[keterys]

Indeed, hit rates were about 40-ish percent, with 1 roll per round, and usually no damage on a miss for everyone but the mage, it took a long time for opponents to go down. If they did, it was only after a long and arduous roll-out in rounds 10-15. Add to this fact that enemy controllers at those levels can quite easily stun or at least immobilize melee fighters with Greater Ice Storms and whatnot, they're not getting any hits in whatsoever for 30% of the time. In 3e (for the record, I believe 4e is still better), it was a russian roulette, you could dish out 50% of an enemy's hp in damage in one round, and get the same treatment the round after. With 4e it's more like chess, far more intelligent and tactical, but with less visceral exitement. We'll see, hopefully with a little practice and a little tweaking of encounters, things will speed up. As for starting over at a lower-level: going from 30 in 3e to 30 in 4e is starting out at a lower level. Once you level to epic, you never want back.

Curious: What were you fighting? A fighter going against AC of, say, 44 with an attack bonus of +33 or so is about what I'd expect, which is a 50% chance to hit. Going against other defenses (Adamantine Strike, Cage of Chains, being a rogue, etc) would help a lot.

Best is having allies help out, though.

 

[Vayden]

First round, the wizard cast sleep as the orcs approached. She was able to catch all three orcs in the area, and hit the raider and the berserker. The raider threw an axe and missed, and then both the raider and the berserker failed their saves and dropped.

The warlord moved out to engage the Eye of Gruumsh in melee, while the rogue popped up from behind the rock and began slitting throats. Neither the raider nor the berserker managed to snap out of it in time, and the rogue quickly dispatched them both. After that, beating down the Eye of Gruumsh was a fairly trivial exercise; normal controllers do not do very well with no backup against three PCs. I think the whole thing took maybe five or six rounds.

Ya, sleep is teh uber broken. It's the new Glitterdust, except you can only cast it once a day.

But as far as speeding things up goes, I think we knocked out 5 encounters (haunted bridge, slimy things from the lake, 3 fights w/ wolves), a skill challenge, and 2-3 roleplaying encounters last session (admittedly, it was a 6 hour session). That's a definite speed up from our first session, which took us 5 hours to get through 3 encounters.

 

[ObsidianCrane]

s0l0m0n I'm curious as to what you were fighting against for the encounter you ran?

We jumped in at 8th level, and the first encounter was a bit rough because I rolled 14+ typically and the party rolled <6 a fair bit. At the end there was some grumbling. It took maybe an hour. The next encounter took maybe 45 minutes and saw a much more balanced set of rolls.

 

[Andur]

Regardless, at the end of the day, it's all about our fun,

QFT.

On hit rates, we were doing the 30-50% mark to start with, now we are in the 60-80% range after the group learned how to "chain" or "stack" abilities to get bonuses going hitoff. First attack by the party usually has about a 50% chance of hitting, but by the third attack by the party is up around 80%, whether this be by combat advantage, powers, or combination of them. Between readies and delays it works out to where odds are debuffing defenses and evens are adding bonuses to next attack. Just remember that like types don't stack, but untyped do...

 

[Baumi]

I agree. The WWGD adventure I played in had fights that took way too long. The rounds took longer and the number of rounds was larger than any 1st level 3.5 adventure I've ever played. The monsters' ACs, defenses, and especially hit points were very high compared to the PC's attack bonuses and damage. If you are fighting several creatures with a 19 AC and 86 hit points when most of your party has a +4 to hit and does about 6 points of damage on average, it's going to take a long time, regardless of tactics and luck.

I'm not sure what the WWGD Adventure is, but that doesn't sound right. An average first level Character has +6-8 to attack (if against AC) and does a lot more than 6 points damage. And the average first level Monster has around 25 Hit Points and 16 AC.

 

[Celtavian]

re

I'm hoping an effectively played leader will improve to hit and such. It doesn't seem like many of the other classes except the leader types grant too much of a bonus to hit. There are quite a few penalties you can give the enemies, but not much increase in accuracy.

It seems like they don't want things hit and killed too easily in 4th edition.