Faster Combats w/more opponents??

[Imaro]

You know I've seen this bantered around as fact on these boards...basically that 4e will allow one to run quicker and easier combats with more opponents. My question is, do we have any evidence or tidbits that actually support this assertion? If so what are they? This IMHO, is the main do or die question for me and 4e, if it allows me to do this mechanically by RAW then I'm certainly interested...if it doesn't then I'm less so.

A few things have me worried about this premise, the first being singular monster abilities that must be tracked by the DM. This first occured to me while listening to the latest podcast. It was mentioned that there was a monster(can't remeber what it's name was) that drained heat and, after draining a certain amount of heat could then use that heat as an attack. Ok cool ability, but now imagine tracking that for 5 of those creatures during a combat...or even 10 since were suppose to have big group battles...that seems like it would greatly slow down combat.

The second is that I hope this isn't a cop-out type system, where you can battle against hordes of creatures because they only last a round or two against average to below average rolls. Basically you can face 20 goblins at first level because your four adventurer's have 30hp's each an attack bonus of +5 and an AC of 20 while they have 3hp's each, a +1 to hit and an AC of 7. It then becomes a pretty pointless fight and I understand why a monster doesn't need alot of abilities...more than likely it won't ever use them.

So does anyone have any evidence of how this will be implemented?

 

[Stalker0]

Two things we've heard so far:

1) Some kind of minion rule. This will likely make tracking a lot of weaker creatures easier.
2) Casters roll for spells. So if I blast a group of creatures, I roll once and apply the damage to everything that failed (and if they are the same type of creature, I apply it all). That saves a lot of rolling and math.

 

[Imaro]

Two things we've heard so far:

1) Some kind of minion rule. This will likely make tracking a lot of weaker creatures easier.

Ok, I'll reserve judgement till we get some info on how that works. But it does sound like it would speed up combat.

2) Casters roll for spells. So if I blast a group of creatures, I roll once and apply the damage to everything that failed (and if they are the same type of creature, I apply it all). That saves a lot of rolling and math.

Couldn't this be solved in 3e by making one save roll and using the different modifiers of the creatures...I know I've done it before. I just feel like it accomplishes the same thing and could have easily been integrated through something like UA for those who want faster play.

 

[howandwhy99]

FYI, the minion rule may likely be a very common mass combat rule (and not uncommon RPG houserule) for attrition-based unit HPs.

Essentially, all HPs are pooled into the unit. 10 goblins each at 5 hps becomes a 50 HP pool. List it as 50(5) and every time any goblin is hit the total HPs go down. If the loss crosses a 5 or 0 the goblin dies. The remaining damage beyond 5 or 0 is still accounted for, of course.

This is simply one theory, but it's almost certain they will be using a mass combat rule for minions.

The drawback of course is less realism.

 

[The Little Raven]

Couldn't this be solved in 3e by making one save roll and using the different modifiers of the creatures...I know I've done it before. I just feel like it accomplishes the same thing and could have easily been integrated through something like UA for those who want faster play.

It could be done like this, but they're going for consistency. All attacks are active, so they are rolled. All defenses are passive, so they are static DCs. If you rolled attack for physical attacks and defenses against magical attacks, you wouldn't have this consistency.