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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zustiur" data-source="post: 5982643" data-attributes="member: 1544">Right, that explains that, and I see your problem.As for the rest; there are some key issues we can look at here:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> 20-25 minutes to draw out the room</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Describe the room and monsters</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Have a brief conversation about tactics</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Wand of Cure Light Wounds</li> </ul>If you know a battle is below par, it strikes me as an appropriate point for Theatre of the Mind, even in groups that love to use miniatures.Describing the room and monsters, I'll concede. That's going to be required for any battle, so you can't really skip it. Having a brief conversation about tactics? My inclination is to prevent this happening. While I accept it's a common way of playing, it is still meta-gaming. If your characters are standing around discussing tactics,then the monster gets to go first and there is no surprise, and no sneak attack.If the characters discuss tactics for more than 6 seconds, the monster gets a free round.I don't mean to tell you how to play, but this is one of my pet peeves. If a round is equivalent to 6 seconds, there should be no character monologues. No discussion. Just quick (shouted) orders if anything. Things like:"There's a Destrachan", "Cast lightning bolt", "Retreat!", "Hold the line"These are all acceptable.On the other hand:"Ok rogue, you sneak in, then the fighter charges, then the wizard hits it with a magic missile, then next round we all get out of the way so the wizard can cast fireball..." Sorry, you've had your entire 6 seconds, you took no actions other than talking. NEXT. {second players says} "After the fireba..." Sorry, Person A used up 6 seconds talking, you won't have a chance to talk this round unless you're talking over the top of him. You can't listen and talk at the same time.If your players don't have time to discuss tactics any more than the characters do, there will be a slight shift in favour of the monsters having some sort of chance to fight back. It won't be much, but it will help.Finally and most importantly, the wands issue. I suggest we just remove them from the game. No cure light wounds wand. In fact, no healing wants at all. Possibly even as far as, no wands for divine magic. Then ensure that potions aren't a dime a dozen at any level. This might be seen as a step backwards by some players, but I really think AD&D was better in this regard. All magic should be expensive in some manner. Item crafting is the worst culprit, so it's the first thing I'd fix. Even for things you can craft, I'd make it more expensive. Let's pick 10 as the multiplier. Now instead of a wand of magic missile being 375 GP and 30 XP to create, it becomes 3750 GP and 300 XP. Yes these numbers would still become trivial at high level, but it would take a lot longer to get there. Perhaps more importantly, the wand would now take 7-10 days to craft instead of 1 day. Even if you left cure wands in the game, having to spend 10 days to replace one is a significant impact on any adventure. This better represents the amount of cost such an expenditure should have.How much would your game have been affected by these suggestions? I cannot tell, but I know they would have made some difference. If healing 10-20 HP takes up some of your resources for the day (cleric's 1st level spells) then it has a much more significant and appropriate impact on the party's total resources than using up charges of a wand. This coupled with the inability to discuss serious tactics out-of-character should mean that those low level healing resources are used much more often. This in turn means that the EL/CR 8 encounter would start to have some relevance again.I'm sure further factors can be identified and remedied, before we even begin looking at major mechanical changes such as replacing daily recovery cycles with something else.</blockquote>

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