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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Primitive Screwhead" data-source="post: 5887523" data-attributes="member: 20805">I recommend using skill challenges to represent minor skirmishes, with loss of healing surges or taking damage as a threat in the game. I use a modification of Stalker0's Obsidian skill challenge in which the players 'bid' healing surges to get skill checks. If they succeed, they don't lose the surge.  Also, alternative combat methods include the 'Stealth Combat', in which combatants that are unaware have a reduced hit point total, allowing the one-hit kill to take out a sentry and a botched job ending up with a valid threat facing the group {also keeps a gang of minions guards from being auto-killed by a controller}  First round minions... I love this rule. Every once in a while declare out loud that it is a first round minion fight. The PCs get to deal a ton of damage and slaughter for the first round. It gets them to charge in headlong and spread out instead of clumping up.  Ditch the grid and use Zones. In the General forum I recently posted about Runeward Zone Combat from a blog about game options.  Zones reduce the focus on precision and still provides support for most of the powers. For example, a bard that grants an ally a shift 1 is useless as movement but can be converted to a bonus to defenses or a bonus to a single attack roll. Half hit point monsters, use of Blood Stone terrain {creatures crit on a 19 or better}, and morale rules can cut down on the length of the game.  Off the table... circular initiative. Ditch rolling to see who goes first, just start with the player to your left and work around the table. Pre-roll monster attacks. Use a sheet of paper with 10 columns, each column has 10 pre-rolled D20 checks. At the start of the session randomly select a column and then work your way down the column. Use average damage for monster attacks, low-ball slightly to off-set the randomness of dice.   Use a monster group dice pool. Instead of tracking damage for each critter on the field, just track clumps of hit points and bloody/kill monsters that are  narratively appropriate.  Avoid complex monsters! In the session last night I lost track of the special abilities as there were 6 critters on the board, each with special tricks. Use skill stunts in place of special abilities to make the creatures memorable {basically make up their encounter powers on the spot... don't tell my players this one!}Radiating Gnome's thread has some good stuff in it too  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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