D&D 4E How long are your 4e combats taking, real time?

[Nightson]

When DMing with Maptools, I stick the monster stats in the GM note of the creature, along with any extra info I might need (ie definition of Weakened or something). It makes checking their stuff, doing damage and everything really easy.

 

[Nail]

No, the monsters from the MM do not universally use the LOW column from the DMG, but rather, they are just plain lower than the appropriate guideline in almost all cases.

This would be easy to detemine.....Wasn't there a "math" thread early on that crunched all the MM numbers? I don't have it bookmarked from my home computer, but I know it's out there.

 

[keterys]

I don't think it crunched damage very intensely... more defenses, resistances, and such. I'd be interested in knowing as well if it's fairly off.

 

[Goumindong]

That's interesting: I've tried playing on a laptop with a shared map that way and I have to say, it's been really hit or miss for me. Yes, if you spend the prep time (which I think is much higher unless you have a ton of pre-gen maps) then the actual battle goes faster, since you don't have to draw out the map or take breaks to put down effects or anything, and no one is actually rolling dice and adding things up. On the other hand, the software tends to be so flaky that about 1 in 3 sessions sees a delay of 30 mins to over an hour trying to get the blasted thing to work for everyone - thus nullifying all gains. Everyone's millage will vary, of course.

After the first couple sessions we haven't had many problems with the software.

Currently we are playing through the Scales of War adventure path, and since WotC provides all the maps(or PDF's which you can easily rip the map from) i've been able to make the maps all pretty easily.

In fact, if you're playing a pre-made maptools module for Scales of War, i probably made it.

 

[keterys]

I've been playing LFR modules online with maptools and they all use wotc's dungeon tiles... which means that I can actually make all the maps for a mod in ~20 minutes total using the tiles and they look pretty good.

That said, I make tokens for all the monsters I use so their powers and rolls all go through, hp work with damage/healing and update status of things... and that does take a bit longer. Say 15 mins for a new monster type, less if it's similar to something I've already made. But I already have tokens for a big section of the monster manual for heroic tier so it's pretty easy to run further adventures as a result.

 

[Nail]

I've been playing LFR modules online with maptools and they all use wotc's dungeon tiles... which means that I can actually make all the maps for a mod in ~20 minutes total using the tiles and they look pretty good.

That said, I make tokens for all the monsters I use so their powers and rolls all go through, hp work with damage/healing and update status of things... and that does take a bit longer. Say 15 mins for a new monster type, less if it's similar to something I've already made. But I already have tokens for a big section of the monster manual for heroic tier so it's pretty easy to run further adventures as a result.

It would be pretty cool if there was a "MapTools Tips" thread. My DM could use the info, and I'd point him to it if I could find one.

 

[Jack99]

This would be easy to detemine.....Wasn't there a "math" thread early on that crunched all the MM numbers? I don't have it bookmarked from my home computer, but I know it's out there.

I don't think it crunched damage very intensely... more defenses, resistances, and such. I'd be interested in knowing as well if it's fairly off.

Afaik, there is no thread about monster damage output. Also, afaik, it's only the damage that is off, not the rest. I haven't run every numbers, I just know that I have to "correct" most monsters that I use.

Oddly enough, it seems that some of the later monsters, most notably from Dragon already have the "correct" damage output. Again, this is based on the monsters I have used, not on a statistical analysis.

 

[Iron Sky]

A bit late into this thread, but thought I'd throw a comment in here.

Our group has between 3-6 players depending on the night.

Our original party composition at level 1 was Ranger, Rogue, Warlock, Cleric. Our stats are rolled rather than point buy and as-such, all but the Cleric are equivalently roughly 2 levels higher for attack/defense purposes.

Our Heroic Tier fights took 1-3 hours on average, depending (mostly) on the number of enemies in the fight. The fights started out slow as we learned the system, then got pretty quick by mid-heroic, then started to get longer towards the end of Heroic.

Now, we are level 13. Our max (rare) party is Ranger, Rogue, Warlock, Cleric, Fighter, Paladin.

Our fights take 1-2 hours on average. The fights are far faster than they were at the beginnind and end of Heroic. In general, I would say the fights are faster than they were in Heroic.

This is partly due to our Paragon paths and Paragon feats increasing our effectiveness at our roles significantly, notably the greatly increased damage from the Rogue(Viscious Daggermaster: 45-90 or so at-will damage on a sneak attack crit) and Ranger(Frost Scim Stormwarden: 18 damage on a miss and 25-45 per round when he hits with both Twin-strikes, add 1d10+11 or so if he has Rain of Blows active).

The monsters seem to miss far less that they used to, especially ones targeting non-AC defenses. For a comparison, my Ranger's AC is 29 and his Will is 22. I can't remember the last time a monster missed my Will with an attack. We hit less than we used to(Rogue used to hit most things on a 3-4, now seems to need a 6-7), but our damage has increased enough to more than make up for it and the increased monster HP.

Our DM has shifted away from combat significantly since we reached Paragon, so I don't have a terrifically large sample of Paragon combats. We've probably only had 3-4 combats a level at Paragon vs 5-7 at Heroic.

In general, I'd say we've gone from 60-75% of our session time being combat in Heroic to 25-35% of our session time being combat in Paragon, though, again, I think that's largely a concious DM decision, not a mechanical one.