D&D 4E How to speed up combat?

[Voadam]

Though it’s definitely worth a try. Sticking with that idea, combat as skill challenge, would that be satisfying in play? How would you handle resource loss or failing the roll? Combine them? Have the obstacle get worse on a failed roll?

I would find it less satisfying, but ok for abstracting things like journeys through wilderness where there are hazards and monsters and navigation and terrain challenges, but you want to do it at a narrative in between "you get there" and running every challenge fully. For instance getting to the heart of a magically corrupted swam involves lots of different types of challenges (navigation, disease, travel modes) including combat (insect swarms, possessed crocodile, giant leech) that you could handle with a round robin skill challenge style. Consequences could be healing surge losses, action point losses, picking up a disease, etc. which works well if you go straight into a full action time scene and not a down time where they can recover.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

More minions as foes. Any standard monster can turn into a minion by having 1 hp.

Turn solos into elites for hp, and elites into standards. They still have the powers and action economy, but less hp that drag out a fight for extra rounds. Use the standards encounter balance of monster hp for important climax fights when you want the longer fight.

Yeah, I like to go back to basics and ask questions like "what are elites and solos meant to accomplish?" Obviously they are harder to kill than normal monsters. So we then ask the question "do I want this to be hard to kill?" Often it is difficult to come up with a reason why you would. I mean, we have monster roles, so 'brute' for instance already gives us basically a concept of a monster which can 'dish it out' more than normal. This is that 'scary guy' that shows up in the Kung Fu movie at some point, he looks tough, he is pretty tough, but he's not really the big villain.

So, yeah, we do want some big bads that are a focus of play, but even these might not really need to be a solo, or maybe even an elite. Things like dragons are the usual example of a solo. Not a bad use for one, fighting it is a whole battle on its own. OK, but even those might be as well being elites, which is pretty much what you're suggesting. I mean, most solos still need sidekicks to make them work, tactically.

Anyway, if the goal is not specifically "kill this monster" it also makes less difference what sort of stat block you are using. This cuts both ways, but certainly cutting back on elites and solos in these situations makes sense. It frees up encounter budget for more variety of other stuff, and improves the GM's action economy.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

B/X suggested rolling twice, first foe downed, and when half are down (sort of like the enemy group is bloodied). Keeps it simple but still relevant.

I experimented with morale. It is swingy is the one hitch. A single low check result and the encounter melts away without much threat. OTOH if you increase the average danger level of the encounters to make up for some 'wimping out' like this, then the risk exists that the PCs will just get curb stomped due to high morale check results. Either way is not ideal. I finally just concluded that making morale more explicitly a factor in the monster's hit point totals was probably the best idea.

 

[Voadam]

Yeah, I like to go back to basics and ask questions like "what are elites and solos meant to accomplish?" Obviously they are harder to kill than normal monsters. So we then ask the question "do I want this to be hard to kill?"

I am looking at their design goal in a different way.

A solo is supposed to handle the five person party on their own and be an interesting fight dynamically for the five on one situation. An elite is like two monsters in one so designed as a boss with goons for the battle.

If the goal is to quicken fights cutting hp down means less rounds the monsters last so the fight goes faster.

A solo will do an area attack that engages the whole party and have reactions. A brute just is tougher and hits harder while being easier to tag than a normal monster but the same action economy. So cutting a solo's hp down will give a different fight experience than using a single normal brute who loses out on action economy. I would suggest keeping solos and elites for their fight dynamics but universally reducing monster hp to make it go faster.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I am looking at their design goal in a different way.

A solo is supposed to handle the five person party on their own and be an interesting fight dynamically for the five on one situation. An elite is like two monsters in one so designed as a boss with goons for the battle.

If the goal is to quicken fights cutting hp down means less rounds the monsters last so the fight goes faster.

A solo will do an area attack that engages the whole party and have reactions. A brute just is tougher and hits harder while being easier to tag than a normal monster but the same action economy. So cutting a solo's hp down will give a different fight experience than using a single normal brute who loses out on action economy. I would suggest keeping solos and elites for their fight dynamics but universally reducing monster hp to make it go faster.

This is true, but I still want to know why it is NARRATIVELY useful to have a monster be an elite or solo. I'm not saying it isn't, just you have to ask that question whenever you field some monsters, does this make sense in this specific situation? Often GMs drop in these type monsters just because its a 'boss' or something like that. Without really thinking through the encounter design in a systematic way. Standard monsters generally work better, not always, but usually work better within the action economy and other aspects of encounters. Given that we also have levels to play with, up to a point (+4 or so at the extreme) we can often dispense with the special monster roles.

 

[Voadam]

This is true, but I still want to know why it is NARRATIVELY useful to have a monster be an elite or solo.

To match those roles with your desired narrative of the fight.

Single opponent - solo.

Boss with goons - Elite with standard or minions.

One on one matchups - Standards.

Horde - Minions.

You could go with a single standard monster of the xp of the solo and it would be much higher level and throw it at the party for the same desired CR threat level of a single monster. But the action economy and math would be wonky making for a different flow of combat rhythm, the defenses and attack rolls would be high, the attacks will be more concentrated on single targets, and the system is not set up for that situation as a design goal.

A solo does not need to be the BBEG narratively.

A lower level solo works well as an interesting singular fight.

To maintain some of the flow and form of the standard design across fights you can also just downgrade across the board, use elite instead of solo, standard instead of elite, minions instead of standards, single minions instead of multiples.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

To match those roles with your desired narrative of the fight.

Single opponent - solo.

Boss with goons - Elite with standard or minions.

One on one matchups - Standards.

Horde - Minions.

Yes, I know the CONVENTIONAL explanations of 4e monster types. I have run 1000's of sessions of 4e. While they are not particularly surprising or odd, my experience has shown me that they are also very often mistakes. That is it is often a mistake to do something simply because of convention. Basic 'boss' monsters "with goons" for example always being elites is a particularly unlikely one to result in good outcomes. You would be better off in most cases using a slightly advanced (+1 level) leader role monster, although if the 'boss' also happens to be really significant in size and combat power, you might go with the elite. In that case definitely do not up level it at all.
Likewise, the use of a single solo by itself is almost always a bad fight. Even MM3 grade dragons have a hard time being impressive opponents to whole parties. You're better off using either a fairly weak solo or even an elite, and then supplying it with plenty of minions and other accoutrements. Again, this is not always the case. Certainly if you want to create a scenario where the big bad almost definitely will not die, then a +4 level solo with appropriate measures is a nice idea!

You could go with a single standard monster of the xp of the solo and it would be much higher level and throw it at the party for the same desired CR threat level of a single monster. But the action economy and math would be wonky making for a different flow of combat rhythm, the defenses and attack rolls would be high, the attacks will be more concentrated on single targets, and the system is not set up for that situation as a design goal.

A solo does not need to be the BBEG narratively.

A lower level solo works well as an interesting singular fight.

To maintain some of the flow and form of the standard design across fights you can also just downgrade across the board, use elite instead of solo, standard instead of elite, minions instead of standards, single minions instead of multiples.

Yeah, that is what I'm saying. You really don't want to stick to the 'conventions' too much. Really if you read carefully in DMG1 it wasn't trying to push those overmuch, but early 4e material certainly didn't do much in the way of exploring options... I'd note that MM3 gives some hints, like some elite type dragons (admittedly they are variants, but the notion is at least presented of 'fearsome singular elite monster'). Obviously you wouldn't use one of those by itself in a fight. Mated pairs of dragons are fun too. I did that once. How surprised the party was when TWO dragons appeared, they thought their goose was cooked for sure!

Minions are really best presented as literal cannon fodder. While I do use them in some encounters (and they can be pretty nasty if you get clever with them) mostly their purpose is to provide a simple mechanical way to represent exactly what they say they are, minions. All those black masked ninja dudes that guard the door and last exactly one blow when the hero comes knocking at the bad guy's door. Lots of times they are just 'notional' not even being worth breaking out dice and whatever for, or just getting a check in an SC to see if one slips away to raise an alarm.

 

[MwaO]

One area where I think 4e has an issue is there are TOO MANY LEVELS, 30 is a lot. If the game had half as many, then a big combat once per level would be almost perfect. As it is, if you despise fighting, 30 fights might be a lot, but then it really depends on how long you want your campaign to run. I mean, you could do 1 every 2-3 levels, but that might not be enough for a lot of people. Again it depends on pacing in terms of how quick you level up. I just found that doing it too often in 4e meant players didn't really get to try out all their new 'stuff' before they leveled again.

I think that really, 4e kind of has about 18 levels, because that's where most campaigns tend to finish up or collapse.

I mean, I'm MwaO and I've played literally almost all the time 4e has been in existence up until now about 1/week. And I still have never gotten a PC to Epic, even one who started at a higher level such as 5 or 8 or so.

 

[meltdownpass]

I think that really, 4e kind of has about 18 levels, because that's where most campaigns tend to finish up or collapse.

I mean, I'm MwaO and I've played literally almost all the time 4e has been in existence up until now about 1/week. And I still have never gotten a PC to Epic, even one who started at a higher level such as 5 or 8 or so.

Mirrors my experience with D&D in general. I have run in games where we did high-level one shots, but never organically growing to high levels. I honestly feel like D&D should trim off levels past 10th to begin with, since high level characters get access to so many powers that played-straight can just completely shut down storylines.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think that really, 4e kind of has about 18 levels, because that's where most campaigns tend to finish up or collapse.

I mean, I'm MwaO and I've played literally almost all the time 4e has been in existence up until now about 1/week. And I still have never gotten a PC to Epic, even one who started at a higher level such as 5 or 8 or so.

Sure, OTOH the design of the game is still centered around 30 levels. What I propose (what I did in my own rules) was to get rid of the last 10. This reduces the amount of 'filler material', particularly powers, that have to exist in order to fill out all the slots that are needed to accommodate progression through 30 levels. Yes, you may not use the last 12 of those, but that just means there's a lot of pages of books wasted that we all paid for.

Beyond that, NARRATIVELY I find that 300 encounters worth of action is a rather unwieldy quantity to construct a fairly strongly directed story from. It gets messy and hard to understand, and the players lose sight of the vision that motivated them in the beginning.