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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
How to speed up combat?
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<blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 8218527" data-attributes="member: 1165"><p>Use only monsters from Monster Manual 3, Monster Vault and later. Earlier monsters tended to have higher hit points, higher defenses and lower attack damage.</p><p></p><p>Control splats. It's hard to do this due to the Character Builder. Beyond the PH1, many of the newer classes were not balanced. Frequently they were weaker than the core four plus warlord. Sometimes they are <em>much</em> weaker (one of the Forgotten Realms bladesingers, for instance, which didn't seem to know if it was a controller or melee striker). There was lots of Dragon Magazine material that could make characters tougher (again, the Character Builder made it harder to keep this stuff out of the game).</p><p></p><p>And an unusual situation with psions. I want to like psions but I've given up on D&D psions. It's always experimental in a way that drives GMs nuts, even though in 3.5 and 4e they were reasonably balanced for the most part. The 4e telepath has a power called Dishearten, which could inflict a -2 penalty to hit in a small area burst. You could spend two power points (the equivalent of an encounter power) to pump it up, inflicting a larger penalty (based on your Charisma) in that burst. A 7th-level psion would have 6 power points (IIRC) and so could pop that power three times per encounter. Sure, they had to give up using other "encounter" powers to do so, but so what? This power was powerful, grindy, and boring, and suited PCs whose players were very afraid of their character dying. Also, a battle typically didn't last more than three or four rounds anyway, so watch those monsters whiff for most of that time. At least a wizard with an overpowered encounter power was only going to use said power once per combat.</p><p></p><p>All those interrupts, etc. By the time you got to paragon level, rounds could become very long as opportunity attacks provoked interrupts on that attack, which provoked an interrupt to raise your AC so that attack might not get interrupted, etc. Bloat meant that 4e gradually became less simple. Again, the Character Builder made this difficult to control. Pathfinder came out around the same time. Sure there were character builders but my group never used them. But when it came to 4e, I was the only person who got to play without using the builder.</p><p></p><p>Roll your d20 and damage dice simultaneously. I've used the same thing in Pathfinder, where my brawler routinely gets four attacks per round. (He can get a full attack on a charge, so it comes up a lot!)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="(Psi)SeveredHead, post: 8218527, member: 1165"] Use only monsters from Monster Manual 3, Monster Vault and later. Earlier monsters tended to have higher hit points, higher defenses and lower attack damage. Control splats. It's hard to do this due to the Character Builder. Beyond the PH1, many of the newer classes were not balanced. Frequently they were weaker than the core four plus warlord. Sometimes they are [I]much[/I] weaker (one of the Forgotten Realms bladesingers, for instance, which didn't seem to know if it was a controller or melee striker). There was lots of Dragon Magazine material that could make characters tougher (again, the Character Builder made it harder to keep this stuff out of the game). And an unusual situation with psions. I want to like psions but I've given up on D&D psions. It's always experimental in a way that drives GMs nuts, even though in 3.5 and 4e they were reasonably balanced for the most part. The 4e telepath has a power called Dishearten, which could inflict a -2 penalty to hit in a small area burst. You could spend two power points (the equivalent of an encounter power) to pump it up, inflicting a larger penalty (based on your Charisma) in that burst. A 7th-level psion would have 6 power points (IIRC) and so could pop that power three times per encounter. Sure, they had to give up using other "encounter" powers to do so, but so what? This power was powerful, grindy, and boring, and suited PCs whose players were very afraid of their character dying. Also, a battle typically didn't last more than three or four rounds anyway, so watch those monsters whiff for most of that time. At least a wizard with an overpowered encounter power was only going to use said power once per combat. All those interrupts, etc. By the time you got to paragon level, rounds could become very long as opportunity attacks provoked interrupts on that attack, which provoked an interrupt to raise your AC so that attack might not get interrupted, etc. Bloat meant that 4e gradually became less simple. Again, the Character Builder made this difficult to control. Pathfinder came out around the same time. Sure there were character builders but my group never used them. But when it came to 4e, I was the only person who got to play without using the builder. Roll your d20 and damage dice simultaneously. I've used the same thing in Pathfinder, where my brawler routinely gets four attacks per round. (He can get a full attack on a charge, so it comes up a lot!) [/QUOTE]
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