I'm thinking of halving hit points

[Gundark]

The thing that killed 3rd ed. for me was how long combats took at high level. Thus when 4ed was announced I was excited to see if they fixed that issue. After playing for around a year and a half now I've found (now this is my group I understand that others do not have this issue) that combats take a long time no matter level. This unfortunately has caused me to stop playing 4e; however I like some of the concepts and would like to figure out ways to make 4e playable (for us).

So I've thought about it and read other topics on the issue and thought that halving hit points (of PCs and NPCs) might help to make 4e combats faster (and bearable).

So what are the potential problems? Off the top of my head I'm thinking that this will make the game grittier (not necessarily a bad thing). I'm thinking that I would have to make healing more available. But are there any other issues that I might encounter? Has anyone tried this?

 

[Dice4Hire]

The thing that killed 3rd ed. for me was how long combats took at high level. Thus when 4ed was announced I was excited to see if they fixed that issue. After playing for around a year and a half now I've found (now this is my group I understand that others do not have this issue) that combats take a long time no matter level. This unfortunately has caused me to stop playing 4e; however I like some of the concepts and would like to figure out ways to make 4e playable (for us).

So I've thought about it and read other topics on the issue and thought that halving hit points (of PCs and NPCs) might help to make 4e combats faster (and bearable).

So what are the potential problems? Off the top of my head I'm thinking that this will make the game grittier (not necessarily a bad thing). I'm thinking that I would have to make healing more available. But are there any other issues that I might encounter? Has anyone tried this?

Take a look for StalkerO's guide to grind thread. It really is quite good, and perhaps a kind soul will link it.

 

[MadLordOfMilk]

It throws off the balance of healing and damage. Healing becomes half as effective, if it's based on surges, but static bonuses are twice as effective Also, all damage is twice as potent, throwing off the balance of strikers versus other archetypes.

Take a look for StalkerO's guide to grind thread. It really is quite good, and perhaps a kind soul will link it.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/254630-stalker0s-guide-anti-grind.html

 

[Gundark]

It throws off the balance of healing and damage. Healing becomes half as effective, if it's based on surges, but static bonuses are twice as effective Also, all damage is twice as potent, throwing off the balance of strikers versus other archetypes.


http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/254630-stalker0s-guide-anti-grind.html

hmmm good points. What about halving monster HP and maxing out their damage?

 

[fba827]

hmmm good points. What about halving monster HP and maxing out their damage?

Halving monster HP might be okay... kind of depends on the party though. If you have a couple striker PCs, you may as well use minions since strikers can take down a lower level monster who has half hit points in a round or two. Having said that, once it is clear that the PCs are winning and the monsters have no new 'tricks' then don't be afraid to just get the monsters killed on the next hit. The players will never know


Maxing out damage? Probably not a good solution. Put in two-three brute monsters that cause max damage and you'll have a PC dead in a round.

I'd say average damage should be fine - saves the DM the trouble of rolling damage each and every time and still lets there be a 'sting' if there is in fact a crit.

just my thoughts. your own mileage may vary.

 

[keterys]

Might be interesting to double all damage dice as a quick fix.

P.S. This should probably be in the houserule forum.

 

[Lancelot]

I've tried the 1/2 monster HP and x2 damage thing, and it's a little too lethal. It wasn't to speed up encounters, though. I was running DL 10 ("Dragons of Dreams") and wanted to created an other-worldly nightmare where everything seemed much more lethal. PCs were dropping like flies, which was the intention. However, to counterbalance, they had "bonus lives" which represented dream images of themselves. They would only die permanently if they lost all of their "bonus lives". [...I guess you'd have to be familiar with the Dragonlance module DL 10 to understand entirely what I'm talking about here...]

I'm currently playing in a campaign where our DM feels somewhat like yourself, and has decided to decrease monster HP by 25% (easy enough to do, given that it's simply half their bloodied value). In exchange, they typically do 1 "die" more damage (no increase to static bonuses). So, an ogre might swing for 3d10+5 damage, rather than 2d10+5 damage. It seems to be working out well.

As a regular DM myself, though, I don't feel the need to do this. We did a session last night where 6 players completed 6 combat encounters, a skill challenge and various non-combat obstacles in under 4 hours. Each combat was taking, on average, less than 30 minutes. That included a solo, and a swarm of approx 20 opponents (only half minions). There's plenty you can do, as a DM, to make combats go much faster.

• Have the creatures flee or surrender after "losing" most of their number, or just hand-wave that the remainder are defeated without loss.
• Roll once for initiative for all monsters, and perform all their actions in a single "turn" (rather than rolling individually for each type).
• Implement "auto delay" for the PCs. This is especially important for large groups like mine. If the player doesn't state quickly what they're doing on their turn, you go to the next PC. If you've come up to the monster's turn, they auto-full-defense and lose their turn.
• Monsters use the same tactics as PCs: gang up on a single target. Knocking out one PC (even if they're healed back to their feet) speeds up a fight, rather than spreading damage around. It also makes it much more exciting. "Whoa! Jack's down... CLERIC! Everybody else - keep the beasts off him..."

...but if all else fails, try the -25% HP / +1 dice trick mentioned above. It might work for you.

 

[Mentat55]

I've been using -25% HP, +33% damage on all my monsters in my 4e PBP game, plus liberal use of minions, and I find my combats (round-wise) go very quickly. Of course, very hard to estimate actual table time, since this is PBP, but monsters do not seem to last very long.

I've also instituted a 1 action point per encounter rule (the PCs always have 1 AP to spend every encounter, regardless of milestones), at paragon tier this really ups the damage output and makes the big dailies and the best encounter powers really shine.

 

[Alisair Longreach]

I let the PCs in my campaign add the ½ level bonus to the damage of their powers. I have crunched the numbers on this and it should shorten and stabilize the length of combat from the high end of the Heroic tier.

To give my monsters a fighting chance all monsters above 5th level add their full level to damage instead of the default modifier.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

remember that our defenses are very low compared to 3.5

a quick fix could be using monsters 2-3 levels lower and doubling their damage...