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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lizard" data-source="post: 4247691" data-attributes="member: 1054">Overall, I liked the general pacing of combat. What I saw -- and it's hard to say if this is due to inexperience, the particular encounters, or the basic 'feel' of 4e -- is that combat starts with the monsters ahead, pounding on the players, showing off their tricks, and using their encounter powers, and then the players regroup and begin to fight back, with the depth of their power -- more encounter powers, more at wills, etc -- turning the tide, especially if they synergize. (And by "synergize", I mean, "Let the rogue flank".) The "feel" was what I'd want from a dramatic fight -- the heroes are driven back, they hold their ground, then they push forward and triumph. Obviously, there's plenty of variables and this isn't going to be the case all the time, but the pacing worked.Only the last fight really dragged at the end. The rogue got knocked out early and the gnome and the slinger took potshots at everyone, with the slinger rolling really, really, well. The drake guards were tough bastiches that did a lot of damage as long as there were allies nearby. Encounter powers and dailies were all gone and it was down to at-wills, and there was a sense of "Why...won't...they...DIE!" by the end of it. (Of course, we'd also been playing for about 9 hours by then, counting "learn the rules" and "let's all just beat each other up for an hour" before the actual module.)Overall, my feelings are that the pacing was good, but not perfect; it's hard to figure out if the flaws were due to inexperience, encounter design, systemic issues, or bits of all. I won't say I can't imagine some 4e fights turning into tedious slugfests, but some 3e fights are as well. (And some Hero fights, and some GURPS fights, and....). We've all been in games where what started as a cool battle turns into a sequence of botched die rolls, repeated attacks, and long, slow, attrition.Another problem was, of course:Fight 1:Attacked by kobolds.Fight 2:Attacked by kobolds.Not the best way to show off 4e's versatility.</blockquote>

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