Limited number of combat rounds

[Obergnom]

Combat in our group tends to go into a drag after a couple of rounds, especially once the group composition shifted to a more defensive approach (more leader/controller, defender seem to dish out quite some damage)

More often than not, I simply declare the fight to be over. I do that after it is obvious that the player will not use any more daily powers and the monsters might be able to maybe make the group as a whole loose one or two surges, but no more.

I was thinking, maybe I could somehow adopt what makes Stalker0's Obsidian skill challange system such a blast to play in our group: The limited number of rounds.

Basically, combat would run for a couple of rounds, as it does now. But after a certain number of rounds, there is a way to figure wether this will be a victory, a partial victory or a defeat.

These outcomes should be coupled to certain game effects, of course.

I have no solid idea which number of rounds would be appropriate, I was thinking something around six.

And how to determine victory? In a skill challenge there are successes. But combat is more complicated. Damage dealt is an indicator. Enemies killed surely is. HPs lost is one as well. How to put that into a rule?

 

[Starfox]

Half-serious things of the top of my head:

Morale: Assign critters points like this: Minion 1, Standard 2, Elite 4, Solo 10.
Total the number of points among the enemy, this is their morale value. For each creature bloodied give the PCs this amount (except for minions). For each creature defeated, give it again (including minions). Once this total reaches the morale value, the enemies flee or surrender.

Sudden Death: Everyone who is bloodied at the end of round six falls unconscious from fatigue.

Bloody end: After round five, all attacks deal double damage.

Democracy: After round six, hold a vote on who wins; each critter and PC standing gets one vote. The survivors have to flee.

Weight of Xp: At the end of round six, compare the xp values of the two sides; the losing side breaks morale and flees. Consider players standard monsters of their level for xp calculations.

Drowning in Blood: There is a limit on hp to remain standing. Everyone under this limit falls unconscious due to fatigue. The limit starts at zero. Each round after level five, it increases by 10 points time the tier (Heroic 10, Paragon 20, Epic 30).


Personally, I've not really had this problem. My players are not very good at concentrating damage, so all the critters tend to go down more or less at the same time. I can see how it would be a problem if the group is very good at concentrated fire. You might want to use some form of group hit points or group healing resource to discourage too much concentration of damage. Say the group of enemies as a whole has access to two Healing Words to heal the most wounded targets, keeping them on their feet so that all the enemies drop together. or just use more soldiers with marks. Your players might object to any/all of these ideas as they are quite invasive and changes the style of the game. Depends on what kind of game you want.

 

[Stalker0]

Half-serious things of the top of my head:

Morale: Assign critters points like this: Minion 1, Standard 2, Elite 4, Solo 10.
Total the number of points among the enemy, this is their morale value. For each creature bloodied give the PCs this amount (except for minions). For each creature defeated, give it again (including minions). Once this total reaches the morale value, the enemies flee or surrender.

Drowning in Blood: There is a limit on hp to remain standing. Everyone under this limit falls unconscious due to fatigue. The limit starts at zero. Each round after level five, it increases by 10 points time the tier (Heroic 10, Paragon 20, Epic 30).

I think with some more analysis and tweaking, these two ideas have a lot of potential.

For drowning in blood, I would rather use endurance checks with DCs myself, but the concept is an interesting one.

 

[Starfox]

The idea with Drowning in Blood as written is of course to reflect how the fight is going, which Endurance checks does not. If you want a more simulationist approach using endurance, say that after (Endurance skill roll/2) rounds, you suffer some kind of penalty, like Weakened or Grant Combat Advantage (the later is more likely to shorten the fight that the former).

 

[Obergnom]

@StarFox - some great ideas.

I begin to feel this change might be to much for my group though. I guess I will try some other methods of speeding up combat first.

 

[fuzzlewump]

It's slightly tangential, but adding an overarching skill challenge type thing with a time limit makes for very awesome combats.

Paragon tier, the players are piloting a Spelljammer in the astral sea, they basically grappling hooked by githyanki pirates. The "grappling hooks" are magical tethers that must be removed (with arcana or thievery) before the two ships both go careening into a black hole. (It was actually a portal to the Shadowfell.) So the first few rounds they mow through the pirates that board their ships, then board their ship to steal some treasure, then begin to detach the ships. Then, a cage that was swaying in the storm surrounding the black hole crashes to the deck of the pirate ship which has a Chain Devil inside or something, forgot what it was exactly. So basically, you have an ongoing skill challenge with a time limit riddled with complications in the form of enemies.

Of course, this just makes things exciting, not more quick! In fact, I think that was quite a long combat, but it was great the whole way through. This is obviously a more concrete time limit that would be contrived if every room had some kind of time limit (falling ceiling, filling up with water, etc).

 

[eamon]

@starfox: Those quite a few nifty solutions!

The "fixed hitpoints" drowning in blood system runs into problems since monsters tend to have many more hit points than PC's. Particularly elites will prove nasty; if the fight drags on long enough, even fairly healthy PC's will likely fall unconscious before a fairly hurt elite would. And what to do with monsters that enter the combat later?

I like the double damage idea; but this does reduce the effectiveness of resistances, vulnerabilities, and regen. That's probably party dependent whether that matters, but if you've got a battlerager with DR granting plate armor, say, that rule is pretty nasty (and the errata'd version of the battlerager doesn't really deserve that). You could of course double damage post-reduction/vulnerability, but that's still finicky.

'course, you could use the double-damage idea except in important combats.

The "everyone bloodied falls unconscious" looks pretty solid, but perhaps also too swingy, you'd need to playtest it. It would certainly change tactics - if you expect the combat to last long, you could try to focus fire until the opposition is bloodied; then, at round 6, you win. But that approach again heavily impacts some builds more than others. If people stop killing things, what to do with warlock curses? Some stuff triggers on bloodied only, and if you stop attacking bloodied creatures, then things those things lose value.

Tricky. I'd say your best bet is to use whatever you come up with conditionally - ASAP in fights that look decided, but leave it out for the climactic stuff.