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<blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 5314704" data-attributes="member: 99">This is a pretty interesting discussion.&nbsp; I've found that the default 4e rules can lead to longer combats than I sometimes desire.&nbsp; My solution was to adopt a house rule from somebody (unfortunately can't remember who) at ENW where I cut all monster HP to 60% of normal and had all their attacks do an extra 1/2 Level + 3 damage.&nbsp; Suddenly fights seemed more deadly and also got resolved faster.Beyond that I most often come down on the side of &quot;if a fight isn't going to be interesting then either skip it or find a way to make it be interesting&quot;.&nbsp; Most often the latter because I love interesting fights.However there were a couple times where, for reasons of story continuity or verisimilitude, I had established that there was a certain encounter ahead of them that I knew was likely to be fairly straightforward, easy and possibly dull.&nbsp; In those cases what I did was this:I picked three &quot;attacks&quot; based on the general capabilities of the monsters the PC's would face.&nbsp; I was only concerned with the bonus to hit and what defense it would target.&nbsp; So the answer might be +8 vs. AC or +12 vs. Will.&nbsp; If the bad guy in question didn't have a wide breadth of attacks then I was fine using the same attack more than once.Then I went around the table and had each attack target each PC once.&nbsp; Such that each PC was subject to three attacks.&nbsp; The results were interpreted thusly:If you got hit once, lose a Healing Surge.If you got hit twice, lose two Healing Surges and a Daily Magic Item power.If you got hit thrice, lose three Healing Surges, a Daily Magic Item power and another Daily power.That let me simulate the resource drain they might have encountered and it was all done in 5 minutes.&nbsp; It's true that doing this doesn't account for some of the synergies of how the party works together, possibly having the Defender protect party members who have lower defenses and causing them never to have been attacked.&nbsp; But if I start accounting for all of that then complexity starts creeping back into the system to the point where we may as well just play out the combat.&nbsp; And I'll also note that the attack bonuses of the bad guys are probably kind of low compared to baseline or else I wouldn't be glossing over this encounter in the first place.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Rel, post: 5314704, member: 99"] This is a pretty interesting discussion. I've found that the default 4e rules can lead to longer combats than I sometimes desire. My solution was to adopt a house rule from somebody (unfortunately can't remember who) at ENW where I cut all monster HP to 60% of normal and had all their attacks do an extra 1/2 Level + 3 damage. Suddenly fights seemed more deadly and also got resolved faster. Beyond that I most often come down on the side of "if a fight isn't going to be interesting then either skip it or find a way to make it be interesting". Most often the latter because I love interesting fights. However there were a couple times where, for reasons of story continuity or verisimilitude, I had established that there was a certain encounter ahead of them that I knew was likely to be fairly straightforward, easy and possibly dull. In those cases what I did was this: I picked three "attacks" based on the general capabilities of the monsters the PC's would face. I was only concerned with the bonus to hit and what defense it would target. So the answer might be +8 vs. AC or +12 vs. Will. If the bad guy in question didn't have a wide breadth of attacks then I was fine using the same attack more than once. Then I went around the table and had each attack target each PC once. Such that each PC was subject to three attacks. The results were interpreted thusly: If you got hit once, lose a Healing Surge. If you got hit twice, lose two Healing Surges and a Daily Magic Item power. If you got hit thrice, lose three Healing Surges, a Daily Magic Item power and another Daily power. That let me simulate the resource drain they might have encountered and it was all done in 5 minutes. It's true that doing this doesn't account for some of the synergies of how the party works together, possibly having the Defender protect party members who have lower defenses and causing them never to have been attacked. But if I start accounting for all of that then complexity starts creeping back into the system to the point where we may as well just play out the combat. And I'll also note that the attack bonuses of the bad guys are probably kind of low compared to baseline or else I wouldn't be glossing over this encounter in the first place. [/QUOTE]

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