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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 5316756" data-attributes="member: 99">I don't want to see this thread go down the path of edition warring so let's make sure that any comparisons are made respectfully.  Everybody is doing a fine job of that so far but I thought I'd reiterate that as a priority.Personally I found that 3.x combats were somewhat faster than 4e combats per the RAW.  Once I adopted the "60% monster hit points, 1/2 Level +3 damage" solution then 4e became significantly faster.  But my real issue with 3.x combat was how swingy it was and how that swingy-ness was arrived at after considerable debate.Of course there will always be a difference between how a party fares when they initiate a battle vs. when it is sprung upon them.  But in 3.x I found that gap to be rather large.  Buffing spells in particular made a huge difference in performance.  Additionally, when the party had time to prepare, there was often a lengthy debate about how much of these expendable resources they wanted to expend.  As a result the total time required to resolve the combat, if the PC's were the ones initiating it, certainly exceeded the average combat times I'm seeing in 4e.  The combat itself was rather shorter but the prep time was considerable.By limiting the resource management aspect mostly to eyeballing their healing surges and Daily powers, the prep time is much reduced in 4e.  Even if the total time taken to resolve a battle is the same, I'd rather more of that time be spent in combat rounds than in deciding whether or not to cast Bulls Strength or Bears Endurance and whatnot.  And it is easier for me to estimate combat difficulty if I don't have to account for a several point swing in attack bonuses and damage afforded by buffing spells.</blockquote>

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