Monsters and PCs add half their level to damage

[Ahnirades]

I'm sure this has already been discussed as a possible grind fix, but I can't find the relevant threads.

So what are the ramifications?

 

[Cute-Hydra]

That would work as a way of speeding up encounters, from my personal experience I have ran a campaign where everyone does double damage which makes minions a threat etc and it significantly reduced encounter lengths. My team survived the double damaged encounters, so I would be surprised if your group had a massive problem. Obviously it is different from what I did but generally:

very short combat encounters
players healing is much more important
solo bosses are fun again
minions actually get scary as opposed to trash that players are pleased to see.

As a whole, I would reccomend doing something to increase damage, as if you are DMing it can get really dull sitting their waiting for some brute to eventually die.

Cute-Hydra

 

[knightofround]

I would think the ramification that you'd need to worry about the most is balance. A level 20 leader is going to get closer in damage output than the level 20 striker, simply because more of the damage is coming from level. Rrather than the nature of class itself. And if you up NPC damage to match, it becomes very difficult to avoid killing the PCs with a (un)lucky roll. Especially with solos.

If you feel you must increase the amount of damage dealt in your campaign, I think the best way to do it via an across-the-board modifier. That would cause the least amount of balancing issues.

Personally though I feel the best solution to speeding up combat is to reduce just NPC HP by 1/2, and reduce XP gain by 1/4 to compensate.

 

[Stalker0]

It does a couple of things

1) Makes combat quicker (which of course is the intention).
2) Makes multiattack powers even better than single attack powers (which makes wizards/sorcs especially happy.
3) Make accuracy even more important as now additional +'s to damage generate far less DPS than +1 attack.

 

[Gort]

I'd watch out - many of the monster manual 2 and 3 monsters have had their damage boosted already. For example, the Light of Amoth is doing 4d10+20 damage a hit - I think 4d10+35 might be overkill.

 

[Alisair Longreach]

I already do that in my campaign. I have crunched the math on this and my conclusion is that it does eliminate the grind.

By RAW the average length of a combat encounter between equal level PCs and monsters will rise from 6 rounds at level 1 to 16 rounds at level 10 to 23 rounds at level 20.

By adding the 1/2 level bonus to damage for both PCs and monsters the average length of a combat encounter will settle at 10 rounds at level 7.

A party with many Strikers will finish combat faster. Action Point every encounter will speed combat a bit by providing a dependable tactical boost. Consistent use of markers for conditions will also help. Dice discipline, cutting the chatter and using power cards will help your players save some time. Some system for Initiative tracking and general preparation will help the DM save time.

Never use use Elite and Solo Brutes and Soldiers above party level as this a major source of grind.

 

[gnfnrf]

By RAW the average length of a combat encounter between equal level PCs and monsters will rise from 6 rounds at level 1 to 16 rounds at level 10 to 23 rounds at level 20.

What do you mean by this? Do you mean that is a guideline in the rules? Or do you mean that some kind of calculation predicts this? If so, I don't think it is very accurate. I'm running 1 and playing in 2 games around 11th to 13th level, and our on level encounters typically take less than 6 rounds. If I had to guess, I'd say we finish an encounter of the same relative difficulty a little faster now than we did at 1st level.

--
gnfnrf

 

[Mesh Hong]

By RAW the average length of a combat encounter between equal level PCs and monsters will rise from 6 rounds at level 1 to 16 rounds at level 10 to 23 rounds at level 20.

From actual play experience I have to disagree that encounters in epic tier take 23 rounds.

More like 4 to 7 rounds. With 7 rounds for encounters a very very long way above standard difficulty.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Yeah, I'm running a level 26 game right now and battles last 3 to 6 rounds. They still take an hour and a half, but they don't go 20 rounds with a ranger and rogue who do averages of 120 damage a round.

 

[Alisair Longreach]

My calculations on the length of combat encounters are based on the average of at-will attacks damage output versus monster hit points by level with the assumption of an equal number of PCs versus monsters of equal level. These calculations usually have no relation to other people's game experience because of a lot of individual variances.

Grind and lack of grind are mostly dependent on party composition. Small parties with no Strikers versus monsters above their level will have long, grindy fights while a bigger party with several Strikers and experienced players will breeze through most encounters.

My own personal experience has been that high-end Heroic tier fights were very grindy, usually lasting 3 hours over 10+ combat rounds. Half of the players were inexperienced and everyone took the time they needed to resolve all their actions, there were chatting and some rule discussions.