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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5743633" data-attributes="member: 82106">Basically I think you guys have run into a sort of perfect storm of ways to slow things down:1) Playing more than one character really does slow things down. You may not notice this much as a player, but when I had 3 players playing 6 characters at one point things went a LOT slower, even at low levels. You just can't achieve the same level of familiarization and think ahead as well for each one. I think this can easily add 20-30% to combat length.2) You're playing through KotS, which is an adventure rather known for its sequences of heavy slogging. Especially in the section you're in. 3) The encounter you had problems with is itself probably the sloggiest one in the whole module. Those hobgoblin soldiers linked up using their phalanx are almost the definition of slog. They never move, their defenses are high, they do mediocre damage, and they throw off status effects left and right. 4) The DM is just incorrect about stacking up the Phalanx power's effects, which is just going to make things even sloggier than they were already.5) Yes, you have 6 PCs but the DM has added at least enough extra stuff to that fight to make up for it from what I can see, so you're really just a larger party fighting a larger encounter.6) Your party is heavily defensive and lacking any top-tier strikers. Monks and Assassins (of any build), and warlocks for that matter, are all fairly second tier. They're good solid classes, but drop a bow ranger, a thief, a strikery barbarian, etc in there and the pace of damage output will go up a good bit. 5 hours still seems kinda crazy to me, but I wasn't there... I think what generally happens is as you get into one of these slogfest fights people get bored and lose focus and it just gets even slower. I think other people have made some good suggestions already but IMHO, drop back to 3 PCs and a companion. Get the DM to understand the hobgoblin's phalanx power, drop in a high damage output striker, and make sure the DM isn't stacking up extra slog into encounters. I don't think the DM is bad, but he probably hasn't run 4e and hasn't yet got a good feel for what will speed up or slow down the pace. I think most DMs will fall into slog at first, and KotS isn't exactly a model of the best way to do things.You may also find that slowing the pace of advancement a bit also helps. When you run your character for a couple fights per level and then advance you can start to outstrip the player's familiarity with their powers and they may not pull their overall tactics together in a solid way very quickly. I think most groups can manage at the standard XP rate to advance a level every 2 weeks as long as the slog is out of the picture.</blockquote>

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