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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Negflar2099" data-source="post: 4709549" data-attributes="member: 65944">Let me start by saying I love 4e. It's my favorite system of D&D that's out so far and I really enjoy it, but I admit it's not perfect. I don't know if anyone else is having this problem but one of my biggest stumbling blocks is the round by round paralysis that my players are affected by. The problem is that 4e turns every class into a spell caster with a set of abilities (powers, spells, prayers, etc...) that they have to choose from every round in addition to other options that are open to all characters. Now that's a problem because one of the hardest things about being a spell caster in D&D is choosing which spell to use every round. In every version of D&D I've played a spell caster's round always takes at least double or more of the time of a non-spell caster's round. So when you turn everybody into a spell caster you dramatically increase the amount of time it takes for a player to choose what they do and do it. I'm not immune either by the way. My "choice paralysis" is less so then in earlier editions just because monsters have a lot less choices than they used to but I still suffer from it. Of course I know what's coming so I can get familiar with the monsters and their powers ahead of time but I still find that reacting to my players well thought out combat plans takes quite a while and if I don't take the time my monsters get trounced. I kept hoping it would get better as we got used to the system and while we do play much faster than we used to (especially with the CB to do the math for us) we've added more powers and thus more choices to the list as we've leveled up so the problem's actually gotten worse instead of better. I tried using a timer (I even bought a stopwatch) but with everything else going on I honestly don't remember to use it with every player. That means that some people get only a minute while others get as much time as they need leaving those under time limits feeling cheated. Plus I wasn't using it on myself which led the players to complain. In fact the whole idea of a timer bothered them, especially my resident Thinker who likes to take as much time as possible to come up with a plan. Now don't get me wrong. The guy is playing a Warlord and he's tactically savvy but it's frustrating him watching him spend 2 or 3 minutes deciding what his character is going to do. I don't know what to do. Has anyone else discovered this problem? If so have you tried anything that's worked? Please advise. Thank you.</blockquote>

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