D&D 4E Revised 4E Rules for large groups

[Primitive Screwhead]

brainstorm, thanks for the detailed response.

That looks about the same makeup as my group.. and yes, hurting the PCs can be really hard. I have 3 leaders... and for the last couple months one of my players wanted to swap out to a new character, but not until his current striker died... he had a death wish, charging into combat with zero healing surges left... It turned into a running gag that I could not kill his character despite his best intentions.
{I finally cheated and destroyed him during a surprise round, down to under negative blooded before anyone else could act... with the players consent of course}

I say this to show that I am not theorizing and playing armchair quarterback here. The only item it seems you haven't already tried is the number of encounters per adventuring day. IMC we just finished a module in which the party had 6 'normal' encounters in one day, followed by a day of 3 hard encounters. Each day of encounters took the majority of the PCs down under bloodied and used most of thier healing surges.

I am not sure that 4e gave the players too many options.. after all I have seen high level casters in earlier editions struggle with all the various spell options they have. The difference is with 4e all characters have options, no longer does the fighter just have the options of 'hit' or ...er, 'hit'. Not only do the PCs have power options, they also have movement and tactical options... but I think that is all good things.

However, all that being said, if you are not enjoying running the game... but does the rest of the group enjoy the game?

 

[Markn]

Brainstorm

I run a group of 6. I couldn't imagine going beyond that number. Here are a couple of ideas that may speed up combat that we do and works pretty well.

1 - eriktheguy suggested average damage. Do it! I can not stress this enough. Have both sides do average damage. If a PC has a power that does 2d4+10 then they do 15 damage. This eliminates a LOT of dice rolling. Our group was leary of trying this as rolling damage was fun but after just one session EVERYONE was totally on baord. For monsters, they do average damage but when you roll to hit, also roll a d6 with it. If you successfully hit on a even number on the d20, then add the d6 to the average damage the monster rolls. If the d20 roll hits on an odd number, then subtract that d6. This keeps players from playing the numbers game and keeps things unknown for the PCs. The PCs don't need to do this because they have a number of powers and effects so they aren't likely to do the same thing round after round.

2 - We have given monsters 75% HPs and added half level damage to their hits. This seems to work well and speeds fights up as well. You can play with the numbers to suit your group. Our group has 2 leaders and I absolutely feel this is necessary for a 2 leader group to make a fight challenging. If you have less, you may need to do less damage boosting.

3 - It is incredibly bad to up monster levels. In fact, along with stuff mentioned above, almost all monsters are leveled to equal the PCs level with the occaisional exception. Higher level creatures means more misses, means more rounds, means likely getting to at will more often which are usually less damage and this just prolongs the fight. So keep creatures at or near the PCs level.

One other thing I will point out is this - larger groups have more combatants on both sides. If you have 7 PCs, then on average you will have 7 monsters. That means 14 people (PCs and monsters) need to go before you get back to your turn. With a 4 person party, only 8 people go before your turn. Now add up the time it takes for each person and that simply is why fights take so long. Now include interrupts, reactions, OAs that interrupt the normal flow of a turn by 14 individuals and it becomes obvious that this is the single biggest reason fights take longer. The only thing that speeds up the round is by speeding up the turn - that includes power selection, dice rolling, player/DM being ready to act and so on. You simply can only cut down a turn by so much. After that its basically impossible to make it faster. I'm not sure if you have every tried a 4 person session - if not do it. You'll see that players/DM takes the same amount of time but the round is quicker because there is less participants.

Hope this helps and good luck!

 

[brainstorm]

Screwhead, I have a minimum of 3 encounters prepped for every session and I try to prepare for unexpected digressions. Unfortunately, with 1 completed combat encounter per session, a 3 encounter adventuring day takes 3 weeks of real time for us. By the end of the encounter day, they've forgotten what it is they are trying to accomplish. Are the players having fun? Sure, but they aren't having to work as hard as I am. I'm the one not having fun.

If I could snap my fingers and make it all better, I'd wish for 2-3 hours of prep time, minimal need to tweek monsters, show up to the game day, have combats take 1 - 1.5 hours tops, complete 3 combat encounters in a session, get some quality role playing in, socialize throughout, and wrap it up in the 5 hours we have allotted to us each week. The sad thing is that it used to be this way in levels 1-5.

Markn, been there, tried all of that, but thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Short sessions are very much a plot-line killer. My current WoBS campaign is a monthly game of 4 to 6 hours. We usually get 2 combat encounters in and some roleplay/explore in between. This meant that the adventure through Castle Kortsull took about 6 months of real world time to do 3 adventuring days and I had to regularly prompt the players as to why they were there, what thier goal was, and why it was important.

However, I spend maybe 3 hours prepping between session, which includes converting the 3.5 module to 4e, trimming it down to fit the session, and sending out the pre/post-game emails. We often socialize for about half an hour before the game starts, but as a group we have chosen to focus more during play as a means to get more enjoyment out of the game. There have been growing pains to get us to this point, the campaign has been going on for over two years now.

I would recommend looking at how your encounter builds are different from the earlier levels. One of the things 4e does pretty well is level out the encounter math, so an encounter should be able to scale pretty evenly with the player options.

In a recent 14th level encounter, I tossed the equivilent of an adventuring party against the group {1 elite leader/artillery, 1 elite controller, 7 lower level skirmishers} It was a nasty combat that lasted a bit longer than usual, but the group will remember Lord Gorquith and Findle the Bard for some time to come! Everyone ended the encounter bloodied, down to less than half healing surges, and out of daily powers.
The key to running that combat relatively quickly was that the skirmishers tactics were very simple, I only really had to pay attention to the options for the two elites.
I think the reason it was a good combat was that I avoided the static 'queensbury rules' fight, where everyone just lines up and hits with thier best weapon. The party was divided and challenged right off the bat by a Wall of Cold and Tasha's Hideous Laughter.

And I am rambling.. but I noticed something in your post: "Minimal need to tweak monsters". I custom-make every monster that goes into my encounter mix, and generally it takes about 5 minutes per monster. My rules of thumb are to keep the monster level within 2 of the PCs and to build encounters with 1 or 2 more monsters than PCs. I like including groups of skirmisher types in all my encounters as they are the easiest to run and I can adjust their numbers based on how many players show up.

 

[Dredly]

I have to admit, I'm very glad to be reading this thread. I was thinking it was somehow me that was causing the delays (I'm a relatively new DM).

On an average night we have 4 - 8 players, and our average session lasts for about 2 - 3 hours, depending on when everyone shows up and when people are ready to fall asleep.

during this session, if we have 7+ players we will accomplish 1 -2 combat of an equal level (currently 4) and possibly some RP assuming the dice rolls go in their favor. I put them against a lvl 5 combat and it took over 2 hours to do.

I think the issue is in the way that the combat is ramped up, I typically go according to the DM, base it on 7 players of the level, but unless you want a horde of minions this is going to mean adding a few more even level mobs which take a lot longer to kill, and it adds extra turns.

For the next "big" group (6+) we have I'm going to get rid of minions I think and make all the regular mobs 2 hit deaths, (super minions?). It may remove some of the excitement I guess but if it means cutting 1/2 the time off a combat so we can advance the story then I'm 100% in favor of it.

Also, I attempt to write up the RPG elements that were covered after the session, and really play "organizer" for the session every week. The problem is only 2 - 3 of the players will read what I wrote and check the blog for details, so I end up having to cover it all over again.

We are currently doing Keep on the Shadowfell, we just completed our 6th session and have explored less then 1/2 of the first level of the Keep. We started out giving lots of XP so the players could level up their chars during the week, that worked well until it got to the point where I (DM) and 2 other players were basically leveling / updating / researching everything for all the rest of the party, then they wouldn't show to the next session anyway.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Dredly, I recommend provinding a bennie for those who do stay on track with the emails/blog. I tend to ask for wish lists and other things in my emails, so players who read it respond and I get to lay in the treasure for them. Those who don't respond... well, I still guess at treasure

 

[Dredly]

Dredly, I recommend provinding a bennie for those who do stay on track with the emails/blog. I tend to ask for wish lists and other things in my emails, so players who read it respond and I get to lay in the treasure for them. Those who don't respond... well, I still guess at treasure

yeah thats what I tried doing, ended up that only 2 people sent me anything about what they wanted, I ended up looking up weapons for each player and pretty much "assigning" them.

I think I'm going to start more "contests" type stuff on the blog, answer it right get a piece of armor, reply with something get some gold, don't anwser and get nothing

 

[brainstorm]

I started giving out generic magic items and let the of pick what they want. Example: "You find 1 level 5 item, 1 level 4 item, and 200 gold in the chest.

 

[Dredly]

I started giving out generic magic items and let the of pick what they want. Example: "You find 1 level 5 item, 1 level 4 item, and 200 gold in the chest.

Yeah only problem with that is then the party has to "share" and I'm not giving out magic items like they are candy so the result would be the greedy players claim them the second I read them off and the other players suffer. I watched it happen in game on Friday, before I could even finish reading off the description a player claimed it, he couldn't even wear it (hide armor, he is a thief). That is exactly what would happen if it left it open ended like that

 

[Amaroq]

And I am rambling.. but I noticed something in your post: "Minimal need to tweak monsters". I custom-make every monster that goes into my encounter mix, and generally it takes about 5 minutes per monster. My rules of thumb are to keep the monster level within 2 of the PCs and to build encounters with 1 or 2 more monsters than PCs. I like including groups of skirmisher types in all my encounters as they are the easiest to run and I can adjust their numbers based on how many players show up.

Agreed, I do this too. Even if I use a RAW monster manual 1 beastie, I type it up in Monster Maker just to wrap my head around it. A lot of times, I find myself tweaking things a little bit "to suit".

Also, I make sure I put down some useful "things it might do" in the powers; that way I don't have to think through every rule, but pick from its powers.

For example, in a fight I have planned, I have one bad guy who is very Athletic, jumpy, etc.

I have "Jump up to the balcony" listed as a Move power on his card, including the DC for success pre-calculated.

Likewise, for Minions I often put "Aid Another" as one of their actions, reminding myself that they really benefit the most from helping the boss rather than from trying to attack themselves.

I print each monster beforehand, and when I roll initiative, I put the monsters' cards in initiative order.

I think the issue is in the way that the combat is ramped up, I typically go according to the DM, base it on 7 players of the level, but unless you want a horde of minions this is going to mean adding a few more even level mobs which take a lot longer to kill, and it adds extra turns.

For the next "big" group (6+) we have I'm going to get rid of minions I think and make all the regular mobs 2 hit deaths, (super minions?). It may remove some of the excitement I guess but if it means cutting 1/2 the time off a combat so we can advance the story then I'm 100% in favor of it.

Yeah, "super minions" is one of the first things I tried - I didn't auto-rule "2 hits", I just gave them a hit point value at the high end of one at-will power (e.g., 10 hit points at first level).

So, a critical, or a high damage roll by one of the strikers, could take them out in one hit, and of course anybody using a daily or encounter power on them got the satisfaction of taking them down ... but plunking at them using at-wills would generally take two hits, sometimes one or three. They only got "bloodied" at something like three hit points left, when even a Cleave would kill them.

The other DM I play with regularly has become in favor of using "Minion Artillery": they have 1 hit point, but they hit for Artillery-like damage (including a real damage die roll). They're typically smart enough not to cluster, which makes them tougher to simply area-burst out of existence. Speaking as a player, that definitely feels deadly - it can put a lot of healing-surge pressure on us without adding a ton of hit points to the encounter.

I liked Primitive Screwhead's encounter (two elites plus skirmishers); I've found that that's definitely a plus in terms of memorable encounters. Similarly, anything that splits the party up puts added pressure on individual segments: it can be as simple as a portcullis which separates the group.

The other thing to remember is, not everything needs to get "on the board" in round 1 - battles in which additional troops arrive from unexpected directions can be pretty vicious.