Speeding up combat: have you tried to halve hit points?

[Quickleaf]

I've read dozens of threads on speeding up combat, nothing improves the timeframe significantly. We have one player that handles initiative, we roll damage dice at the same time as we roll attack dice, I cut down on usage of soldiers and solos, I have the enemies surrender or flee when it's apparent they'll loose, and recently, I even ended up preparing shortened PC sheets for my players in a short (few-sessions long) paragon tier adventure that look like monster stats (with powers having double or triple uses instead of having multiple different powers) to cut down on the PC sheet reading time, but even that wasn't enough.

Those are all good things. I agree it can be frustrating for the whole group when fight after fight drags. Given 4e's design I haven't found a silver bullet solution to combat grind, but there is "copper buckshot."

Some things you didn't list which have contributed to faster games for us:

* Provide monster defenses in an easily visible format ( I prefer cards hung over the DM screen initiative order)

* Track conditions with poker chips & zones with wireframes

* Updating all monsters to MM3 damage expressions

* Avoiding use of higher level monsters in most fights

* Including damaging terrain & other "accelerants"

* Don't always use a battle map, when setting up map/minis enlist help of players, and create assembly maps of dungeon tiles in advance

* Pre-roll monster initiative (or use averages)

When coupled with the strategies you already use and 1/2 monster HP you should be able to get a 50% reduction in combat times.

 

[Holy Bovine]

I reduced all monster defenses by 2, upped their damage a little (about +5 per hit) and avoided the use of elites. Most combats were quick and interesting.

 

[LostSoul]

The fights in my game go by pretty fast, but I made some big changes.

I ditched the grid and I got rid of initiative.

 

[sigfile]

We did - team monster HP totals were cut in half and their damage output was increased by around 50%. They go down faster, but they hit harder.

This did speed up combat, but it caused some interesting issues. Ranged strikers (and enemy artillery) became outrageously deadly. Leaders became must-haves in the group, and defenders were routinely making death saves. Lurkers were capable of one-shotting PCs. Second Wind became even more of an absolute-last-resort ability, since monsters routinely hit for more than a surge worth of damage.

We ended up adding a secondary mechanic to Second Wind, allowing you to spend a second surge to gain another 1/2 surge worth of HP. It was rarely used.

Combat was certainly more intense. I'm not sure if it was worth it, but it was an interesting experiment.

 

[Skyscraper]

[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION] (& others): I use battlemaps from the different map packs that WotC and others (DDM guild) sold for some time. I have about 20 (?) double-sided maps so I have a map that'll do for most situations. Sometimes, I fold one in half to give another feel to it. So I don't need to draw anything out, nor even to place tiles on the table.

As for some of your suggestions quickleaf, we don't really have issues with tracking conditions, I'm not too fond of providing monster defenses at the outset to players (who'll focus their attacks accordingly); but I like your idea of using averages for monster init (though little time will be saved) and including damaging terrain - I usually try to in the latter case, but often don't I have to admit.

[MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION]: you mean you play without any visual support (fair enough), how would you qualify your play experience since you've ditched the minis, specifically with respect to the 4E powers that include movement bonuses, forced movement, and the like? Do you draw out small maps to help everyone understand the situation? (I did that back in the days of 1E).

 

[LostSoul]

LostSoul: you mean you play without any visual support (fair enough), how would you qualify your play experience since you've ditched the minis, specifically with respect to the 4E powers that include movement bonuses, forced movement, and the like? Do you draw out small maps to help everyone understand the situation? (I did that back in the days of 1E).

I just describe it. I've never encountered a situation where it's been too complicated.

However, like I said above I've ditched initiative. This means everyone goes at the same time, so you base your decisions on what's happening at the beginning of the round.

In play it looks like this:

DM: Okay, the giant ant is climbing out of the hole and is going to snap at your legs with his mandibles.
PC: I am going to Tide of Iron him back into the hole!
DM: Cool, let's add modifiers. The high ground is a +2 to attack, and pushing him back down into the hole gives you a +2 to AC. Let's roll.

I used to have much more complicated modifiers but I've decided to simplify them so they don't get too crazy.​

Based on the rolls, the ant could be pushed down the hole before it attacks or after it bites the PC; it could bite the PC without being pushed down, or it could miss the PC without being pushed down.

edit: For some reason this seems to speed up play. I'm not sure why. If I had to guess I'd say it's because you only have to consider one set of circumstances when decided what to do, and you can make decisions as a character in the game instead of in a more tactical, minis-game kind of way.

 

[Skyscraper]

[MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION]: sounds cool, but it's not clear to me how you handle, for example, a power that stuns. Say the ant has a stunning attacking and the fighter, a stunnint attack also. Obviously, the first one to hits will be at a distinct advantage, or do resolve both attack at the same time, with the possible outcome that they both stun each other?

Also, with this kind of play, the importance of bonuses here and there to your powers (say, +1 to distance pushed) is not really important; some feats become obsolete. All this is fine, but do you still go through character creation in the same way?

How long would you say your fights last?

Do you sometimes take out the minis and battlemap for complex fights, or do you handle all of them this way?

 

[Keenberg]

I've heard [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION]'s combat method before and I really like it, but it unfortunately doesn't quite gel with my group. I would ahve loved to use it exclusively... but ya gotta give the players what they want.

I try to use MM3 and Monster Vault monsters as much as possible since they not only seem to speed up combat, but also provide the combats with more interesting mechanics. The monster roles work together better as well. Whenever I have to use a MM1 or MM2 monster, I subtract it's surge value from it's HP. To balance this, when I roll damage, I add a quarter of the roll rounded up onto the total. So if a monster hit for 1d8+3, and I roll a 7, the total becomes 7+2+3=12 damage for the attack. I'm good with math, so i do it all on-the-fly.

This makes combat more deadly, and it feels more dangerous. And as intended, it speeds things up, but not to such a swingy point as -1/2 hp, x2 damage.

 

[Ramaster]

Increase the monster's damage by +1 x lvl and decrease monster hp by 2 x lvl.

I once played with a DM who halved monster's HP and doubled the damage, and let me tell you, the game changes A LOT. Strikers become deadly and defenders a liability.

The solution I proposed above is less extreme but helps things move along.

 

[Kelvor Ravenstar]

I tried cutting monster hit points to 50% in my game, but I found that it was reducing the fun of combat for my group if I did it all the time. Sometimes 4e adventures have combats that are designed to drain resources, but aren't as important to the plot. For these I usually cut monster HP to 75%, or sometimes to 2/3rds of normal.

Otherwise, the best way I found to keep combat exciting and challenging at all levels was to increase monster damage, even above the guidelines that began with MM3. There, the mean monster damage for the average at-will attack is the monster's level +4. This works well for challenge through heroic tier, but if your group is at all optimized is still a little low for paragon, and definitely still low for epic. At paragon tier my monsters now deal a mean of their level +8 damage, and at epic tier my monsters deal a mean of their level +16 damage.