Depends on the monster type. Artillery for example have a terrific attack bonus when they are hitting people with a poor defense (reflex against fighters for example).
Even several levels lower than the party, they can hit just fine.
Speeding up combat in 4th edition D&D (Reposted from general RPG area)
- Thread starter Lion
- Start date
Depends on the monster type. Artillery for example have a terrific attack bonus when they are hitting people with a poor defense (reflex against fighters for example).
Even several levels lower than the party, they can hit just fine.
Gort
Explorer
Well, duh. Of course they do. The idea is to use monsters equal level to the party, but if your party are having an easy time disposing of those to use more monsters equal level to the party rather than using the same number of monsters but raising their level instead, which might lead to monsters being hard to hit by the party.
TL, DR: It is better to use 10 level 1 orcs than 1 level 10 orc.
Danceofmasks
First Post
Creature HP is also pretty much what I said ...
Hence why character optimisation = cutting down combat time by 3/4.
Hence why character optimisation = cutting down combat time by 3/4.
@OP Personally, I think if you have such little time each month I'd just avoid combat for the most part. Every other month or so have a solid combat that the players can sink their teeth into.
I was once a proponent of the 'stop watch' style of running combats (Which will make your combats faster if maybe less fun for some of your players). Personally I found as time wore on if the players are taking their time with their actions by socializing and having a good time in general, then the game session was a success. Its all about having fun.
I was once a proponent of the 'stop watch' style of running combats (Which will make your combats faster if maybe less fun for some of your players). Personally I found as time wore on if the players are taking their time with their actions by socializing and having a good time in general, then the game session was a success. Its all about having fun.
mattcolville
Adventurer
I'm going to say something I just thought of, something I just realized, and which if I'd said 6 months ago, I'd have called myself crazy.
The game speeds up the higher level you are.
We take for granted that as we learn a system, we get better at it and gameplay speeds up. True of all tabletop games.
D&D4 is different in that every class has its own unique powers and gets new ones all the time. So that regardless of how long you've been playing, if you try out a new class (and so far, there are no duds) your play slows down. You're essentially learning a new game.
It takes a while to learn what your character does, forget the system. The system is incredibly simple. It's the characters and their powers and what the designers intended that takes time to learn. As you gain levels, and learn the secrets of your dude, how all his powers work together, it gets faster and faster, even though your character is becoming more and more complex.
Eventually, for many characters, you won't even need the power cards anymore! Because when you begin, it seems like your new character has lots of options and lots of things he can do. You imagine that there's this vast array of ways to play. But you learn that really your dude does this one thing, with a limited set of permutations.
So, alas, I think the best thing for it is just play as much as you can. Don't let your players switch characters because they'll be learning a whole new game.
The game speeds up the higher level you are.
We take for granted that as we learn a system, we get better at it and gameplay speeds up. True of all tabletop games.
D&D4 is different in that every class has its own unique powers and gets new ones all the time. So that regardless of how long you've been playing, if you try out a new class (and so far, there are no duds) your play slows down. You're essentially learning a new game.
It takes a while to learn what your character does, forget the system. The system is incredibly simple. It's the characters and their powers and what the designers intended that takes time to learn. As you gain levels, and learn the secrets of your dude, how all his powers work together, it gets faster and faster, even though your character is becoming more and more complex.
Eventually, for many characters, you won't even need the power cards anymore! Because when you begin, it seems like your new character has lots of options and lots of things he can do. You imagine that there's this vast array of ways to play. But you learn that really your dude does this one thing, with a limited set of permutations.
So, alas, I think the best thing for it is just play as much as you can. Don't let your players switch characters because they'll be learning a whole new game.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
If you're having 10+ round combats AT ALL there's a problem. Even the worst draggy encounters I've ever run have never gone to 10 rounds. I think there were 2 encounters that I recall that have been pretty much bummers and even those were callable at round 8 or so and wouldn't have gone more than 2-3 more rounds worst case.
I can't see how an encounter vs equal level monsters could go 10+ rounds. I'd be wondering if the party was really seriously suboptimal or there is some rules mechanic that isn't being applied right or house rule getting in the way of things or the DM is really underequipping the party. Not trying at all to be critical, but I would look into those things. No combat should go that long.
Gort
Explorer
Clearly your party doesn't have enough barbarians. Could you tell us your party lineup? I usually find that parties first concentrate on getting the "tank and healer" stuff down before they start adding in striker types. A party of three good (read: Not warlock) strikers, a defender and a leader should go through enemies rather quickly.
Controllers are worthless, by the way.
Sadly, it's very easy to build a worthless controller (compared to say an archer ranger which is much harder to muck up). But they do not have to be worthless. Playing a paragon tier Invoker, I see myself as a pseudo striker, and secondary leader. I can make our party do an extra 20-30 points or so of damage two rounds an encounter, 10-15 of it typically coming from our storm warden ranger. I can also get the ranger's pummeled rear end out from underneath a horde of enemies. And in my free time I do around 20-60 damage a round. Oh and I have a 1st level daily to stun people with in a pinch. As long as a controller is contributing to party damage output meaningfully, he will not be a hindrance.
In our other game we have a wizard who performs quite well as an enabler and since our DM likes to use lots of terrain, I've seen more than one 60-70 HP brute get rolled down a roof top or a cliff edge with a dinky wizard at-will power. I'd say he "speeds up" combat quite a bit when he can pull off stunts like that.
I've also seen some wizard builds who like to pretend they are strikers or versatile jack of all trades, and utterly fail at everything they try to do. It takes a good/experienced player to play an effective controller.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Well, it IS possible to have a party that just doesn't deliver much damage and in that case things could get brutally slow. The party I mainly DM for seems middle of the road with:
Dwarf great weapon fighter (near striker damage and can nova pretty impressively)
H-E brutal rogue definitely dishes out good damage and hits constantly
DB Dragon Sorcerer a fine striker and when bloodied outdoes the rogue
Human STR cleric does very good solid leader damage or at least buffs in a lot of good damage
H-E Starlock also does excellent damage. Squishy but does decent control on top of damage easily equal to the fighter.
We did have an Eladrin Wizard in place of the DB Sorc for a good long while. Damage output was a bit less but overall I think it was a stronger party that way. I'd consider this party a bit on the higher damage as now constituted but even with the wizard they chewed through encounters in 5-6 rounds on average.
Dwarf great weapon fighter (near striker damage and can nova pretty impressively)
H-E brutal rogue definitely dishes out good damage and hits constantly
DB Dragon Sorcerer a fine striker and when bloodied outdoes the rogue
Human STR cleric does very good solid leader damage or at least buffs in a lot of good damage
H-E Starlock also does excellent damage. Squishy but does decent control on top of damage easily equal to the fighter.
We did have an Eladrin Wizard in place of the DB Sorc for a good long while. Damage output was a bit less but overall I think it was a stronger party that way. I'd consider this party a bit on the higher damage as now constituted but even with the wizard they chewed through encounters in 5-6 rounds on average.
