Speeding up combat in 4th edition D&D (Reposted from general RPG area)

[Lion]

(Thank you to those who responded previously and sorry to those who knew it shouldn't be in the general RPG area. I was a bit confused by the fact that this list has a sub-title that says if it is a 4e question of a general nature to place it in the general RPG section. I did not think about the fact that someone might respond with rules, and my question contains nothing specific about rules so I didn't think it belonged in here. Now back to the discussion.)

The group I have been playing with since 4e came out has been mostly stuck in combat and we are trying to find ways to speed up combat, because our game time is limited to about six & a half hours a month. We have had one session where we role played and had one combat and it was great fun and just what we were hoping to get from the game. All the other times we have met there has been a minimal amount of role playing and a huge amount of rolling dice. We have been talking about how to increase speed and prevent the combat from dragging out. We do not want to cut out combat altogether or make it so simple that it is worthless to add, but we do want it to be over more quickly.
A couple of the ideas tossed out on the table were:
1. know your character (I know, duh, but it was said and there is a reason it was said also.)
2. sit at the table & pay attention (I know another, duh, but it was also said and there is a reason.)
3. Use a chess clock and limit the amount of time the player gets to tell the DM what they are going to do.
a. if time runs out the player is skipped or...
b. if time runs out the player uses a melee basic attack or a ranged basic attack which ever makes more sense at that time for that character or...
c. if time runs out the player will have named a default at-will power at the beginning of the night or when the character was created and that is the action they get to use.

Any other ideas that are being used currently, and has anyone else run in to this issue of not being able to do both role play & roll play?

27th December 2009, 12:29 AM #2 (permalink) Garmorn
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Role both attack and damage at the same time.

Use power cards and have them laid down on the table before a player's turn. Have them face down until the players turn that way others are not influenced by them if you want.

Have a easy fast way to track initiative. Cards or a program for example that allows quick changes in order.
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27th December 2009, 05:29 AM #3 (permalink) Dragonblade
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I run a weeknight game that last about 3.5 hours because my players all have to work the next day. We get through 2 to 3 combats a night and still have plenty of RP time. We play by the book, no house rules to change monster HPs and we run only published WotC adventures. We are in the middle of Pyramid of Shadows right now.

Really, it does come down to the players knowing their characters and not wasting time. There is no excuse for any one player's turn taking more than 20-30 seconds. And even that is slow. Myself and two of my players also were on a team that beat the WotC Ultimate Dungeon Delve at PAX. We are good enough to take our turns in under 10 seconds if we cut out the table chit chat and really focus.

When we first starting practicing for the Delve, we were really slow and we would always hem and haw over our turn. Should I use this power or that power. But training for the Delve really taught us to focus and we have carried over that focus into our regular game nights.

You have a standard, move, minor. So it shouldnt take too long to decide how to use those actions on your turn. If you attack, roll your attack and damage at the same time. Your modifiers should already be calculated, just roll dice and add numbers. Have a calculator handy if you don't like adding in your head. If your allies have used powers that give you some kind of bonus, or if a monster has inflicted a penalty on you, you should make note on some scratch paper or your character sheet so that by the time your turn comes around you already know what you need to do.

If you use the WotC Character Builder all your powers and mods should already be calculated for you. The one guy in our group who does not use the Builder has pre-written all his mods on a separate paper for every power he has as well. We never need to crack open a book during play to look up powers or abilities.

Since the DM is often the speed bottleneck due to being the one trying to run multiple monsters at once, it can sometimes help to designate one of the players to be an assistant that tracks initiative order and/or monster conditions during the combat. That can free up the DM to focus solely on how the monsters move and attack.
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27th December 2009, 05:37 AM #4 (permalink) Dragonblade
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One other tip is avoid unnecessary grind. If the combat has come down to only one or two monsters left and you can tell the players are going to win, don't waste time going through the motions. Unless one of the monsters has a nasty power that can take out a player or is a solo or elite, just let the next successful hit take them out and move on with the adventure.
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27th December 2009, 02:07 PM #5 (permalink) defendi
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We dropped our combats to about 1/4 the time after a particularly bad battle (2.5 hours). All we did was have every player commit to know what they are going to do and making their turn in less than a minute. Now we have very relaxed, comfortable combats that last 40-50 minutes.
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28th December 2009, 09:20 PM #6 (permalink) Stacie GmrGrl
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Idk, but once we took Savage Worlds initiative system and it really sped up play...basically we used a deck of cards, each person was dealt a card face up, the person with Improved initiative got two bonus cards and got to choose or something like that. We thought about setting it where a person got a card per +2 bonus of the initiative modifier and got to choose, but we never got around to trying it.

Then we knew who was going when, and it also gave it a random element that each round it would be a little different and it was fast.

DM houseruled that we had 30 seconds to make our decisions as well, or else we were flat footed by indecision. He had a stop watch.

It was amazing fun.
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28th December 2009, 09:46 PM #7 (permalink) Infiniti2000
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I echo the "not wasting time" sentiment. 4E is far more tolerant of bad combat decisions, so no longer is it really vital for the PCs to take 5 minutes to choose the perfect spell or action. Know your character enough to be able to decide if one of his special abilities will work well or simply go with a basic attack or default at-will. The idea of imposing a time limit is generally met with abhorrence by most players, but a gentle reminder that the perfect tactic not only doesn't exist, but is not likely to win the day will help appease such players.
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[keterys]

The DM should be very willing to call a combat when it seems obvious - for example, if a party is unbloodied and down to two not important guys left. Those two guys can throw down their weapons and surrender. Or run away. Or be mercilessly slaughtered by the PCs.

If the DM wants to really call things faster, they can even make a deal of it. 'With the death of the high priest, the rest of the forces are demoralized but prepared to fight to the death. If you spend a total of four surges, we'll call 'em dead.' Can even add a daily attack power in there if you want to call it real early.

 

[Mengu]

Thread from about a year ago, most of it still probably applicable.

 

[Trebor62]

I have read somewhere on more than one occasion that Wotc estimates combat taking about 1 hour per fight.

If initiative organization is taking too much time it should be possible for the DM to roll it in advance and have it set for the monsters and then just slot the PC's in where they belong.

Another trick for Area attacks, roll the damage first and then start making the attack rolls. This way the DM can mark the damage off as the player rolls to hit. Much faster and simpler than making the attack rolls, noting those hit and then rolling and applying damage.

Healing and helping characters should be watching the other players to see who needs healing, saves, buff etc. so the know who to aid when there turn comes up.

 

[DanmarLOK]

Using average damage and not rolling it speeds things up, significantly so for me as the DM. Even a fight with 20+ creatures versus 5 PC's can take around a hour and that's without enforcing any kind of time limit on the players turns. I started using it for playtesting encounters versus various pc group builds to help flatten out swings in deviation from outside the average rolls and then just kept it for the monsters in the real sessions and the players use it as well and they all prefer it.

 

[CovertOps]

As Lion's DM I am very interested in what ENWorld has to say about this. We've had a single encounter take up to 4 hours of game time and to me this is unacceptable.

@keterys: I am already planning to do something like that.

I really believe that one of our biggest problems is PC's that can't make up their mind about what to do on their turn or are not ready when their turn comes up or that just don't know their abilities that well (one player who has had a different class each game for 3 months running).

One idea I added was that (the party is currently 8th level) we take all daily powers out of the mix (this would include both class powers as well as item powers) and that in exchange for this I would lower the difficulty of all encounters by 2 (so instead of n+4 I would do n+2). This is with the idea that if we can get some faster combats under our belt these elements could be added back in and wouldn't slow things back down that much. (As an aside I've noticed that my group likes to horde their daily powers for "that one big boss fight" and then dump them all at once.)

 

[keterys]

Could consider a house rule that you can only use one daily attack power per combat - that should encourage people to use a daily attack power in other combats, which should drastically speed up those combats by letting them get completed much faster. As a side benefit it also makes that 'one big boss fight' more exciting by it not just being a cascade of dailies that destroy the boss.

But yeah, taking out some set of powers until folks are moving along at a good clip is a fair idea. You should be able to resolve almost any combat in an hour and a half or less (with the very occasional exception, like we did a n+6 or something the other week that took 2.5 hours... but we also had _horrible_ luck. Like no hits in the entire group for 3 rounds straight.) The goal should probably be for closer to 30-45 minutes for many in the n to n+2 range. I actually recommend trying to hover around n+1 and n+2 in general, rather than n+4, if you do want things to go faster.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I really believe that one of our biggest problems is PC's that can't make up their mind about what to do on their turn or are not ready when their turn comes up or that just don't know their abilities that well (one player who has had a different class each game for 3 months running).

This is what I think slows down our combats as well, as noted in my copied post above (that Lion copied). My recommendation is not to houserules powers out of the way, but I think it's a big difference in playstyle from earlier editions (not better, not worse, just different). Convince the players that it's okay to just use an at-will or even to delay when they are unsure. If as DM you MUST do something, then simply time them. If they take 20 seconds, then force them to use an at-will or to delay for at least one other creature's turn and un-delaying is limited to 5 seconds of decision.

 

[Lion]

(From another list I belong to. I am attempting get all the good information in one location.)

Jim Burnham Posted Dec 28, 2009 10:20 AM

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Jim_Burnham
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Post #: 2

A friend of mine explained what he called Chaos Combat to me. Over time my own additions have resulted in the following. I've used this for 2nd and 3rd edition, so there will probably have to be some modifications for 4th.

• We play on a large whiteboard flat on a table. That way everyone knows where everyone is at and it is easy to draw the battlefield and make notes.
• There is one roll for monster initiative even when there are different types of monsters. All players roll initiative.
• I roll monster initiative and announce to everyone, "Before <whatever number>, go!"
• While they are going, if I think a monster will make it to the next round, I'm already rolling their to hit, who they are going to hit and damage.
• Players will ask me AC of monsters and roll their own to hit and damage and write the damage on the whiteboard next to the monster. If I notice that the monster damage is over a certain amount I lay the figurine down. (Don't worry, the players will remind you)
• Players can stack their initiative if they want, but after a certain amount of time if they aren't done, they lose their turn. If I catch them cheating their initiative rolls, The hit points of their monsters go up, or I auto hit them next round, no muss, no fuss.
• Magic and area effect is all handled by the players except for saves and damage.
• After a certain amount of time (usually by the time I don't have anything else to do or keep track of I move all of the monsters, remove dead monsters and then start announcing which players got how much damage. In a pinch I might point to a player and tell them to roll their own damage (fun to watch sometimes).
• I then announce "After <whatever number> in the first round and before <whatever number> in the second round, go!"
• repeat the process (keeping the same initiative rolls)

Probably leaving a few things out, but that is it in a nut shell. Yes, you have to trust the players as you as pushing a lot of the bookkeeping to them.

Rounds can take as little as 30 seconds. Even with 10 players at the table and tens of monsters I can keep all of the players almost constantly moving. (most players will be standing up around the table). The best battle I've had like this was 8 players around 7th level against waves of Orcs (about 20 at a time, numbering 250). We finished in 15 minutes and even the non-smokers had to go out for a smoke after that.

To me this is a more accurate system of battle as a well-tuned group can avoid most mistakes, but a disorganized group ends up walking into their own spells, doing extra damage to an already dead monster, etc.

Sure you lose some individual fun cutting all of the corners, but the group fun goes WAY up, and I've never had a serious complaint due to everyone really having fun with it.

Warning, if you play like this and go back to the normal initiative based system, you'll want to claw your own eyes out in boredom.

 

[Daern]

My DM introduced a rule that really helped out: 10xp every time you finish your turn in under 60 seconds. It was great! We got really into it! A few bonus xps and combat was about twice as fast.