The Pace of the Game

[gfunk]

Evening all!

I was just wondering how fast your games go, in terms of encounters per night. When we were low level it seemed that we could go through literally a dozen encounters in one night. However, now that we are level 13 + and the enemies have a slew of special abilities, we are lucky to run 2 encounters over a period of six hours or so!

I fear it will only get worse as we level. Esp with 8th and 9th level spells, which can have tricky mechanics to work out.

Is it just our campaign?

 

[Zhure]

Not just you, that matches my experiences as well, but a lot is dependent on how adept the players are. Good players are making decisions and looking up their own references to speed things up. Poor players just bog combats down.

Greg

 

[Black Omega]

I'm impressed really. With the way spells like Web and Obscuring mist come up in my game, I'm lucky to get one encounter per night.

 

[gfunk]

Here's another interesting point: DM/Player conflict. When we come up with an rule that's unclear or an action for which no official mechanic exists we get into an argument. Over time, I have become more mellow about the whole thing. My DM usually gives reasonable arguments so I just go with what he says. However, others will argue with him until the cows come home. Further, since we have access to the DMG and MM we know all the rules just as well as our DM.

How do you guys handle rules discussions? What happens if your DM (or you) rules on something that could potentially kill a character and your players raise an argument?

 

[nick]

Yeah, those rule clarifications and disputes (AOO, range, etc.) all prolong the encounter. Still fun though, but just seems to take longer than it should.

 

[mkletch]

It really depends what kinds of encounters you have. Typically, I use Listen very heavily, and if the cound of combat reaches interested ears, one "encounter" can include the beasties and NPCs from 3-8 individually keyed encounters. Wandering monsters, patrols and lookouts are a beautiful thing.

Look at it from a 'realistic' POV. Having the monsters stay at their posts waiting for the adventurers to kill them is a bit silly. I love Diablo II Ex, but that is not how I want my adventures to play out (discrete packets of monsters waiting to be slain and drop their treasure).

A typical 'night' for us is one or two minor encounters, followed by The One that keeps growing and growing. Example: The party is camped 40 paces from a breach in the wall of a ruined caste. They had gotten the can of whoop-arse opened all over them by a evil ranger/rogue/shadowdancer that nobody could Spot or Listen, and were more concerned with being out of the forest than being near the ruins. Camping for the night, an Orc patrol of 8 heavy crossbow and a ballista are riding in a howdah on an armorerd Huge dire rhinoceros. They get just inside darkvision range, and the cleric rolls a -1 modified on her Hide check (everybody else beat the 7 Spot for the Orcs). Well, there goes the neighborhood. Two squads of nine orc heavy crossbow on towers, plus the 8 and ballista in the DR - you're just bound to roll some 20's. Reinforcements from within the ruins arrive about 17 rounds later. You see where this is going (flanking is beautiful). Eventually, the original encounter (DR + few orcs) is beaten and the party flees the pursuing hordes (using Invisibility Sphere to limp into the woods and avoid capture). It was a fun night, pulling in elements from 5 encounters, although only one was 'defeated'.

Pacing is really determined by the style of the campaign, the experience of the players and DM, the preparation of the DM and just plain luck. If the players making decisions is holding things up, give each player six seconds (one round) to decide what he or she is doing (rule lookups and such do not count against this time). In the past, I've seen this work very well.

-Fletch!