Time per round?

[SkullThrone]

I swear getting combat to end in a reasonable amount of time is very hard with my group. Typically I have 5 players, and previous campaigns of levels 5 to 8 battles go for about 6 to 8 rounds, where first rounds take 2 to 4 minutes a player (about 15 min/round)...then speed up to maybe 10 min a round, unless everyone is in At-Will mode.

Anyway each encounter typically takes 60 to 90 mins and we get through 3 or 4 in a 7 hour session...just wondering if my group is on par with others. We record each session so I know they are between 5.5 and 7.5 hours, and I used to use a self created application to track initiative that would sound alerts at 60 seconds and 100 seconds to get people to "move along".

It seems like even after two years of play people still can move faster than two minutes on a regular basis.

 

[surfarcher]

Sounds like your group might be a bit grindy. There's two places where grind creeps in. The players' side and the DMs' side.

On the players' side it's about knowing your powers well and taking your turn quickly. Our campaign's Combat Notes page goes into more details. I also try to reward players who take their turns quickly, check out our campaign's Rewards System page for more info.

For the DMs side I suggest you read, learn and digest http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/254630-stalker0s-guide-anti-grind.html.

 

[SkullThrone]

Sounds like your group might be a bit grindy...Our campaign's Combat Notes page goes into more details. I also try to reward players who take their turns quickly, check out our campaign's Rewards System page for more info.

Nice incentive, I've done most the other rewards on the page, just not the Combat tokens...seems like a nice way to communicate the message. Do you typically allow the token to be used post-roll, or do they cash them in before they roll? It seems with the black tokens the upgrade would occur after a hit is scored.

The creep is definitely on the players side, we record every session and for a while we were actually calculating "Biggest time wasters". Sometimes its allowable wasting a Wizard casts a AoE affect, obviously takes more time...or and action token is spend...However plenty of time is wasted "coordinating" battle plans, to which I assume the monsters heard it all, which may or may not change how they act, but it's the optimization that seems to take time.

I have some players that move attack, damage, done. Others "who needs a heal?....do you? do you?...", ok I guess I'll attack this guy and push him into that square (interruption from another player) "No not that square!"..."ok how about here...or here...?"

Your tokens would be a nice way to reward behavior that is good.

 

[the Jester]

If you're interested, a group of us has been keeping (some degree of) track of this exactly in this thread.

 

[jbear]

We have a timekeeper and a reward system that we have begun implementing recently. The incentive has had a noticeable effect.

We do it like this:

Time Keeper advises the player when 1 minute mark is reached
If the player completes their turn before that time they receive a +1 Token
If I interrupt the turn, I call for time to be stopped; I do this when a monster reacts or I need to explain a terrain effect etc. etc.
The players turn ends at the 1 min 30 mark; the player can complete any action they have already announced (moving character, calculating damage etc.)

If a player spends an Action Point they receive +1 Minute to their turn.

If players use their 'Do something Cool' encounter power, I call for time to be stopped until I decide how the special action needs to be resolved.

Tokens can be accumulated.
Up to 3 tokens can be spent at once for a max +3 to any roll
If a player has tokens remaining at the end of the session they become Drama Tokens

Drama Tokens can only be used to aquire Drama Cards, they can no longer be used to add bonuses to rolls in future sessions

5 tokens can be swapped for a Bronze Drama Card
8 tokens can be swapped for a Silver Drama Card
12 tokens can be swapped for a Gold Drama Card

I have tried to find the original link where I found these on wikipedia, inspired from the Torg deck if I remember rightly. If someone knows what I'm talking about (some beautiful 4e Drama cards made up on MSE Program) could they please post a link

This has increased player concentration and speed upon turns for two reasons:

1) The Tokens are very useful and worth the effort
2) The tokens added bonus to rolls turns a lot of misses into hits which kills monsters faster --> so battles take less time.

And it hasn't been too unbalancing. The introduction of this reward system coincides with the introduction of the revised monster damage. Man, what a difference. Things just got serious.

Still many of the players prefer to hoard their rewards, saving up for those Drama Cards!

 

[blalien]

My group usually gets through four or five battles in a five hour session. If I figure we spend half the time in combat and half doing other stuff, each battle takes about a half hour.

surfarcher's links are very good. In general:
*Make sure your players are paying attention.
*Make sure you're properly communicating the battle. Minis are good for this.
*You and your players shouldn't agonize over finding the best possible strategy. If you think of a good thing to do, do it and move on.

Use a sand timer if it gets out of hand, but use it as a guideline, not as enforcement.

 

[surfarcher]

Nice incentive, I've done most the other rewards on the page, just not the Combat tokens...seems like a nice way to communicate the message. Do you typically allow the token to be used post-roll, or do they cash them in before they roll? It seems with the black tokens the upgrade would occur after a hit is scored.

I like this method because I prefer to reward than punish, which is the other alternative (if you are too slow you auto-delay and eventually miss your turn if you cant work out your shot).

And yes I let them use the tokens at any point they want! The black tokens can be used as +3 or to upgrade to crit, in which case it's definately post roll. I was a little concerned when the idea of the crits first floated - one of my players came up with it. But considering all the factors it's really not overpowered. Even if the PCs make every single turn in under a minute they'll still only get two extra crits every three or four combats. And nine fast turns for a +3 just wasn't enough incentive in practice. Also remember that all tokens expire at extended rest and aren't transferrable between players.

The tokens also have some nice indirect effects. They tend to get used to turn near misses into hist. The higher value tokens tend to get used to help things like dialies hit or to convert an encounter power to crit on low roll. All these things subtly contribute to faster combat and the PCs definately don't have any really serious advantage over the monsters. Some folks might remember that the sorc and twf ranger dropped my feature bad guy to 6hp in the first round last game, but neither player used chips for this.

The creep is definitely on the players side, ...snip...snip...

Your tokens would be a nice way to reward behavior that is good.

Like I said the alternative is to punish slow play. And that can be tricky, lead to feelings of unfairness, etc. Far simpler to provide a tangible reward for positive behaviour. they actively work towards getting the black chips now

We have a timekeeper and a reward system that we have begun implementing recently. The incentive has had a noticeable effect.

...snip...snip...

This has increased player concentration and speed upon turns for two reasons:

1) The Tokens are very useful and worth the effort
2) The tokens added bonus to rolls turns a lot of misses into hits which kills monsters faster --> so battles take less time.

And it hasn't been too unbalancing. The introduction of this reward system coincides with the introduction of the revised monster damage. Man, what a difference. Things just got serious.

Still many of the players prefer to hoard their rewards, saving up for those Drama Cards!

Interesting and cool. I've been thinking of drama cards But I'll need to wait a few more sessions to assess how they'll go.

My group usually gets through four or five battles in a five hour session. If I figure we spend half the time in combat and half doing other stuff, each battle takes about a half hour.

surfarcher's links are very good. In general:
*Make sure your players are paying attention.
*Make sure you're properly communicating the battle. Minis are good for this.
*You and your players shouldn't agonize over finding the best possible strategy. If you think of a good thing to do, do it and move on.

Use a sand timer if it gets out of hand, but use it as a guideline, not as enforcement.

I've been looking for a 1 min sand timer or similar to put on the table so the players have better feedback on how they are doing for time. I also reserve the right to award a chip anyway, I mean if the player goes over time by 30 seconds but has APed and encounter and daily with wide-ranging impact and been clever about it I don't want them feeling penalised. But my judgement call here is based on "have their actions actually sped up combat and were they inspired/inspiring?".

 

[The Human Target]

Xxxx

 

[The Human Target]

Oops wrong thread.

What I was going to say is that I think you guys probably have a little room for bringing down the time a bit but overall thats a good amount of combat in the time that you play.

Good work!

I think speeding up combat is good, but it is an essential part of the game and has the meat of the mechanics behind it. There is such a thing as too fast.

 

[Katana_Geldar]

90 mins with five players? Tsk, tsk. Try 2 hours with 8, and that's on a good night. The good thing is my players have started avoiding encounters, probably because I scare the pants off them anyhow.