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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jbear" data-source="post: 5579982" data-attributes="member: 75065">As a player I feel quite protective over my healing surges. As a DM scratching them away from my players is a small triumph. As they celebrate their victory, every now and again when they are getting too cocky I quietly ask them how many surges they have left. When my players get into an adventure, I make it very tricky for them/undesireable to stop and take an extended rest after every one or two battles. In short HSurges are a very valuable resource.Having them removed to hand wave a clean up, which I'm likely to get through without a scratch, just because I'm the closest one left to the remaining monsters, wouldn't sit right with me. That kind of mechanic would have to be put in the players hands as an option, once the DM called "Morale is Broken" or something, to let the players know they can mop up. That "mop up" could perhaps comes with the risk of losing a valuable resorce like a healing surge, but having it be a given, or something the DM simply decides on  a whim wouldn't be fair. I haven't read the article, but I like the idea of double damage listed by Klaus. Let's say the DM rules that the result of combat has become a foregone conclusion i.e the monsters have lost. But sometimes the beaten creatures will react differently.Here are two possible examples that spring to mind to speed to the end of combat in a fun way. 1) Broken Morale: monsters know they have lost and lose hope or attempt to flee making themselves vulnerable.Even if the monsters begin to flee PCs at this stage won't want them to flee, for various reasons. It's a good tactic to eliminate your enemies completely. Macchiavelli himself would agree this is a good tactic. So apply the DMs favourable condition: +2 bonus to all atacks and PCs now do double dmg. You crit on 19-20; crits Auto Kill target.2) Beserk Suicide: something snaps; monsters know combat is lost and go into a suicide frenzy. Combat should go faster but remain deadly/exciting/dangerous for PCs, though they have they should keep the edge over their enemies.Monsters do double damage; PCs gain a +2 Atk bonus and also do double damage; 19-20 PC crit range; PC Crits auto kill.If I wanted to add a new level of complexity to this I would probaly considering adding the Dice of Doom Morale check system to combat: <a href="http://diceofdoom.com/blog/2010/03/speeding-up-dd-4e-combat-morale/" target="_blank">Speeding up D&D 4E Combat: Morale | Dice of Doom</a>  which basically adds a saving throw when a groups leader is cut down, or a certain amount of their allies die; a fail means the monster flees and fleeing cause new checks amongst its remaining allies.As Aegeri said, a long combat can be awesome. It's a long boring combat that must be dealt with. My last combat was over 2 sessions, and at no stage was it boring. My players were walking on cloud 9 when they got through it alive. We all talked about it non stop for days afterwards we were all so excited about what had happened. In between session 1 and 2 the players even got together secretly to discuss tactics as the situation where we had left it looked very very grim indeed. It was awesome, epic and unforgettable. But not every combat is going to be like that. Which is when you can have a mechanic up your sleeves to move the 'middle bits' along at a swifter pace without bypassing them entirely.If I didn't want the monster just to flee I could give him either the Broken Morale condition or the Beserk Suicide condition til the end of the encounter. So this could come to influence only individual monsters, and spread like a disease as their allies drop around them and morale crumbles into dust.Anyway, like I said, I haven't read the article, but just those few lines from Klaus got me thinking all this ... so ... cheers Klaus!</blockquote>

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