What I'd like to see in an RPG - Scalability in combat

[Ultimatecalibur]

4e can cover this if you are willing to be a little loose with the encounter design rules.

If you want a really quick battle use 4 minions or a single standard monster. It should last ~2 rounds and be less than 15 minutes.

If you want something more like a mini-boss battle in a video game, use 2 standards, a standard and 4 minions or a single elite. This should last three maybe four rounds at most and be over in less than 30 minutes.

 

[jmucchiello]

I'm confused. Sure there are encounters that are less important than others but if they so less important that you don't want to use the full combat system, why are you bothering with the encounters at all? If I'm sitting at the table and the DM says a couple orcs round the corner ahead of you and he doesn't start putting orc minis on the table, why am I going to take these orcs as a credible threat? They don't rate using the GOOD combat system??! Guess I won't need my dailys. Why is the DM wasting my precious gaming time on boring unimportant encounters? That's what I'll think, especially if I'm a real tactics-level player. (Is this the "I swing my sword" thread?)

Seriously, there are only two ways to avoid prolonged combat time for unimportant encounters: Don't play a game system with long, tactical combat OR don't put meaningless obstacles in the players' way.

Anything else is too metagamey. It's like the DM who never names NPCs UNLESS they are IMPORTANT. As soon as the NPC is named, the players treat him differently. As soon as it is apparent these combatants aren't mini-worthy, they immediately become unimportant. And why should you spend 10-15 minutes "fighting" unimportant foes?

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think that the answer for doing this in 4e is to use a skill challenge - failures might cost healing surges, but it offers a simple and potentially flavourful way of handling 'that fight which isn't the big one, but is significant enough to degrade the party a little'.

Additionally, a skill challege could be used to frame a series of combats.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

You may want to take a look at Fantasy Craft and/or Spycraft 2.0 - both feature a system for scaling NPCs and critters.

Foe Factory: Modern has a similar system for D20 Modern, you might be able to convert it.

The Auld Grump, best part of Fantasy Craft, right there.

 

[Lanefan]

Is part of the problem that the players take to long to decide what to do on their turn? Get a little 10 or 15 second timer, if they haven't started describing their action, they delay to the end of the round, if at the end of the round they still can't come up with an action in 10 or 15 seconds, they lose their turn.

Or try plan B: go back to 1e ways and make 'em all declare their actions before the round begins; then play them out.

I'm not sure it's possible to do much to speed up combat in 3e-4e beyond a certain point without losing the point of running the combat in the first place. The problem is at the design level, with non-simultaneous turn-based one-at-a-time actions trying to reflect the chaotic fog of war.

Lan-"a member of the fog"-efan

 

[Ycore Rixle]

I agree that in 4e minions and skill challenges are the ways the game attempts to deal with this issue. Whether or not those ways work for your group is another matter; it sounds like maybe they don't. Not using minis for the quick battles is a possibility, but you have to be willing to deform the 4e rulesystem.

Other than that, *shameless plug alert* you could try Spellbound Kingdoms. It is tactical, it has the simultaneous initative that Lan-"a member of the simultaneous initiative fog"-efan is talking about , and it scales combat by skill, in that combat experts deal more damage against combat novices. There are also more devastating and tricky combat maneuvers available by setting them up with previous rounds' maneuvers, meaning that in short, quick combats players won't have time or see the need to use them.

 

[PoorHobo]

Does anyone have or have links to an in game example of using skill challenges to resolve combat? I'm trying to wrap my head around this but am not seeing it working.