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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Truename" data-source="post: 4785866" data-attributes="member: 78255">-What level are you?5th level. Started with H1 in October and then moved to Scales of War (Bordrin's Watch) afterwards.-How long do you play for?2.5 to 3 hours, once per week.-How many combats do you play?About two.-How long do they take?60-90 minutes, with climactic battles taking 2+ hours. They've been taking longer recently, probably because the group size is bigger. In the current adventure (Shadow Rift of Umbraforge), the combats have had a lot of conditions flying around and I've often had no time to study the encounter in advance. This has slowed things down.Grind is generally nonexistant, but I'd like the fights to go faster so we could do more out-of-combat stuff. We use a lot of table management tricks to keep the speed up (plan your turn while others are moving; initiative cards; power cards; condition tokens; roll damage at same time as attack; etc), but with so many players it just takes a long time.  When we have 3-4 players (rarely), it's very fast.-How many players do you play with?Typically 6 players + DM. We've recently added a 7th. It's large and fun, but slow, so if we lose anyone through attrition, I won't try to replace them.-How long do you roelplay for outside of combat?Very little... perhaps 30 minutes per session. I'd like to see more, but with such short sessions, it's difficult to get everything in. Also, the whole group is pretty new (including me, the DM) and the roleplaying usually feels forced and awkward.-Does it sometimes feel like playing a boardgame?Yes; we like boardgames, so we play up that aspect of the game with power cards, condition tokens, coins for hitpoints, bloodied markers, and so on.EDIT: As the group has become bigger, combat's become more boardgamey and tactical, with less p42 improv or characterization. I think that's because there's so much going on and everyone's trying to keep it moving quickly.-Do you change any of the rules?Once an encounter is a foregone conclusion, I'll cut it short by having monsters flee or converting them to minions. Other than that, we're following the rules and Scales of War adventures closely.</blockquote>

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