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<blockquote data-quote="ExploderWizard" data-source="post: 5114536" data-attributes="member: 66434">Heh. So awesome that you had to say it twice. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"&nbsp; class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing&nbsp; &nbsp; :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" />&nbsp;Grind is something that you can let happen or do something about. When we first started playing 4E (KOTS with rules as written) the grind was very apparent and seeing this at level 1, paragon tier play was suspected of being full of never-ending battles. &nbsp;Then when getting ready to start running my own campaign, I thought about ways to keep the slog factor down. Using the rules as a toolkit rather than THE RULES helped a lot. &nbsp;1) I cut down HP to anywhere from 50-85% depending on the monster. &nbsp;2) At-will monster damage output was increased by a die. &nbsp;3) I play with defenses and attack bonuses on individuals as it suits what they are supposed to represent in the campaign. &nbsp;4) Semi-minions were added to the mix. These guys do damage as a normal monster and require either a certain number of hits to drop or a single significant hit. &nbsp;&nbsp;For example I used some gnoll semi-minions with HP: 3/12. These guys could take 3 hits but would drop on any hit doing 12 or more points of damage. I still didn't have to track individual hp and it made players familliar with the standard rules plenty nervous when a 8hp AOE attack didn't drop any of them. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!&nbsp; &nbsp; :eek:"&nbsp; data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" />&nbsp;Fights have been quick and nasty. The crushing amount of at-will damage being pumped out (bugbears hitting for 2d12 will knock the second wind right out of you)&nbsp; leads to rapid surge expenditure. When in kill things mode we can do 5-6 combats in a 5 hour session and still have time for exploration, and sitting around deciding what to do next.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="ExploderWizard, post: 5114536, member: 66434"] Heh. So awesome that you had to say it twice. :lol: Grind is something that you can let happen or do something about. When we first started playing 4E (KOTS with rules as written) the grind was very apparent and seeing this at level 1, paragon tier play was suspected of being full of never-ending battles. Then when getting ready to start running my own campaign, I thought about ways to keep the slog factor down. Using the rules as a toolkit rather than THE RULES helped a lot. 1) I cut down HP to anywhere from 50-85% depending on the monster. 2) At-will monster damage output was increased by a die. 3) I play with defenses and attack bonuses on individuals as it suits what they are supposed to represent in the campaign. 4) Semi-minions were added to the mix. These guys do damage as a normal monster and require either a certain number of hits to drop or a single significant hit. For example I used some gnoll semi-minions with HP: 3/12. These guys could take 3 hits but would drop on any hit doing 12 or more points of damage. I still didn't have to track individual hp and it made players familliar with the standard rules plenty nervous when a 8hp AOE attack didn't drop any of them. :eek: Fights have been quick and nasty. The crushing amount of at-will damage being pumped out (bugbears hitting for 2d12 will knock the second wind right out of you) leads to rapid surge expenditure. When in kill things mode we can do 5-6 combats in a 5 hour session and still have time for exploration, and sitting around deciding what to do next. [/QUOTE]

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