Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="keterys" data-source="post: 5114698" data-attributes="member: 43019">In my experience, 4e combat isn't grindy on its own, but a lot of it comes from the DM and PCs...Most importantly, are people agonizing over every decision or not paying enough attention so they're ready to go when it becomes their turn? If a particular player can't finish their turn in a minute, they're probably part of the problem. If a DM can't figure out what powers to use or who to attack, they're part of the problem. Etc.Are PCs or monsters built so they can do damage and finish the combat, or are they built so they can lockdown enemies or be effectively invulnerable? There's a huge difference between a group with extra leaders and defenders (or controllers and soldiers) who have difficulty doing double digit damage and another group with extra strikers (artillery, etc) who work together to down something rapidly.Stalker's thread has all kinds of good advice, but if you're having trouble with grind then create scenarios where time is the issue and not maximizing effect per healing surge. For example, the monsters are blocking kids from escaping an orphanage that is on fire and about to collapse. You have until 10 o'clock, real time, before the orphanage collapses. Go! Or the eldritch light ebbs and flows from the ritual gem, but it seems to be building up towards an explosion. Stop the ritual before it blows up (and again pick a RL time), costing the PCs treasure. Once you get the players on board, you're most of the way there.That said, some of it also just experience with character creation or what things people cared about in character creation. For example, comparing my fighter to a fighter a friend is playing in another game, and he does half the damage I do. Which is notable since I'm a guardian fighter and he's a greatweapon fighter, so I'm also up on him for defenses. Boy will he always win initiative over me, though. I think he has three feats for it. He's also way more into crits. Basically he loves going first and loves getting that 'big hit' - a very luck-based player. And more power to him, but that's a big difference in combat length unless he gets a lucky streak to catch up.Pacifist clerics? Just ban 'em now - they _can_ be played so that they help combat to end, but a lot of people won't play it that way, so better to just avoid it. Warlords with extra attacks and damage buffs? Yay.Friend of mine is playing in a 4E game with new players and she said they were taking 40 minutes per round of combat. And I was like 'How is that possible!?' and she's all 'Well, they're figuring out the optimal marks, and the optimal bursts, and...' and I'm like 'But you're only 2nd level! You barely have two things to choose from.'These are programmers, though, and they love optimization. So I told her to get them to optimize for _time_. You get more treasure and xp the more encounters you get through!</blockquote>

Verification