Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Rannos Apr 02, 2009 0:06:57	There's obviously been a lot of discussion about reducing monster hitpoints to speed up combat. Is that treating the symptom and not the problem? What if you just lowered the monsters' defenses by say 2 to increase the chance to hit (and thus do damage and thus kill the monster(s) faster thus speeding up combat)???? Thoughts???
#2 bartleby42 Apr 02, 2009 0:46:17	I find long combat tends to result from one or more of three things: 1. Unfamiliarity with the rules. This is one of those "in time" problems. The first 4-5 combats always go to slowly. 2. Slow players. Some players want to spend an hour plotting out their move. Don't let them. Keep combat going, give the PC about a minute and then say "okay, your holding action, tell me when your ready" and keep the combat going. There are some other "fixes" like rolling damage with your attack roll, but that saves maybe 30 seconds per round, and the people that take their turns quickly tend to roll damage quickly too. 3. Tough monsters. Encounters that are difficult for the party, or encounters on the upper threshold of an average encounter take a long time. If you combats always take too long, try throwing an easy encounter in to see if that speeds it up. 10 to one this is your problem.
#3 gregt_314 Apr 02, 2009 0:56:41	There's obviously been a lot of discussion about reducing monster hitpoints to speed up combat. Is that treating the symptom and not the problem? What if you just lowered the monsters' defenses by say 2 to increase the chance to hit (and thus do damage and thus kill the monster(s) faster thus speeding up combat)???? Thoughts??? Almost any mechanical change breaks balance in some way; if you're not a particularly hardcore group that might not be a problem though. Blanket reduction of defences is one of the less ideal ways of fixing the problem. Your problem is not that combat is going too long; there would be no real problem with a four-hour combat if everyone was having a blast the whole way. Your problem is that combat is still going after it stops being interesting. So your solutions are two: (1) Stop or speed up combat once it stops being fun, either by turning remaining monsters into minions or having them surrender. AND/OR (2) Prolong the fun of the combat by creating more interesting encounters. Try alternate terrain, alternate victory conditions, add NPCs to protect, add time pressure, have the enemies engage in meaningful conversation while they fight, have allied NPCs make dares and wagers with the players, start fires, throw furniture, have the floor collapse, add weather effects, throw in a chase mechanic - do whatever it takes to make each combat unique and special.