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Help me save 4E

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
Balderdash
Apr 02, 2010 11:59:58
Ok, so our group just quit 4E, mainly because we find the combats to be way too long. Unless every player optimizes their characters to be damage machines and you never have any off-topic banter going on, we find it frankly not enjoyable enough.  This thread's purpose is not for you to convince me otherwise, but rather to help me mitigate my groups' problems with 4E. No one else wants to step up and try their hat at DMing, so I plan to try to run them through the Scales of War path.

Here are my proposed house rule changes, after much discussion with players' frustrations at the last campaign, run by another player:

1. Monsters have 25% fewer hit points and deal 25% more damage. This solves 2 problems...the fact that we spend so much time killing each monster, and also makes combat deadlier to players. We almost never have someone knocked unconcious and we're tired of spending 5 rounds whittling away at a 400 hit point monstrosity.
2. Each player gets a magic item that gives a +1 bonus to all attacks and this item won't take up a slot. Also, each player gets the Weapon/Implement Expertise feat for free. This might be overkill, but players miss way too much at paragon level. We find that monsters' defenses are just too high, and when combined with massive hit points, you get super long combats.
3. You can use 2 daily item powers/day/tier and without passing a milestone.
4. If a battle is obviously over and the players are spamming at-will powers, I will end the battle unless the players or myself have some reason to continue (for example, if the party is exacting revenge on a group of orcs who had raided them earlier).
5. Players get one extra bonus language. It's annoying when you can't figure out a clue because no one understands the language and you've run out components and/or don't have the ritual.

There might be more, but that's all I have for now. Has anyone used any of these house rules, and if so, how successful were they? I welcome any comments from DMs out there, especially those with similar frustrations with 4E. Will the above house rules make the players TOO powerful? I really like 4E, so I hope these rules make us happy. Thanks!
#2
wrecan
Apr 02, 2010 12:14:58 Check out the Compilation of Combat Accelerators
#3
dave2008
Apr 02, 2010 12:17:56 How long are your encounters taking? The only campaign I am currently DMing is for my sons and their friends (6-9 yrs old), but we can get through a 10+ round encounter in 30-45 minutes and we got through a 5 encounter adventure in about 4 hours.  This is included the fact that I have to do a lot of hand hold becuase this i there first exposure to RPGs and they are only 9 yrs old!

That being said, here are my thoughts on your suggestions:

1. This is a good idea.  I do something similar, but I don't have a rigid set 25%. Some monsters will have full hit points, some 50%, some I just say are down after 2-3 hits. It all depends on the flow of the game. I was using lots of minions, but my players didn't like it when most of their foes went down in one hit. So I have been making 2 & 3 hit minions w/ rolled damage.

2. I don't really care about this - I just tweak any monster I throw at the PCs so that they can (in general) hit with 8-10. What ever the PCs attacks and defenses are I just adjust the monsters as needed.

3. Depends how you do it, but I recommend (and use) the general concpet.

4. This does not need to be an issue. You can always change the language of the clue, but I see no real problem with giving PCs an extra language.
#4
Balderdash
Apr 02, 2010 12:26:39
How long are your encounters taking? The only campaign I am currently DMing is for my sons and their friends (6-9 yrs old), but we can get through a 10+ round encounter in 30-45 minutes and we got through a 5 encounter adventure in about 4 hours.  This is included the fact that I have to do a lot of hand hold becuase this i there first exposure to RPGs and they are only 9 yrs old!

That being said, here are my thoughts on your suggestions:

1. This is a good idea.  I do something similar, but I don't have a rigid set 25%. Some monsters will have full hit points, some 50%, some I just say are down after 2-3 hits. It all depends on the flow of the game. I was using lots of minions, but my players didn't like it when most of their foes went down in one hit. So I have been making 2 & 3 hit minions w/ rolled damage.

2. I don't really care about this - I just tweak any monster I throw at the PCs so that they can (in general) hit with 8-10. What ever the PCs attacks and defenses are I just adjust the monsters as needed.

3. Depends how you do it, but I recommend (and use) the general concpet.

4. This does not need to be an issue. You can always change the language of the clue, but I see no real problem with giving PCs an extra language.

Without getting into too much detail, let's just say that our group and yours live on 2 different planets. We typically get through 1 encounter/session, in about 2-3 hours, including socializing and roleplaying, etc. I want a fix that doesn't require too much work and customizing for me, and simple equation works best because I can apply it across the board to all pre-generated monsters. Currently, we often need a 13 to hit monsters, which is absurd. Thanks!

Also, thanks for the link wrecan!
#5
dave2008
Apr 02, 2010 12:35:32
Not a problem:

Typical monster
HP=1/2 normal
Damage = x2
All Defenses = average PC attack bonus+8

Tough monster
HP=3/4 normal
Damage = x2
Strong Defenses = average PC attack bonus+10
Weak Defenses = average PC attack bonus+8

Boss monster
HP= normal
Damage = x2+lvl
Strong Defenses = average PC attack bonus+12
Weak Defenses = average PC attack bonus+9
#6
Myztek
Apr 02, 2010 12:36:23 My suggestion, before changing the game, is to record an encounter and listen to it later. Figure out what is taking up the most time. Then, see if there are easy ways to address these time wasting activities. I found that I could speed up my combats by ~25% by:

1.) Asking the next player what they were going to do while the prior player rolled damage.
2.) Prerolling the initiative and first attack roll of each monster.
3.) Helping my players organize their powers so that they didn't need to sort through them every round.
4.) Not bothering with exact math at higher levels. Once the party starts doing enough damage I stop worrying about the exact hit point totals and instead move to bunches of 5 by rounding off damage rolls to the nearest 5. If the PCs hit for 17, I drop 15 off the total. If the next attack is 23, I drop 25 off the total. This makes the game speed up *a lot* as math can be done far faster in the head when all hp totals end in 5 or 0. I recommend this only after all PCs have at least a +10 to damage. Monsters and PC still use exact totals. I switchted to this when I looked over some old numbers and realized that using this system would not have changed when a monster was bloodied or killed in any of 6 encounters I had recently run. This does require some on the fly adjustment when PCs deal low amounts of fixed damage, but not much.
5.) Highlight triggered abilities in monster descriptions, or have a separate sheet that lists triggers in a combat. This avoids going back to do something that was triggered that you forgot to do.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Balderdash Apr 02, 2010 11:59:58	Ok, so our group just quit 4E, mainly because we find the combats to be way too long. Unless every player optimizes their characters to be damage machines and you never have any off-topic banter going on, we find it frankly not enjoyable enough. This thread's purpose is not for you to convince me otherwise, but rather to help me mitigate my groups' problems with 4E. No one else wants to step up and try their hat at DMing, so I plan to try to run them through the Scales of War path. Here are my proposed house rule changes, after much discussion with players' frustrations at the last campaign, run by another player: 1. Monsters have 25% fewer hit points and deal 25% more damage. This solves 2 problems...the fact that we spend so much time killing each monster, and also makes combat deadlier to players. We almost never have someone knocked unconcious and we're tired of spending 5 rounds whittling away at a 400 hit point monstrosity. 2. Each player gets a magic item that gives a +1 bonus to all attacks and this item won't take up a slot. Also, each player gets the Weapon/Implement Expertise feat for free. This might be overkill, but players miss way too much at paragon level. We find that monsters' defenses are just too high, and when combined with massive hit points, you get super long combats. 3. You can use 2 daily item powers/day/tier and without passing a milestone. 4. If a battle is obviously over and the players are spamming at-will powers, I will end the battle unless the players or myself have some reason to continue (for example, if the party is exacting revenge on a group of orcs who had raided them earlier). 5. Players get one extra bonus language. It's annoying when you can't figure out a clue because no one understands the language and you've run out components and/or don't have the ritual. There might be more, but that's all I have for now. Has anyone used any of these house rules, and if so, how successful were they? I welcome any comments from DMs out there, especially those with similar frustrations with 4E. Will the above house rules make the players TOO powerful? I really like 4E, so I hope these rules make us happy. Thanks!
#2 wrecan Apr 02, 2010 12:14:58	Check out the Compilation of Combat Accelerators
#3 dave2008 Apr 02, 2010 12:17:56	How long are your encounters taking? The only campaign I am currently DMing is for my sons and their friends (6-9 yrs old), but we can get through a 10+ round encounter in 30-45 minutes and we got through a 5 encounter adventure in about 4 hours. This is included the fact that I have to do a lot of hand hold becuase this i there first exposure to RPGs and they are only 9 yrs old! That being said, here are my thoughts on your suggestions: 1. This is a good idea. I do something similar, but I don't have a rigid set 25%. Some monsters will have full hit points, some 50%, some I just say are down after 2-3 hits. It all depends on the flow of the game. I was using lots of minions, but my players didn't like it when most of their foes went down in one hit. So I have been making 2 & 3 hit minions w/ rolled damage. 2. I don't really care about this - I just tweak any monster I throw at the PCs so that they can (in general) hit with 8-10. What ever the PCs attacks and defenses are I just adjust the monsters as needed. 3. Depends how you do it, but I recommend (and use) the general concpet. 4. This does not need to be an issue. You can always change the language of the clue, but I see no real problem with giving PCs an extra language.
#4 Balderdash Apr 02, 2010 12:26:39	How long are your encounters taking? The only campaign I am currently DMing is for my sons and their friends (6-9 yrs old), but we can get through a 10+ round encounter in 30-45 minutes and we got through a 5 encounter adventure in about 4 hours. This is included the fact that I have to do a lot of hand hold becuase this i there first exposure to RPGs and they are only 9 yrs old! That being said, here are my thoughts on your suggestions: 1. This is a good idea. I do something similar, but I don't have a rigid set 25%. Some monsters will have full hit points, some 50%, some I just say are down after 2-3 hits. It all depends on the flow of the game. I was using lots of minions, but my players didn't like it when most of their foes went down in one hit. So I have been making 2 & 3 hit minions w/ rolled damage. 2. I don't really care about this - I just tweak any monster I throw at the PCs so that they can (in general) hit with 8-10. What ever the PCs attacks and defenses are I just adjust the monsters as needed. 3. Depends how you do it, but I recommend (and use) the general concpet. 4. This does not need to be an issue. You can always change the language of the clue, but I see no real problem with giving PCs an extra language. Without getting into too much detail, let's just say that our group and yours live on 2 different planets. We typically get through 1 encounter/session, in about 2-3 hours, including socializing and roleplaying, etc. I want a fix that doesn't require too much work and customizing for me, and simple equation works best because I can apply it across the board to all pre-generated monsters. Currently, we often need a 13 to hit monsters, which is absurd. Thanks! Also, thanks for the link wrecan!
#5 dave2008 Apr 02, 2010 12:35:32	Not a problem: Typical monster HP=1/2 normal Damage = x2 All Defenses = average PC attack bonus+8 Tough monster HP=3/4 normal Damage = x2 Strong Defenses = average PC attack bonus+10 Weak Defenses = average PC attack bonus+8 Boss monster HP= normal Damage = x2+lvl Strong Defenses = average PC attack bonus+12 Weak Defenses = average PC attack bonus+9
#6 Myztek Apr 02, 2010 12:36:23	My suggestion, before changing the game, is to record an encounter and listen to it later. Figure out what is taking up the most time. Then, see if there are easy ways to address these time wasting activities. I found that I could speed up my combats by ~25% by: 1.) Asking the next player what they were going to do while the prior player rolled damage. 2.) Prerolling the initiative and first attack roll of each monster. 3.) Helping my players organize their powers so that they didn't need to sort through them every round. 4.) Not bothering with exact math at higher levels. Once the party starts doing enough damage I stop worrying about the exact hit point totals and instead move to bunches of 5 by rounding off damage rolls to the nearest 5. If the PCs hit for 17, I drop 15 off the total. If the next attack is 23, I drop 25 off the total. This makes the game speed up a lot as math can be done far faster in the head when all hp totals end in 5 or 0. I recommend this only after all PCs have at least a +10 to damage. Monsters and PC still use exact totals. I switchted to this when I looked over some old numbers and realized that using this system would not have changed when a monster was bloodied or killed in any of 6 encounters I had recently run. This does require some on the fly adjustment when PCs deal low amounts of fixed damage, but not much. 5.) Highlight triggered abilities in monster descriptions, or have a separate sheet that lists triggers in a combat. This avoids going back to do something that was triggered that you forgot to do.