Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 _radagast__dup Jun 06, 2009 9:37:20	I know there's been tons of threads about how to decrease 4th Edition's combat-grind... I'm looking for a summary of home-brew methods for cutting a combat in half or LESS. Specifically, I'm looking for group experience. People who have implemented these systems into their home game and seen it work. Any help/suggestions would be great. What I'm NOT looking for though is - "make sure your group is not goofing off, has power cards, knows what they want to do on their turn, etc..." This is NOT our problem. It's the system. Especially at Paragon Tier... Thanks!
#2 bone_naga Jun 06, 2009 10:01:48	Place a 1 minute time limit on turns. If the minute is up and the player hasn't chosen his action, he loses that turn (exceptions possible if he thinks he knows but needs to look up a specific rule pertaining to that action). Add the 1/2 level bonus to damage as well. Monsters don't have to always fight to the death, and intelligent ones probably shouldn't without reason. Once the fight has clearly been decided in the PC's favor and the rest is just the HP grind, have enemies start fleeing and/or surrendering. Use power cards or power cheat sheets (copy power blocks from pdfs and paste them into a word file, do the same for monsters being used in the encounter). Make sure you've prepped ahead of time, miniatures are already selected and separated, you know any specific rules and such that are likely to crop up. There should be minimal page-flipping during the encounter. Hope that helps.
#3 Gimric Jun 06, 2009 11:02:18	Some ideas... Take another page from Mass Combat systems and abstract the fight further, in general, but maybe giving focus to one character each combat scene. Abstract combat again, but give bonuses for each power each side has... Once every level-up convert every character to DDM stats, give each player a chance to "run" the party in the skirmish, well maybe that wont save time after all... Anyway just rambling off some random thoughts.
#4 dremik-the-taupe Jun 06, 2009 11:17:36	Simple ideas that work: -Make sure the players aren't having to look something up every turn - they should already have the info they need on a turn by turn basis written down or memorized. This should include most of their powers. -Make a clearly visible initiative list so everyone knows when their turn is coming. -Know the tactics of the monsters ahead of time. Don't over think what you're doing on the enemies turn. -Solos and minions. Both of these simplify fights significantly when used. -Only provide significant detail of important moments in the fight - give only a basic description of the run of the mill hits and misses.
#5 Krusk Jun 06, 2009 11:20:03	Elite and Solo hp, cut in down. I drop it by about 1/3-1/4th depending. -cuts down that "There is one enemy left with 150hp left... time to gind" Lots of minions. ~ One legit foe per PC. My encounter designs usually look something like this for 5 pcs. Encounter A- Goblin bandits. 3 soldier goblins 2 Archer Goblins 1 Leader/controller goblin This gives us some goblins who can run into melee and enage. Lots of foes like this helps make sure none of the enemies Defenses are too high so hitting is possible. Encounter B- Goblin Mage Lord 1 Goblin Mage (controller/striker 2 Goblin Soldiers X Elemental summons (minions) Let the goblin mage summon the minions with a power that recharges on a 5/6 as a minor action. (x=1d6, 1d4, 4, whatever) This gives us our soldiers who can keep the melee guys away from the mage for a few rounds, and gives him time to summon some new minions to pad the fight. The lower ammount of real foes speeds things up, and once they are dealt with the minions go down quick. Basically the minions are there to make it so the fight isn't "Main guy vs PCs" I also don't do XP, so its up to you to determine how to do XP for the minion spawning fight. (I recomend looking at some of the premade monsters, in the adventurs of MM2 that spawn minions. Black PUdding for example)
#6 kouk Jun 06, 2009 11:39:39	Well, where do you see the game taking too long if it's not simply power selection? Figuring out what to do takes the longest; knowing what your powers do in exacts like 2d8+4 (Crit:20) is good, but it may just be your players' taking too long to be tactical. If a fight seems life or death, they tend to slow down as everyone gives more thought to what they're doing so as to not get killed. Are these new characters? I'm assuming not.
#7 hatsuma Jun 06, 2009 11:50:48	1/2 monster hit points, 1/2 party healing surges. Monsters go down a lot faster, PCs feel more confident and don't 'turtle'* as much, less overall grinding per day to burn out pc resources. *I've noticed that the really long combats happend when the monsters get in some good hits and the PCs panic and start playing as defensively as possible, blowing turns on second wind, total defense, running, that kind of stuff.
#8 sephiwind Jun 06, 2009 13:36:48	I'm personally of the mind that I would rather my group take longer in battle, then speeding things up and then haveing them do stupid mistake, after stupid mistake, leading to their inevitable doom. Granted there is a point where you just say your taking too long and either do something or else hold your turn. If players feel they are under a time restraint they are more prone to make bigger mistakes. This is something I have knoticed playing both sides of the screen.
#9 Goober4473 Jun 06, 2009 22:13:01	Here are some things I've done to speed up combat: - Powers cards, which describe the power's effect and has a space to write in attack bonus and damage. - The 30 second rule: you have 30 seconds to take your turn. This is more than enough if you've been paying attention and have an idea of what you want to do. - Blasters: If a fight isn't important, I'll sometimes use "Blasters," which are monsters with half hit points and increased damage output. - Cinematic combat finishes: Once a fight is essentially over, but there may still be a couple rounds of mop-up, I switch it into a skill challenge. The players use attacks as part of the challenge, and can choose to kill the enemies, chase them off, or take prisoners. This turns the last couple rounds of combat into a fast challenge. If they fail, they each lose a healing surge because they got beat up a little extra. Here are my challenge write-ups: http://www.edanet.com/goober/CinematicSkillChallenges.doc When it mentions "basic attack," I allow any at-will attack. Using an encounter or daily power just expends it. It doesn't have any of the effects.
#10 glak2 Jun 07, 2009 8:44:42	Did any of you read the original post? He is saying that the issue is with the game mechanics, not his players. Solution 1: Cut monster hp in half. This drops the challenge of the monster by 1, so assign XP as if the monster were one level lower. To make the encounter remain challenging throw in another monster or throw in one minion per player. We've used this and it works Solution 2: Cut the monster hp in half and double their damage. We're trying this on a campaign starting next week.
#11 pyromancer2k Jun 07, 2009 16:43:56	Did any of you read the original post? He is saying that the issue is with the game mechanics, not his players. Solution 1: Cut monster hp in half. This drops the challenge of the monster by 1, so assign XP as if the monster were one level lower. To make the encounter remain challenging throw in another monster or throw in one minion per player. We've used this and it works How does cutting the monster's HP by 1/2 only lower their level by 1? Monsters on average gain 8 HP per level they don't double HP. And their damage potential doesn't go up that fast either so one level lower monster does maybe 1 damage on average less. Solution 2: Cut the monster hp in half and double their damage. We're trying this on a campaign starting next week. You know it's funny you should mention this cause someone in another thread mentioned they did something along those lines. Except his thread was asking for advice on how to make things more challenging for the players. And a ton of people all pointed to the house rules as contributing to his problem. The reason is because the monsters aren't around as long so they start to get the minion effect. Where if they don't get attacks off they aren't much of a threat and since they only have 1/2 as much board time each attack becomes twice as important. Thus buffs and debuff effects which affect attack bonuses or number of actions (daze/stun) becomes twice as effective. It doesn't matter if you increase you monsters damage if they never get to attack. 1/2 monster hit points, 1/2 party healing surges. Monsters go down a lot faster, PCs feel more confident and don't 'turtle'* as much, less overall grinding per day to burn out pc resources. This has the same problem as mentioned above and lowering the number of healing surges a party has only increases the number of extended rest they need to take. Though it is probably not as noticeable because your players blast enemies away much more quickly so are less likely to get damaged and thus use fewer HS. But in reality it's just making the encounters a lot easier so of course they are less likely to turtle because unless your increasing the number of monsters those encounters are most likely several levels below them because of that HP change to monsters. A lot of suggestions on speeding up combat often come down to reduce the monsters HP and try to counter act the change by increasing the monster damage but this doesn't really work that well. If you truly wanna make it shorter by reducing HP you need to do it for BOTH the players and the monsters. To keep sort of a balance though reduce the number of HP gained per level. This means a bit more math on your part. In the case of players they start with normal HP plus 1/2 what they would normal get each level. In the case of classes that get 5 per level simply alternate between 2 & 3 every other level. Monster always have an even gain per level so no fractions need. But reducing their HP is simple take level * 1/2 HP per level for their roll and subtract it off their total HP. Do all the extra bonuses for elite/solo as well. This setup the monsters and players all start out where they should be when combat was faster and deadlier. But as they level up since both sides gain less HP then normal things don't drift into the grind nearly as much. And yes this option posses the same problem as others in that conditions and other stat effects are much more effective. But because they apply equally to both sides now it's much more balanced then simply changing the monsters HP. This setup gets a much more fast and deadly feel to combat then 1/2 HP monsters with 2x damage. It's also more balanced because player powers like the self damaging bloodmage now translate correctly instead of being 1x self damage for 2x enemy damage like the 1/2 HP & 2x dmg setup does, or the Bloodclaw enchantment take damage to do 2x damage which becomes effectively 4x damage on 1/2 HP & 2x dmg monsters. Plus all the other powers that are meant to scale in such a way that take into account the ratio of player HP to monster HP. All these things get thrown out of whack when you modify the ratio of HP players have compared to monsters. EDIT: Also I did some extensive number crunching a while back and one of the reasons later levels become a bit of a grind is because on average players and monsters gain HP about twice as fast as their damage increases which is what originally prompted me to make the suggestion to my friend's group that wanted to speed things up. But I also wonder if it was slightly intentional since later levels you have 4 encounter attack powers plus 4 daily attack powers plus multiple magic item powers plus several utility powers. So combat is expected to last longer with more effects going off. Just some quick figures for you take the DMG and look at the damage tables. Use any column you will see the damage increase from the 1-3 level only increases to about 2.5-3 times for the level 28-30 damage average. Then take a 14 CON wizard which starts at 24 HP and finishes with 140 HP at level 30. For a total increase to 5.83 time the starting amount. This is even larger on players with 5 or 6 HP per level. And monsters show a similar progression out pacing the players ability to damage them with their HP gains. Which is why so many players feel the need to take as many damage boosting feats as they can later in the game. They are trying to keep up with this HP wall that is out pacing them. This I think is what causes combat to become longer and longer. But if you cut the HP gains in 1/2 that same wizard starts out at 24 HP still but finishes at level 30 with only 82 HP and thus an increase to only 3.41 times as many HP. Which is much more in line with the damage potential increase of monsters. And since HS are based off total HP there is no need to change how they work or how many you get. Though I will admit cleric's heal with the +#d6 are potential more powerful. But any change is gonna effect the balance somewhere. This also scales a lot better then simply whacking off a flat percentage off the creatures which ends up punishing high CON players and monsters more. And it keeps a much more even feel at lower levels since you surely don't want to simply take 1/2 HP off low level players and monsters. Especially since 3-4 good hits can often kill a level 1-3 player would suddenly become 2-3 hits with potential of 1 hit from high damaging monster. This setup makes feats like toughness a lot more attractive too since HP are a lot lower now, I know many people who take tough for lower levels then drop it around level 3-4 because there are a lot of things better then 5 HP to spend a feat on. Even when it hits paragon tier an extra 10 HP from toughness isn't much as players have gained 36-54 HP plus the 20-30 they started with so +10 to 56-84 HP not worth it compared to all the other paragon feat choices. But if they are 38-57 HP come level 11 that extra +10 is a lot more tempting. But try to keep in mind whatever setup you use will change the power level of curtain things be it an increase or decrease. And try to keep an eye out for those things.
#12 ff6shadow Jun 07, 2009 17:30:13	I think the best suggestion I've seen in having players add half level to their damage as well. It doesn't seem like much, but over 5-6 turns, it can really start top add up.
#13 pyromancer2k Jun 07, 2009 17:45:04	I think the best suggestion I've seen in having players add half level to their damage as well. It doesn't seem like much, but over 5-6 turns, it can really start top add up. Oh actually that can become very nasty. It makes AoE powers and multi-attacks (like Ranger) a LOT more powerful while not getting quite as much of a boost to single target attack powers. It's especially nasty by boosting Zone damage effects.
#14 ff6shadow Jun 07, 2009 18:01:17	Yes, it can, but it requires much less effort than altering the HP of all monsters and/or players, if your going to a quick fix. And if your not aiming for the quickest fix, you can add stipulations, such as only adding half of half level to AoEs and multi attack powers, and not adding it to sustainable zones (stinking cloud comes to mind on this clause).
#15 rowl Jun 07, 2009 19:52:26	I've decided to let players add 1/2 their level to damage also. Seems to work well enough and is the simplest solution. It isn't added to zone effects, only the initiating attack. I also like the idea of one legitimate enemy to each party-member. I think there's a balancing issue there that wasn't considered when setting up Encounters based solely on XP was developed. A large group of lower level creatures making a level equivalent XP award for the encounter is a lot harder than a single solo or a pair of same leveled elites. Sub out two of the base creatures for 8 ranged attack minions and don't group them up and that encounter becomes hellish. I've also found that Brutes and Soldiers need their HP lowered. Generally, if the encounter has more than a 1:1 ratio as noted above, and, for instance, the 1:1 is all soldiers and lurkers, but there are also some Brutes and Artillery or Controllers and a leader, I'll halve the Brutes, and maybe the Soldiers too depending on how many of the other types there are. It's more fluid, and based a lot on the ratio and types of creatures present. Mostly there has to be a balance of the number of creatures the party is going against, not just the XP value of those creatures. A party of 5 should never go up against more than 8 enemies assuming those enemies are smart enough not to group together to allow for maximization of area attacks (particularly minions).
#16 evilkobra Jun 09, 2009 8:03:11	Another possible change is to have all attacks deal 1/2 damage on a miss. Aside from making things much quicker, it also means you can use enemies in a far greater level range: BBEGs with ungodly AC will still take (a bit of) damage from low-level chars, and peasants will still be a threat to high-level chars when in sufficient numbers. It also makes the magic item arms race slightly less crazy - an interesting effect or property becomes more important than a simple +1 or +2. Of course, when you change anything in a balanced system, somebody has to get the shaft... in this case it's powers with a Miss effect, though at least the only way they get 'worse' is in that they don't get better like the other powers do.
#17 DarthMayhem Jun 09, 2009 8:15:44	I know there's been tons of threads about how to decrease 4th Edition's combat-grind... I'm looking for a summary of home-brew methods for cutting a combat in half or LESS. Specifically, I'm looking for group experience. People who have implemented these systems into their home game and seen it work. Any help/suggestions would be great. What I'm NOT looking for though is - "make sure your group is not goofing off, has power cards, knows what they want to do on their turn, etc..." This is NOT our problem. It's the system. Especially at Paragon Tier... Thanks! Switch to Savage Worlds!
#18 alisair_longreach Jun 09, 2009 12:41:57	The most popular house rules I've seen around the Net for speeding up combat are these: Lower monster hp. Thighter encounter design. No Solos or Elites above party level. Free Implement/Weapon Expertise feats for the PCs. +1/2 level damage to PC powers. 1 Action Point for every encounter. No limits on Magic Item Daily Power usage. Power Cards and combat tokens.
#19 Shamanstarr Jun 09, 2009 18:04:39	I run games that sometimes include as many as 15 players, with a like number of monsters to challenge them (15 PCs vs like 12-16 monsters) and I can get through even this encounter in under 2 hrs time. Here's how: 1. Use Initiative cards, have them ready for the PCs, all they need is the PC's Name, Character Name, Initiative Modifier, a space for their initiative total, and room for conditions. Have PCs roll their d20's for init, and just tell you the roll, you have the modifier on the card, so can quickly add it and put in the upper left corner of the card, then sort cards in order of initiative, highest on top. Ties go first to the highest Dex, then Highest Init Modifier, then roll off. By doing the math for the PCs, the combat gets started sooner. 2. When the PCs first show up, have them roll their initiative for the first combat. Note it on the cards and get them in order. Let them know your doing this to save time. 3. Use group initiative by types for your Monsters. If you have 2 Kobold Wyrmpriests, use the one card, have them both go on the same round. Roll all your initiatives for your monsters before the game session begins, then have their cards in order so you can place them in with the Characters' cards to begin combat as soon as possible. Mark conditions on the Monster cards, usually with a # next to the condition to show which is affected when there are multiples. 4. Have a single note sheet for each combat that includes your Monsters by type, then listed by #, Figure used, Action Points used, and Hit Points. Leave space beneath the HPs for current hitpoints. A spreadsheet is good for this as well. 5. Mark the pages for the monsters, or, if you have PDFs or feel like typing, put all the Monster Stat Blocks together on 1 page for easy reference, like they do in published modules. 6. On the cards, mark down when Encounter and Daily powers for both the Players and Monsters have been used, one of the things that slows down combat most is the argument that "I haven't used that/yes you have" or "the Monster already did that, is it an At-Will" 7. When a person's turn comes up, if they aren't ready, they are holding their action, move on. they have 5 seconds to focus and tell you what they do. If they have to ask what has happened since their last turn, then they aren't holding their actions, they lose it, they need to pay attention. 8. Get rid of papebacks, laptops, drawing pads, gameboys, etc.. from the table. If the player is using their laptop to keep their character, that's fine, but they aren't to be opening up other windows and browsing the internet, reading blogs, playing games, etc... Game time is time to focus, especially if combat normally takes forever. 9. Balance the encounter. If there is 10 PCs, there should be no more than like 12 Monsters. Sometimes fewer tough monsters maybe balanced out with a few minion are better than lots of equal level monsters. Remember, you can send your players against monsters up to 5 levels above them and they still have a decent chance to hit, just tougher. Exception to this is a Minion Rush, were there are a ton of minions and 1 or 2 real monsters mixed in. PCs can generally handle the minions out of hand so if the majority are minions, you can have up to 3 times the players in minion and not slow combat down, each round several minion should fall. 10. Terrain and Lighting conditions are good for small, strategic encounters, but when you get to larger encounters, unless it's part of how the monster generally attacks, they just distract. Either use wider open areas to attack, or let the players know that all spaces are considered normal terrain, and set the lighting to normal. 11. Have your strategies for the monsters mapped out in advance. What type of characters they typically go for, if they gang up or fight solo. The order they would typically use their encounter/daily/recharge powers, when they will typically use their Action Points. 12. Saves for conditions technically happen at the end of a turn, however, after the affect has been done on a character, feel free to have them roll their save right away while your thinking about it, then if they do save, erase the condition from the card. Remember the effect doesn't end until the end of the turn, however by getting it out of the way, you speed things up, especially conflicts later with having forgotten said affects. 13. Use a battlemat, with wet/dry erase markers. Mark out zones on the mat so you know where they are, erase as they go away or move. This can add a few minutes sometimes, but saves confusion later. Also, if you do run out of time to finish a combat, it makes it easier to mark down where you left off. Take a piece of graph paper, mark each PC's, Monster's, and Zone's position, place the initiative order remaining to the side, don't rely on the cards being kept in order. Mark down conditions on the other side of the paper, again, don't rely on your cards. Place anyone holding actions in seperate list. This way the next session, you can start up combat where you left off in no real time. 14. When you get there to resume a combat, set out your map, mark the character's positions with numbers while waiting for PCs to show up, if you provide the figures, have them in place prior to starting. A House rule we have that adds both realism, and tends to speed up the more bogged down encounters, however it does end with PC deaths on occassion: Shooting into Melee: If you miss by 5 or more when you shoot into melee, you have a chance to hit your allies. On such a miss, randomly determine an ally target, then re-roll the to-hit, if you do, do damage against your ally. This will affect strategy and make the characters think. Might slow some down, but overall it speeds it up. I use this on the Monsters and characters equally. On a fumble, it's an auto-hit on an ally, again, randomly choose, hit and move on. All in all, as you go up in level(tier) and increase number of players, the combats will tend to last alot longer. This is directly affected by the strategies involved in the game and what type of monsters you are sending against them. When you get to Paragon Tier, you should add 50% to the time you estimate for any combat, and add another 50-75% when you get to Epic tier. Good strategic players will cut this number down, using their Controllers to take down alot of hitpoints in ranged Bursts/Blasts/Walls/Zones before melee is initiated. This will drop several if not all minions, and cut the remaining challenges down to a more quickly managable size, without risking taking out their Allies. Feats like War Wizardry helps with this, making it harder to hit an ally with such area spells as well. The card flip method for initiative really does speed everything up, and having things written and erased directly on the card helps handle conditions in a speedy manner. No matter what, I cannot stress the importance of preparation and balance in combat. A combat encounter can be of a higher difficulty or lower, but if you prepare the combat in advance, and try to not have too many individual opponents compared to the number of players. If you do want to do the gang rush, as was mentioned earlier, use Minions, they drop quickly but still give the imagery of a large gang of opponents. If you mix non-minions in with the minions, you create doubt in the players as well. Seuss
#20 maplealmond Jun 10, 2009 3:43:07	Is your party leader-heavy? I had serious problems with my group until some switchouts shifted the party to be more striker heavy. Now I can actually make them worry with the damage I can dish out, and they can cut through enemies faster. A striker heavy party kills and dies faster. A leader heavy party lasts forever. Defender heavy is somewhere in between. My group has a new rule: one leader per party! Not a hard and fast rule, but a general "if we don't optimize our damage, this takes for freaking EVER."
#21 AtomicPope Jun 10, 2009 4:50:02	Any help/suggestions would be great. What I'm NOT looking for though is - "make sure your group is not goofing off, has power cards, knows what they want to do on their turn, etc..." This is NOT our problem. It's the system. Especially at Paragon Tier... Thanks! That is a highly a dubious statement given the fact that most combats in my game last less than 40 minutes and I consider that long. My players are defender and leader heavy (two fighters, one paladin, one cleric, and one warlord with a rogue and a dragon sorcerer, not a lot of damage). If we had more strikers combat would last less than 30 minutes. Still, that's not 2-3 hours. When we first started playing combat took over an hour and twenty minutes. I figured there was something wrong since I played 4e before it was officially released and they were timing combat to see how fast it was. We'd clown, roleplay, and kill monsters. Typical gamer stuff. But my home game took waaaay longer. By ruling out you and your players as the problem you could very well ignore the root of the problem. Question the First - Have you timed each players turn? If not, then... Question the Second - How do you know it's the system? I timed players and myself to see who was taking the longest and why combat was taking so long. Combats would take an hour-and-a-half at a time. After watching and timing the players, writing down their times on a sheet from behind the DM screen, it all came down to two problem childs. One player actually took so long a pizza fresh out of the oven cooled, which we then ate, and put another pizza in the oven; which also finished cooking. The total time was over 28 minutes. Yeah, if left untouched he's like a sloth. The other player would never give a total score. First he'd say the die (or dice) individually. This started with the attack roll. Example: Pokey "Seventeen" DM "Whoosh! You axes strikes the spot where the Quickling was standing." Pokey "Plus proficiency, nineteen." DM "What? Dude! What's the total?" Pokey "Hmm... Seventeen. Plus proficiency, nineteen." DM "Give the the total. That means strength + proficiency + 1/2 level + etc." Pokey "Hmm... Seventeen...?" Ruling out your players and yourself as a basis of fact when you're taking 3 hours is absurd. Time each player, including yourself. Only after timing your players and observing their behaviour should you rule it out. Also, don't tell them you're timing. Let them dally as long as they normally would. If you interrupt them with a stop watch you'll eliminate situations where a player was waffling over their standard action while we were cooking and eating a pizza. You'll discover more about your players and their habits then you've ever noticed before.
#22 pyromancer2k Jun 10, 2009 23:28:00	That is a highly a dubious statement given the fact that most combats in my game last less than 40 minutes and I consider that long. My players are defender and leader heavy (two fighters, one paladin, one cleric, and one warlord with a rogue and a dragon sorcerer, not a lot of damage). If we had more strikers combat would last less than 30 minutes. Still, that's not 2-3 hours. Yea I know what you mean. I hear people complain about their battles taking 2+ hours and wonder what the heck they are doing. Many seem to claim it is the "system" that is broke but My group also maintains a reasonable 30-40 mins per encounter which makes me skeptical. I will admit though the group in question is a bit of a well oiled machine. Many of them I also play wargame minis with so we are use to dealing with large number of models and units all with individual powers and stats. So keeping track of a single model with a few powers isn't much and we often have our moves planned out. But also as you get more experienced you don't have to think about your moves as much cause you automatically know by looking at the board which moves are better. But even in a somewhat less organized group I would imagine them taking an hour to maybe an hour & half while 2+ hours is kinda pushing it and seems like something is wrong there. The problem might not be the players though it might be the make up of the group. A group without any strikers is going to take a lot longer to kill things even though they may do quite well lasting through the longer fights. While the reverse is true as well. I played a game back when PHB classes were the only ones out with 2 rangers, 1 (brutal) rogue, 1 fighter, 1 cleric and we simply burned through encounters. The three strikers slaughtered all before them very quickly an encounters were very short.
#23 Shamanstarr Jun 11, 2009 0:16:16	I also have to agree with the previous posters, how your party is broken down does effect how quickly combat is over with. More Strikers=Quicker successful combats. More Defenders=Longer successful combats. More Controllers=generally unsuccessful combats. More Leaders=long long drawn out, but mostly successful combats. Balanced between 4 rolls=Moderate combats, hit or miss on success rate. The formula I like to work with is, for every 4 characters, there does need to be 1 Striker, and best if 1 other player can double as a striker, as well as 1 Leader. now, a traditional 4 role party: 1 Striker, 1 Defender, 1 Leader, and 1 Controller can fit this bill nicely, as often a Defender or Leader can double as a striker, if played that way, and you still have the Leader to do some healing. A much more efficient party, using the 5 character model, is for every 5 characters, you have 1 of each role, with 1 extra Striker. 2 Strikers, especially working together, can totally desimate their opponents in crackerjack time, where if you use that extra character as a Leader or Defender, you will still generally survive, but take twice to three times as long to do it. Some will tell you if you run more than 5 characters, say, 10-15 characters (like I do often) you should alternate that 5th character, or even keep a locked every 4 characters, you have all 4 roles. I disagree. Take a party of 10. By the alternate method, you have maybe 3 Strikers, 2 Defenders, 3 Leaders, and 2 Controllers, this combat is okay, but will last too long in most cases, for challenges made up for 10 characters. The leaders will keep the characteers alive, and there are 3 good strikers to do some damage and move around, but the number of opponents are such that the combat will drag on, the leaders keeping them alive, the strikers pulling damage down, the defenders drawing attacks, and the Controllers looking for openings to Area Affect. In the lock step fashion, with 10 characters it comes out the same as the alternating method, of course that can go extra Defender, or Extra controller as easily as extra Leader, if it doesn't go extra Striker, however, will take much longer. In a 12 man party, you have 3 of each classes, but typically 1 to 3 more enemies than the 10man party is going to face, so although you have the balance, the extra Strikers would be worth more than the extra of each other role. if I was going to send 2 parties against each other, both of 12 PCs, as follows: 3 Strikers, 3 Defenders, 3 Leaders, and 3 Controllers vs 6 Strikers, 2 Leaders, 2 Defenders, and 2 Controllers, it's almost no context, the 2nd group will win fasts in almost every scenerio. Just some numbers for you. Seuss
#24 aliothefool Jun 11, 2009 4:58:53	I see people blame the group for slow combat, and claim it's got nothing to do with the system, but it always inevitably comes back to those same people saying "Well, you need more strikers in your group!" Everywhere you look, Wizards claims you should have a well-balanced party, including at least one of every role. If you only have 5 players, at least according to Wizards, you should only have two strikers at most. So how is it not the system if your party is built the way the system specifically tells you to? I'm not trying to start an argument, but pointing fingers at people who are simply asking for help doesn't seem very constructive to me. For reference, my group consists of 1 Rogue, 1 Avenger, 1 Paladin, 1 Cleric, 1 Sorcerer, and 1 Wizard. Our combats are lucky to be over in 2 hours. I don't see how having more than one striker is helping us. Everyone is fairly efficient too. It's rare that one of us doesn't know what actions we're going to take on our respective turns. Now whether it is or is not the system, I don't know. I do know that our combats take far too long.
#25 Shamanstarr Jun 11, 2009 8:48:57	That is actually not too bad a group layout, however, here are a few issues as I see it: Your main striker is a Rogue, which really doesn't put out the kind of damage that a Ranger for instance can put out. Did the Rogue take Backstabber? Does the Rogue use its Combat Advantage to his best advantage, in a party like that, the Rogue should be moving back and forth between the Paladin and the Avenger's opponents to give both flanking and take advantage of Sneak Attack every single round it can. If your Rogue is focusing on ranged, as many rogues do, the effectiveness as a striker goes way down. Your secondary striker is a Sorcerer. This class can do alot of damage, no matter which build you do, but again, this is more a ranged striker, and doesn't put out the kind of damage that the king of Strikers can do, the Ranger. Bad dice rolls can of course effect how much damage is done, but shouldn't be too bad. Overall, having 2 Strikers in that group is a good thing, now, let's go on to the rest of the party, you have 2 Defenders, a Paladin and an Avenger. Both of these characters are good about soaking damage and taking the hits for the party. They are not high damage types, although they can double as Strikers. As I said in previous posts, more Defenders generally tend to drag combats out longer, as they soak damage. If you use your Defenders with a Striker's outlook however, this isn't always the case. Personally, at least one of your Defenders in My opinion should have been a Fighter, higher overall damage, gives up some armorclass over the paladin, of course, but makes up for it in solid field control. Now, you have a Cleric, the single best healing Leader in the game. Leaders, as I said, tend to make combats last longer, as they heal people up, keeping them from going down, so they can fight longer, and are less likely to run away. One of your Defenders doubles as a Leader, the Paladin, with its Lay on Hands ability. Sure, that can't be used on himself, and there isn't alot of other Leader type ability to him, but still, can cause combat to drag out a little longer. A wizard, in your final slot, is a good solid controller. How is the wizard being utilized, is it getting in a couple of blasts/bursts in before melee gets going? Does the wizard act as a striker once melee is joined? Magic Missile and Cloud of Daggars are probably his best pin-point powers, and they are at-will. Scorching Burst however makes an excellent low yield pinpoint burst. If placed with care, that one at-will can cause several enemies to lose hitpoints each round. If the monsters stay away from each other, that means your rogue is free to use its mobility, if they get close, use scorching burst. One big advantage you have with your 2 Defenders is that they have less trouble soaking up some residual damage from being too close to a burst, so if its strategicly sound, don't worry about hitting your defenders, just try to hit as many monsters as possible with the burst. When its time to start using dailies, Flaming Sphere puts out a nice amount of damage every turn, on a hit, and only takes a single sustain minor to sustain it until the end of the encounter (read the spell, most people don't realize. but the power does say: Sustain Minor: You can sustain this power until the end of the encounter. As a standard action, you can make another attack with the sphere. and use it from then on to maneuver around the field, doing large amounts of damage on a hit, and creating a convenient hazard just by being there at the start of the Monsters' turns. Often, once the Flaming Sphere is out, the wizard doesn't need to do anything but move it, and attack with it. Again, don't worry about hitting your Defenders with residual damage, although starting next to it is an auto-hit, it only does 1d4+Int for that, a drop in the bucket for Defenders. Yes, your party would be more efficient killing machines if the extra defender was another striker, or if either of your current strikers was a Ranger, but all in all, its not a bad party so I have to wonder about their tactics over all. They are obviously winning the battles, so maybe their tactics are more along the lines of play it safe, slow and steady wins the race, which isn't a bad way to go, but will mean 2-3 hr combats. The rule system obviously doesn't foster primarily long combats, as most of us seem to be able to manage 30min to 1hr combats on a regular basis. Remember though, if it takes just 1 extra minute per player to decide how to act/take their turn, and you have 6 players, a 10 turn combat takes an extra hour to run. Also, as I said in My previous post, how are you at running initiative, how are you at running your monster's tactics, do you have them noted down, or are you at least using the recommended tactics in their MM listings, or are you improvising from turn to turn? How's your other book keeping skills, if every turn, you as the DM spend another minute per player, and then another 5 on average for the monsters than other people are, that's 11 mins per turn that gets used up. At the time, again, that doesn't seem like alot, but if we're looking at the same 10 turn combat (a reasonable combat length) that's another lil over an hour. Between your short delay, and your players short delay, that's 2 hrs down in delays, that don't actually seem like much when they are happening. Players should have their powers looked up, their ranges counted out, and be ready when their turn comes up. If they have to ask you 1 question about the field, that take 15-30 extra seconds to ask, and another 15-30 extra seconds to respond, even if you don't have to look the reference up. Even going "who's turn is it" because they haven't learned the turn order after the 3rd or so rotation will add 15 secs to each turn. Your players should also have their TOTAL to-hit bonus figured for their powers, and their TOTAL damage bonus as well, if it takes them a minute to add everything up, or in some cases, several minutes, your killing play time. On each power listing, do the math, I run a seperate sheet if the Generator wasn't used, for each power, updated whenever the factors change, so I have a Total To-hit (Stat+1/2 Lv+Proficience(if weapon)+Enh+Item+any Misc that always happens) written next to the power, or, under the power in a list if there are several different Weapons that could be used for the power. Same with Total Damage (Stat+Enh+Item+Misc) again noted by weapon or standard circumstance. Some people can add very fast, others take a minute or three to do so, so having the numbers pre-added and ready means combat goes smoother. With really troublesome players or math, it is even prudent to have their standard attack action numbers on their initiative card, then they can just make the dice rolls, you can add them and give the results and move on. I know, these seems nitpicky as far as it goes, but really, every 30 secs you waste per game turn, per character on your 6 PC party is 3 mins, again, a standard combat can run an average of 10 rounds, that's 1/2 hr wasted, every time. In this way, it is kind of the system, because there are so many modifiers and choices to factor in, but as has been said, I can run a table of 15 PCs, and between 13-18 Monsters and do the entire combat in 1.5 hrs, start to finish, and that's without there being alot of minions. The combat is even quicker of course if I'm running fewer monsters of higher levels. Maybe that's your problem, go for tougher monsters, and fill out your field with minion if need be. Seuss
#26 aliothefool Jun 11, 2009 9:31:29	Honestly, that sounds --to me at least-- like "Optimize your characters as much as possible. Come to the game ready to roll your dice. Be absolutely certain what you're going to do long before it's your time to do it." Now there's nothing wrong with that, if that's your play style. However, it's not mine. I'm not playing simply to see how big a monster I can stomp a mudhole in (I'm not the current DM, I'm the Wizard, and I don't have some of the spells you listed because they don't fit my character's story.) I'm playing to have fun with some friends, and get some good roleplaying in. Long combats, to me, simply stand in the way of that (though I don't want to give up combat, because it is fun to stomp a mudhole in a dragon.) It is the system, and is probably the root of the entire "4e ki11s teh rol3play" arguments. I'm not into those arguments, so I don't know. 4e doesn't kill roleplay, but I do think it slows it down (if you want to be competent in battle.) I think what threads like this are asking is, how can I build my characters to fit well enough into a party, without having to spend 3 hours a day in the CharOp forum, while not forcing combat to last 2 hours? (That's at least my question.) I have no intentions of getting into an edition war argument, and I hope this post doesn't sound like I am. I'm just looking for ways that we can realistically speed up combat without having to be machine-assembled robots. Granted, some of the problem is that we aren't dead-serious when combat is happening, but that's the group's play style. We're there to have some fun. There have to be ways besides simply laser-focusing on the fight to speed things up.
#27 Nibelung_ajr Jun 11, 2009 9:52:19	I play on Fantasy Grounds, and can finish most of my encounters in 45~60 mins. Anyone know that play online is slower than a table, so i bet that in RL i could put my fights down to 30 mins easily. There's nothing about the monsters setup, nothing about the party (already DMed to striker-heavy and defender-heavy party), just about my 1 minute rule. Tell what you are doing in 1 minute, or your character will activate full defense action. The same rule works for me and my monsters, so i cant think a lot about coordinated actions. And dont cheat like "oh, i forget the monster was slowed. So he didnt moved, yes, he throw a javelin". You made a mistake, the mistake is done. Your players will fell great for really messing the monster, and they will value tactical effect instead of pure damage. Besides, check if a 3-hour long encounter is something you really need to avoid. In the campaign i'm a player, fights tend to get all this way because the DM hide our HPs, and we know only the status (unhurt, hurt, bloodied, dying, dead). So, our leaders need to think better about splash healing around, and we need to RP a lot (really, talk there is almost a move action :D ), but all players have a lot of fun with this 3-hour encounter, so turning it down to a DDM minigame inside the bigger Roleplaying game isnt what all people want.
#28 Shamanstarr Jun 11, 2009 13:57:24	There is nothing wrong with having a role-play heavy group/playstyle. You just have to realize that such playstyles are going to end up taking longer in encounters, AND THEY SHOULD! Whenever you inject roleplaying, it slows down the overall advancement of the game for the sake of character/story development. Having a 2-3 hr encounter doesn't hurt if your spending that whole 2-3 hr time slot, plus before and after, developing your character as an individual instead of a sheet of stats and powers. 4e has quite possibly the FASTEST combat system of any edition to date. The thing is, having your numbers and choices ready will speed it up, not having it will slow it down, but either way, the error doesn't lie AT ALL in the system, by your descriptions of how it works. My players are not JOE SERIOUS JOHNNY ON THE SPOT types either. They crack jokes, make movie references, and build their characters according to concepts. My Wizard is a Dwarven Wizard who, when given a choice, always takes the powers that have the Fire Keyword, because that's his concept. He uses Flaming Sphere because 1. Its got the fire keyword, and 2. Its a long lasting 1st level daily that can potentially hit every round for 3d6+Int damage, and also does auto-damage as a hazard if you start your turn next to it of 1d4+Int. He uses Scorching Burst for similar reasons, 1. Its got the Fire keyword, and 2. Hit can hit more than one enemy as a burst, but as a burst 1, it's not that big of an area to worry about getting all your allies, and its an at-will, so can be used any round, without having to worry about wasting it. I'm not saying you need to optimize your characters, I am saying, if you don't optimize your party structure, or you strategy, or both, you are going to have to expect to take 2-3 hrs for your combats, if this means 1 combat encounter per session, and the rest is roleplay/filler, that's fine in a roleplay heavy group, in fact that's ideal. 1 Good intense encounter is just what you need to break up alot of roleplaying, or to roleplay through. Instead of trying to speed up the encounter, instead I would find ways to just make it more descriptive and build it into the whole overlying Roleplay intensity of your group. Don't just say "I use this power, rolled a total of this, for this much damage" instead say "I brandish My staff, letting words of arcane force flow from My lips as a spark of red floads towards the center of My opponents, suddenly bursting into a flaming conflagration" *roll, roll, roll, roll* "I hit X, Y, and Z, each taking # damage" and then go on to the next player. If you are into playing in character, not optimizing, not overly strategizing, not looking ahead to your next turn and being ready, the turns are going to take longer, and that is something you'll just have to deal with, that in no way reflects the mechanics, sounds to Me like it directly reflects your play style. Can't have it both ways My friends, sorry. To speed things up, you gotta give something up to optimization and readiness. Seuss
#29 pyromancer2k Jun 11, 2009 16:58:31	I play on Fantasy Grounds, and can finish most of my encounters in 45~60 mins. Anyone know that play online is slower than a table, so i bet that in RL i could put my fights down to 30 mins easily. Actually I don't agree with this. And in fact playing online can speed things up a lot more then playing at the table. My group switched over to VTT back when gas prices were super higher because many couldn't afford to take a 45+ min drive each way to our gaming location. And honestly I think our online combats go a lot faster then face to face ones. I know someone mentioned having all the attack bonus totals written out for several different weapons so they can easily switch on the fly. Well when we play it auto-calcs the attack bonus based on the weapon you are using so you simply change weapons and it tells you the new attack bonus. It totals up the dice rolls for you very quickly as well. A simple macro does damage and healing so no need for all the erasing current HP you normally do when fighting. There a lot of tracking stuff that can be done which might not be as noticeable to the players but for the DM's it's very nice cause they have several monsters to manage. If anything the DM's turn can easily take the longest and I hear a lot of tips on how to speed up the players but sometimes the DM needs to pickup his game as well. I think the slowness factor of playing online is at the start when people are first learning the interface of whatever VTT they are using. And some are better then others at managing those things as well.
#30 Nibelung_ajr Jun 11, 2009 17:33:15	I think the slowness factor of playing online is at the start when people are first learning the interface of whatever VTT they are using. And some are better then others at managing those things as well. No, that's come because typing is slower than talking. Because of some audio issues with 2 members, we dont use Ventrillo/Teamspeak, and all actions need to be writen. And we still use the 1-min rule. I agree that a VTT does wonders to DM (specially to check if someone is cheating, can never be sure), but i disagree about the player efectiveness. At least, >I< play very fast with a charsheet on my hands because i do the most common math before the game and bring a resume to table.
#31 Shamanstarr Jun 11, 2009 17:34:19	Actually, I mentioned ways to keep the DM more efficient too. Using index cards to track initiative, and take the same cards and mark them with conditions that need to be saved against, or end on a specific person's next turn. Keeping a cheat sheet or spreadsheet to track each monster, what fig represents which one, how many hitpoints he has left, what powers have been used, who has him cursed, marked, as quarry, oath of enmity, etc.. Mark pages in the MMs so you can quickly flip back and forth, or copy/paste from PDFs, or type out the essential information on a cheat sheet so you don't need to flip pages at all. Use a dry/wet erase battle mat instead of dungeon tiles, so you can quickly mark, and remark zones, and character positions. Have your monster's initiatives rolled before you get to the table and have their index cards ready, in order, have your players roll their initiative when they first get there for the first combat, even if it's not happening right away. Know your Monster's tactics, both the ones in the MM listing, and the specific ones you have planned for the specific encounter so there is less on the spot thinking required. You can still think out of the box when something comes up you didn't plan for, but if you know in general what the Monsters will do, which types of characters they will target, etc.., things go alot quicker. Don't overextend yourself as a DM, if you have to, deligate some of the DM jobs that you can to an assistant, especially things that won't give away your plot, like having one of them run the initiative, have another one act as caller for the players, so you don't have to talk to everyone in a large group all the time, know your rules, and definately have them pagemarked in the PH1 and 2. The DMs turn is the longest turn, has the most actions going on, BUT, the DM has the highest potential for earlier preparation. If the DM takes too long, that magnifies your time problems by quite a bit. Consider the DM might run 3 different monster groups, with 3 different initiative sequences, each sequence having 2 or 3 monsters, if He takes 2 mins over on each case, that's like 6 x 3=18 mins per turn, 3 turns that's almost an hour of lost time. It can often have to do with the DM's overall time, combined with the players, that makes for quite a time deficit. Say you have 5 players, each take a minute extra per turn, add that to the 18 mins per round that the DM takes, we're now up to 23 mins per round, again, let's look at the 10 round combat, I still say that's a good average, that's 230 Mins, almost 4 hrs, obviously this is easily where the problems really surface. Just cutting that number in half is 115 mins, that's still just shy of 2 hrs, time management is key, for the DM and the players alike. If the game is still flowing, you can have the jokes, the comic relief, etc..., but if they start to delay turns by even a little bit, they delay the game by miles! Let's say there are 5 players, and 5 monsters, nice balanced encounter, right? that's 10 actions, at 30 secs per action, that's 6 mins per turn, 10 turns, your looking at an hour lost. Its not the rules, its simple math. Figure if you take normally, with no wasted time at all, per turn, optimized, 15 secs each, that's 150 secs, or 2.5 mins, times 10 rounds, that's 25 mins, people who are dong 30-45 min combat are either pulling off that kind of time scale, running combats that run under 10 rounds, or a little of both. Seuss
#32 pyromancer2k Jun 12, 2009 18:55:56	No, that's come because typing is slower than talking. Because of some audio issues with 2 members, we dont use Ventrillo/Teamspeak, and all actions need to be writen. And we still use the 1-min rule. Well yea if you can't use a voice talk tool and people type slow it can really slow things down for online play. I agree that a VTT does wonders to DM (specially to check if someone is cheating, can never be sure), but i disagree about the player efectiveness. At least, >I< play very fast with a charsheet on my hands because i do the most common math before the game and bring a resume to table. But some people tend to be a bit unorganized and others can't seem to remember their own info and constantly have to double check it. The VTT can help those players that can't seem to get themselves organized as well. Like I know some people use VTT even when player face-to-face cause it allows them to easily keep track of a lot of things so they don't need to stress as much over players who just can't seem to get organized.
#33 lord_welkerfan Jun 13, 2009 12:07:47	Here are a couple of threads that discuss this and some very good advice over on ENworld. A clever mechanical change involving hit points and experience Stalker0's guide to the anti-grind This is wonderful. It shows how a lot of problems with grind come from poor choices in monsters for fights (too many brutes and soldiers, for exmaple).
#34 redkat85 Jun 27, 2009 16:38:19	"make sure your group is not goofing off, has power cards, knows what they want to do on their turn, etc..." :D OK, but seriously. I've definitely had slogs before where everyone's turn was a pretty simple "declare action, roll, hit or miss, next!" and the fight still took over an hour. Here are some things I've been doing: 1) Levels. I use a lot of the DMG's encounter templates and XP budgets, but they're not always perfect. I try to remember to check my players' actual attack bonuses against the monsters' defenses. If they only have a 20-30% chance to hit, even if the relative levels are appropriate as far as the encounter template is concerned, that fight is going to take a long time. 2) Number of creatures. I get into mixed encounters, usually with several kinds of monsters, but for each turn in the initiative order, no matter how fast, it does slow the game down. Hopefully you're already rolling single initiative rolls for each type of monster instead of each individual - it helps me out a lot. 3. Area, burst, and blast powers. This is a huge time saver for me. Condense attack rolls for area, blast and burst powers into a single roll instead of one per creature. If the player (or monster) rolls higher than every creature's defense, they hit everything in the area. If they hit some and not others, great. If they missed even the lowest of the defenses in the area, tough cookies. Not rolling for individual targets in AoEs may sound a little broken, but it does really speed up play. Alternative Ruling I actually have an alternative ruling for missing everything, but it's pretty hackneyed: they can re-roll, but the creature with the highest defense is guaranteed safe. If they keep missing all the creatures, they can keep re-rolling, but one more creature is untouchable each time. As soon as you hit anything, all creatures with that defense or lower, that haven't been eliminated yet, are considered hit. Example: A wizard casts scorching burst so that it targets a gnoll demonic scourge (Reflex 18) and two goll claw fighters (Reflex 16). His total roll, after attack bonus is 14, which misses everything. The demonic scourge is officially safe, but he can reroll and try for the two claw fighters again. He gets a total of 19 on this new roll, so both claw fighters get hit, but the scourge is unharmed, because it was already removed from consideration, got it? -If he'd missed with roll #2, he'd get a final roll to try to get one of the claw fighters, DM's choice, before having to admit total failure. -If he'd rolled, say a 17 on the first roll, he would have missed the scourge, but hit both claw fighters, without any need for additional rolls. That's the ideal situation, which happens more often than not in mixed-monster groups.