This post is inspired bu a Twitter discussions I had last week.
As my player level up right into paragon level, I noticed that the length of combat in D&D 4e kept increasing. We often break the 90 minutes point for ‘normal’ encounters and massive boss-level fights will easily eat up most of our 3 hours long gaming sessions.
That started to bother me, although some of my players told me that they were having fun. In fact, they clearly told me that they would rather play longer fights than get rushed to play faster.
Fine, but I’m still bothered… I’d like to do more in my short D&D sessions.
I also know that this is an issue for many group playing the last 2 versions of D&D (and some newer games like Savage Worlds, or so I hear).
But here’s the thing, the length of combat in a RPG is only an issue if someone in the gaming group stops enjoying the scene. If everyone is engrossed in it and time flies, then there’s no problem.
However, if a player (or DM) stops enjoying the fight, then having it continue for more than 50-60 minutes will start taxing that player’s willingness to delay his enjoyment for the sake of others.
(And that brings a whole other subject, in that D&D 4e’s default take on intense tactical combat can and will turn off players who aren’t at least partly motivated by kicking butts or tactical planning. Storytelling Psychodramatist will certainly be irritated by long fights…).
The length of D&D 4e combat is usually attributed to the following:
- Turn planning:
- Power choices for high level PCs
- Analytic-minded players
- Brilliant Tactician and Optimizer players
- Low Experience Players/DM
- Page Flipping (Lack of Power Cards or monster stats)
- All the above combined
- Encounter Design
- Evil Combos that abuse keywords and status effects (Insubstantial + Regen + Weakness = no fun)
- Regular use of Elites and Solos
- Poor choice of monster roles (ex: all Soldiers and Controllers)
- A Storming Group : (Player conflict, rampant rules lawyer-ing and general lack of focus)
- Tired players and /or DM
Now, I recently realized that what really kills me during combat encounters (pun unintended, but retained after edits for chuckles) is when The Grind sets in.
The Grind is defined as the stage of a combat where the outcome is clearly in the party’s favour but the players must still go through the motions of whittling monster HPs down to zero.
While people have experienced the Grind in most types of combat, my group sees it mostly in fights featuring Solo monsters and Elites. Since I’m the one bothered about it, preferring that we progress in our story rather than spend an extra hour mopping up a fight, I’ve come up with my own fix.
- Use the ‘corrected’ D&D Monsters stats from the D&D Compendium, Solo hit points were dropped 15% across the board with a few exceptions (Dragons iirc, which are underpowered, but that’s another discussion).
- When a combat enters the Grind stage and energy level of group starts dropping, I call the fight off, using narration to explain how it ended.
- If the remaining fight could still cause significant damage to PCs, I may attribute a Healing Surge Tax, provided player approval, to account for end of combat wounds.
Now this post initiated from Twitter and some of the ideas I present here sparked some more discussions:
Destrin: that’s such a simple idea I didn’t think of it…though my pcs would want to play on to try and prove they can avoid the tax 😉
That should be in the player’s power to do so… however, some players, bored with the fight may actually come forward and pay the Healing Surge tax themselves!
chgowiz Doesn’t that preclude that the players may not win the combat?
The Grind is hard to define but evident to spot. There comes a point in a D&D fight that even if you score Crits, no players are going to die, unless there’s a freak statistical event.
chgowiz: Sometimes even in death, a little itty bitty thing can cause interesting random results. Don’t shortchange the power of dice.
In older version of the game (Chgowiz is a grade A Old School), the story was probably often shaped by the swing of the dice, as my crazy Gen Con Sword & Wizardry experience can attest to. In D&D 4e, the story is, IMHO, less defined by wild swings in chance.
Another point I discussed was that if the DM was the only one bugged by combat length, he/she should work elements in the combat to make the ‘end game’ more interesting. For instance, you could use Load-Bearing bosses (or rather, Load-Bearing minions), Damaging Terrain, Fiendish Traps that PCs can use against high HP monsters, etc.
With all the time D&D 4e DM save preping for adventures (compared to D&D 3.5), why not use some of it to design cool environmental conditions for the fight.
This launched another series of comments:
TheGamerDome It feels a little artificial to have every single room be a set piece with fantastic environmental elements.
It doesn’t have to be, long drawn-out combat should not happen every time, or at the very least, if the whole group agrees to play slowly, the Grind should not occur all the time. If it does, something needs to be addressed regarding the way your encounter are designed or the way the group plays the game.
For instance, a 4e group refusing to perform as a team will see combat stretch much longer than need be as they won’t be using the built-in synergies that a party can muster.
Published adventures often have design issues in their combat encounters, it’s still as much an art as it is a science. You want my trick? More Artillery and Skirmisher, less Soldiers and Controllers… and traps!
DaveTheGame@ChattyDM I’ve found the best defense against grind in any game is to give clear objectives for combat beyond “kill ’em all”
That is possibly the best advice I could share on making fights shorter. Stop using the ‘bring monster HP to 0’ default goal and add new victory conditions. In fact, you can create endless mini-games by mixing battlemap, combat and Skill Challenge elements to a combat scene.
Just look at the ‘ Rockball’ game encounter in the back of the Dungeon Master Guide, you could easily adapt it to have a Skill Challenge where hitting 4 Switches on a nearby wall would open a door allowing the party to dodge the endless horde of Kobolds pouring out of holes in the walls.
TheGamerDome@ChattyDM Also, The Grind isn’t just about the time it takes to finish, it’s about inevitability.
I keep saying that D&D4e and Magic the Gathering are more similar than what people think. It is precisely my experience with Magic and the concept of Inevitability (The point where you can’t lose a Magic game, baring gross player mistakes) that made me react to the Grind by ‘scooping up’ my monsters and moving on to the next Match Scene.
In my opinion, what it boils down to is:
As a DM, you need to gauge the relative fun of everyone now against the potential fun of the next scenes. If present fun takes a dive, move on to the next scene. And always, don’t make edicts, talk to your players, you might be misreading non-fun as concentration or tiredness.
What about you? How do you deal with long combat scenes in D&D 4e or your favorite game, I hear that Savage Worlds can also be like that.
Sound Off!
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I’m going to make an attempt at timing my players’ actions next time we play. You have :30 seconds to decide your move, if you go past that time, you’re skipped. My reasoning is that combat is a hectic affair, both on the battlefield and around a table.
D&D isn’t a chess match. One way to simulate the adrenaline rush of battle is to impose a time limit on actions.
I blogged more about this over at my blog this past week, and it sparked an interesting discussion, with many different points of view from commenters.
I invite you to check it out: http://newbiedm.com/2009/08/24/imposing-a-30-time-limit-on-4th-ed-players/
.-= newbiedm´s last blog ..Star Wars scroll for my SW: Dawn of Defiance game. =-.
I have been giving a trial run to an idea I read somewhere (and for the life of me can’t find a link for – but kudos to the gentleman that thought it up). I up th critters damage by x1.5 and i drop the critters life by xo.75. Its simplistic, it doesn’t work all the time but in the last 4 sessions I used it in, I found that the party was just as threatened, with far less grind.
The other trick I use, is a pure ChattyDM original … far fewer Controllers and far more Artillery. Artillery dishes out significant damage while being fairly squishable and more than one Controller just ends up taking the fun out of a fight – as we saw recently in a friend’s campaign. One character spent the entire combat immobilised by Wight’s and eventually resorted to throwing pieces of armour at them to at least try and do some damage. Humorous, yes, but not much fun for the player.
@NewbieDM: I hope this works for you, but it puts you in the role of the bad guy and enforcer. If the trust/authority invested in you by your players allows it, then great! I agree that it isn’t chess, but as someone pointed out on Twitter, 4e punishes sub-optimal plays, which then fosters overcautious play.
It really depends on how adversarial the DM is when he plays the opposition. I play monster sub-optimally, so players can afford to be a bit more careless.
I’ll be curious to see how this pans out for you.
@Corvys: I’ve seen the idea promulgated around. I’m not quite ready to espouse it, but I’ll keep it as a backup. I agree that overuse of status effect are joy killers. Careful balance of 4e encounters is harder than it seems at first glance.
Good post! The key is really to find out how long is too long, and half it. Think hour-long combats are too much? Aim for 30 minutes and you’ll keep the momentum flowing.
I’ve already had a lot to say about how to speed up 4e combat, here.
.-= greywulf´s last blog ..So anyway….. Dark Sun =-.
I am a big fan of opponents fleeing when the battle seems lost, bit lately my players have unconsciously changed this tactic into a new minigame: let no one escape alive (or intact in the case of the undead). This could be my doing as there have been times when letting some minion live has come back to haunt them. However I’ve noticed that it changes the nature of the end game. The grind goes away and it becomes a race, where they break out the utility powers and see how well a party without a fighter can tackle someone.
This may sound really odd… but how do the guys that play tactical miniatures combat (ala W40K, Battletech, etc) do it? They have victory conditions – ie., when a certain objective is captured, the fight is “over”. Now that does sound a bit odd for D&D, but if the tactical nature and combat encounter is the thing, maybe there’s lessons to be gained by going back to the wargame roots and looking for inspiration.
Combine what Dave is saying “the goal” with your idea “the inevitable” and come up with victory conditions. Don’t tell the players of course, but make it simpler in your head to say “OK, when they get here…”
It’s just a thought. Since most of my combats are < 60 min (AD&D, 8 to 10 players, 10+ monsters, that usually causes the long fights – or grappling. Heh.), I don't have any RL play experience ideas.
Also a nice trick is that fleeing monsters can (25% of the time base in OD&D IIRC) drop stuff. Nothing like a trail of tossed gear or lost items.
Finally, opponents fleeing may have backup positions, booby traps, etc. Make it interesting. Cpt Cursor, it sounds like the players are having fun, I think it sounds great what they're doing. Just remember, the monsters can and do strike back…
Like Captain Cursor, I also use the retreat as a way to cut a fight or sometime they just surrender. Like Dave said I also have in most of my fight alternate way (goal) of winning the fight. On top of that I use skirmisher, artilleries & minions a lot and rarely use solo creature.
When I build my combat encounter I try to infuse stuff in it so it will be dynamic. I mean by to include things that will change during the fight, some extra monster comes in as reinforcement or part of the floor falls taking some monster with it etc… All of this to make the combat more alive in the grand scheme of things but at the same time prevents the grind effect.
@Captain: I too am a proponents of creatures fleeing, except I happen to often use monsters that have no internally logical reason to want to flee (Undead, Aberrants).
As you put it, this would probably become a mini-game in itself and bring some fun back to the fight. Good thinking.
@Chgowiz: Excellent suggestions that tie what Dave and I have been saying. In fact taking, once again, a page from Mouse Guard, maybe I should give both monsters and PCs conflict goals that go beyond ‘kick the crap out of the Intruder/guard’
In fact, maybe one of the core lesson of 4e (and it’s partial return to the game’s roots in term of wargaming) is to stop thinking of combat encounters as obstacles and more as conflicts between 2 opposed agendas.
There I go again, slipping toward that idea of creating a Gygaxian Dungeon (The one filled with conflicting humanoid factions) with 4e.
I find the worst of the Grind comes with Elites and Solos, when they’ve exhausted all the really threatening powers and are reduced to their basic attack, for round after round after round. Usually what I do is blatantly cheat and recharge an encounter power if things start to lag. Or have the thing flee when bloodied.
But a more outside-the-box answer that’s worked for me in the past is to change tack and strike opportunity targets while fleeing. A bunch of routed ghouls become a little more serious when two of them grab the unconscious fighter and try to drag him underwater. If the fights are going to take so damn long, they might as well at least be interesting the whole way through…
@Rob: I’m with you 100% about Elites and Solos.
Your strategies to deal with the monsters (fleeing with objectives) and such are really good.
Or. like Yan says, maybe there can be environment elements that can take out monsters (or catapult them outside of combat range).
I like where the suggestions have been going so far. Way cool.
I’ve also noticed that 4E combat can drag on.
I’ve been considering developing expanded critical hit charts, like I’ve used for (and seen in) other systems.
Perhaps a table the player gets to roll on when they roll a 20, with options for max damage (like the rules say), and double max damage — perhaps 3xmax. Also include effects like knocked prone, stunned, blinded, etc.
Perhaps “loosening” up the critical hit rules a bit, include 19 an 20.
I would be reluctant to narrate the rest of the combat, I’d be afraid of robbing the tacticians in the group from their moment of actual victory.
When we reach the point where the players have the inevitable win, I reduce the hitpoints on the remaining monster(s). It’s not an exact science, if a monster already has damage, the next hit makes it bloodied no matter how many points it had left, and 2 more sizable hits finish it off. If a monster is already bloodied, the next 1 or 2 good hits kill it.
Here’s the trick Stu, Tacticians want to win, they don’t need a climactic win. They want to see their strategies rout the enemy.
In fact, you could ask your tactician. “The Monsters are demoralized by your party’s prowess… now describe to me how the rout would go so we can all save an hour and go on to the next scene’
I’m sure it would work…
Like Phil said but you have to time it when it is apparent to the player also that they will most likely win otherwise you will give them the impression your dumbing down the fight and tactician do not like that… 😉
The “objectives in combat” I tend to look not in the same vein as wargames (though that’s a perfectly fine way to look at it too), but moreso how I can use the combat to tell a more interesting story. I guess what I mean is add more motivations to your bad guys (other than just kill ’em all) and let the combat scenario grow from there, if your experience are anything like mine, you’ll find much less of a grind naturally.
One of my favorite combat encounters from my campaign in recent memory was an Indiana Jones-inspired temple romp that culminated in a gelatinous sphere trying to run over the party while giant snakes tried to trip the PCs up and prevent them from escaping. Instead of focusing on having the snakes just try to kill the party, I tried to play them by using the objective of stopping the PCs from escaping so the sphere could get them, whereas the PCs’ objective was to escape with the McGuffin.
Chatty’s Dungeonbowl games are another good example, even without the referee rules and such: your party is trying to get a ball across the goal line, the bad guys are trying to stop you.
.-= Dave T. Game´s last blog ..GenCon 2009: High Level D&D Seminar =-.
This has been one of my greatest quibbles with 4e.
Players are always going to operate on a Daily-Down scheme. Dailies -> Encounters -> At-Wills. It is in the party’s best interests to maximize output at any given moment.
There’s no reason the DM needs to observe this. Messing with the Daily-Down paradigm shifts the combat intensity from front-side to backside. Plus, if you recognize the Daily-Down paradigm as something that is malleable, you create another aspect of variation to present for your players and make combat more dynamic.
I had an odd experience with the grind recently. It was, in fact, completely my fault.
Here’s how it went, the party descended into the mountain below a dwarfen stronghold to investigate the strange going’s on from some local theives. It turned out not to be thief related at all, but some strange form of dragon cult. Dwarfs were all gathered around some otherworldly being (looking like a cross between a dragon and a demon) and apparently worshipping, well, dragons. After the boss’s minions were dispersed and the party working hard on defeating him, I realized that I had given him an ability that, while it wouldn’t save him, would ensure that the boss would hang on for the next day or so of fighting. I blame myself for not thinking things through, but my players tend to burn through enemies like thermite through an engine block: fast and scary to watch.
The ability I gave him let the boss grant himself a healing surge worth of temporary HP every round. The party got him down to 21 hp (out of 320), but when they ran out of encounter and daily powers, their damage output slowed enough that they could only get a HP or two of damage in every third round. This was, ultimately, my mistake. Even though my players have hard-core fighting ability, I should have upped the level of the boss instead of granting the at-will temporary HP ability (to be fair, it was normally a base ability that worked once per encounter, but the DMG recommended changing one encounter ability to an at-will ability when making the mob a solo).
Lesson learned, there.
I’ve got two ideas I have been thinking about for 4E combats, but have not implemented yet.
First, to speed up combat, give the creatures half their hit points BUT double the damage they do. The players are the same. This may seem extreme, but it makes all creatures more potent, but should make the combat faster. Most creatures don’t have single attacks when doubled that kill a player outright — just hurt him badly and possibly knock him down. My only concern — it may give effects from spells more power than expected (being immobolized or knocked prone is effectively as if it happened for two actions).
Second, a closer idea to what has been discussed here about time limits, is the idea of not penalizing players for being slow, but give them a reward for being fast. I’ve been mulling over what that reward for be. The simplest idea is a bonus amount of XP if the players finish the encounter in 1 hour. Another idea is counting the single encounter as a complete milestone instead of two. And finally, the last is a bonus action point for the next encounter. As you can see, its a flip of being ‘good guy rewarding dm’ instead ‘evil bad punishing dm’.
This was a great post, but I guess I’m in the minority in thinking that the combats for my 4E game aren’t really any longer than any other version of the game I’ve played in the past.
My players are all veterans of online rpg games; which means that they have a feel for what combats are important and which ones are simply the “stepping stones” to the “big boss”. As a result, they make good use of their encounter powers and save their dailies for the boss.
Now when the characters were 1st and 2nd level, I took down the hit points of their opponents by 10 points (a figure I arrived at arbitrarily; as halving them was too much). This reduction sped up play considerably. Once the characters passed 2nd level, though, it was no longer necessary to do that. The characters were defeating the monsters quite handily in some cases.
I agree with NewbieDM, though. I limit the amount of time my players have for strategizing. If my player can’t come up with an action in 30 seconds, we move on to the next player. At the same time, I make sure the monsters force the issue. They don’t just stand there waiting for the characters to make up their minds. This moves things along as well. None of these things are done to the detriment of the ongoing story, they just exist to keep combats as efficient as possible.
.-= Deadorcs´s last blog ..Character Considerations: Ian Talmadge =-.
Sorry, to clarify the last post — the players are NOT halved in hit points and NOT doubled in the damage. They are the same players as usual.
There is no doubt that 4e combats are long, and longer at Paragon and then again at Epic levels. This is not really that new of an issue. d20 had the same problem. When I ran Iron Heroes, my combats got longer and longer as the players crossed 10th level and headed for 20th. I came up with a few ways to deal with it.
1. Scaling Mooks: As the players progressed in level, I took lesser monsters that use to be tough for them, and reduced them to mooks. No need for a 15th level Executioner to have to take a couple of swings at 7th level Knight. The Knight became a one hit mook. This way I could still use lots of them, with their higher attack bonuses, but never had to track their hit points.
2. Less Combat Encounters: The classic D&D dungeon trope (oh did I use trope in my comment..) has a number of smaller, resource consuming encounters, followed by a more significant encounter. Get rid of the small encounters. Your Epic heroes should not have to worry about crawling room to room. They should just show up to the fight, and get swinging.
Give them 1-2 combats in a session, and use the rest to drive the story.
At starting at Paragon, and defiantly for Epic levels, combat scenes should be for a specific purpose, not to use up Daily powers and healing surges. Combats in the higher tiers should be story driving.
3. Press Your Players: If your players have been playing since level 1, then they should know their powers and their character inside and out. They do not need more time at higher levels to figure out what to do, they been playing this character level after level, they should know what they can do. So run your turns fast, press your players into making decisions, quickly.
4. Script Your Monsters: When your monsters turn out to have a ton of powers and abilities, thinking of how to use them, while running a combat, will result in you either going too slow, or not using the monster to its full ability. So for the important encounters, write a little script of what the monster is going to do. You may not stick to it, but you will have a place to start from.
Just a few thoughts.
I find 4e combat to faster than 3.x, whether players know what they’re doing or not. Of course it’s slow when they don’t, but that kind of carries over across everything.
As long as the players know their roles and powers, and the DM stays on top of status markers, I find 4e to run significantly faster than previous editions.
Yeah, combat in 4e takes longer than it feels like it should. But that’s been true of every system I have ever played, no matter the ratio of fluff to crunch. The only thing that speeds combat up is experienced players who want combat to go fast.
From what I’ve seen, one of the biggest problems is contingencies. The DM can’t just say “you take 20 hit points of damage” and leave it at that.
You see, the Swordmage has Aegis of Shielding up, so that’s 6 hit points absorbed and the damage is down to 14. Also, you have been granted Resist 5 until the end of an ally’s next turn; after you double-check that it still applies, you reduce the damage to 9. Then, you remember that you have 3 THP, so 9 becomes 6, and now you are done.
Not! You suddenly remember that you have an Immediate Reaction power that let’s you use a healing surge under these exact circumstances. You add 15 hit points back in. And now you are done, for real.
Sorry, I don’t think so. Because it’s not just a matter of doing all of this math in your head — you have to explain it to the DM, one step at a time so he can understand why you aren’t bloodied yet. You have to mark off the damage and remove the THP. You have to mark as “used” the power that let you surge. Oh, and you also have to remind everyone that because you used the power, there is a side-effect that gives everyone adjacent to you a +2 AC bonus until the start of your next turn.
The next player has been listening carefully to all of this complexity, so when the DM says “okay, your turn”, he has lost track of what he meant to do, and in any case needs to revise it to take into account the new tactical situation. Maybe not every time, but often enough.
To borrow a term favored by Neal Stephenson in his novel Cryptonomicon, it’s all about the “ramifications”. Branching contingencies, baby.
* Power names have been omitted to protect this comment from rules nitpicking.
This is my first post on this site sorry I do not like 4th ED and now I have another Reason not to like it. Combat should take less than 120 min preferably under 60 min if it’s any longer than that it’s too long.
@DandDGuy I really haven’t found 4e combat to be any slower than 3e, given all other factors being equal. I know people who have everything planned out and their dice plunked down by the time it is their turn, and I know people who will take 15 minutes every time their turn is up. The change in edition has pushed both of these more towards the middle, but not by much.
Ugh. I always liked to play support characters in D&D but my groups almost always insisted on everyone going their own way. Spare me from hour+ combats that devolve into “I move up to the enemy (if necessary). I swing.”
I tend towards the unusual situations to get around the grind. One easy way to do this is to devolve into older, simpler styles of gaming briefly. Think of the minigame fad in computer games for ideas here. You don’t want the weird fights or weird environments to get commonplace but it’s okay if they pop up now and then.
Example:
Summary – The characters have run across some iconic magic item(s) traditionally only wielded by powerful extraplanar boojums. The items are actually cheap knock-offs and the characters track them back to a dark fortress/cave/etc.
Adventure type – lock/key style, characters must find an item to win. Very popular in computer games (especially really old ones) since it’s easy to code.
The lock – The knock-off magic items (which may or may not have “made in hong kong” stamped on them somewhere) are created by crystalline forges within the dungeon.
The key – Also within the dungeon is a magical tuning fork. It can be used to operate or destroy the crystalline forges.
Action style – It can be anything you and your players agree on from a Benny Hill style romp through the place whacking crystals and trying not to lag behind and get eaten by the angry mob to a grim march of death as they clear every last defender from the place.
I am well aware of this “grind” Chatty DM is talking about, but didn’t have a name for it until now. With my group, we only have a few hours to play each week so time in encounters needs to be well spent:
After a few mooks are down and it starts to lag, my choices
*Not having mooks who are willing to fight to the death, but will tell the PCs what they need to know
*Mooks who realise that the PCs are rather powerful and will runaway when a few of their group have been killed
*And fudging rolls.
I do encourage players who will try to creatively “simplify things”, like shooting out the lights so all the mooks run into each other in the dark, or jury rigging a weapon as a bomb and throwing it in the middle of them.
Yes, I GM Star Wars, but aside from encounter/daily/at will there’s little difference.
.-= Katana Geldar´s last blog ..We’re not exactly dealing with Vogons here: (Bureaucracy Part 1) =-.
Chatty, I couldn’t find a way to email you. I wanted to request this directly, but can’t seem to find a way to do it.
“That is possibly the best advice I could share on making fights shorter. Stop using the ‘bring monster HP to 0? default goal and add new victory conditions. In fact, you can create endless mini-games by mixing battlemap, combat and Skill Challenge elements to a combat scene.”
Honestly, I want to see an entire blog or at least a blog POST where objectives are taken and refined into useful rules. A template or some example, fully fleshed out objectives. A blog post with several of these “mini-games” would be solid gold. Namely because I’m not that good at refining things so they run smoothly (the last mini-game style thing I tried fell flat on its face due to me not having forseen the obvious flaws).
I almost forgot………….
One thing I tried in a one-shot game was to implement Morale Saves for the monsters.
That’s a Will Save they make at the start of their turn if they’re Bloodied. It starts at DC 10 and rises by 2 each round. If they somehow gain Hit Points so they’re no longer Bloodied, it restarts at DC10 again.
Their roll is modified by +4 if there’s a Leader on their side, -2 for each downed ally and a further -2 if they’re below half numbers.
The speeded up combat immensely with some monsters fleeing the battlefield well before the risk of grind began. It helped that the Dwarven Paladin made an ace Intimidate roll against a bunch of wounded Goblins and they all dropped their weapons and fled 😀
.-= greywulf´s last blog ..Tougher than he looks =-.
Chatty, you raise some interesting points, and I will be trying to implement some if not all into my upcomming games.
Just a thought on limiting time for decisions, there should also be a time limit to use immediate reactions.
I am also considering getting a whiteboard to track conditions where the players can see them to try and cut down on the time recquired for players to remember effects.
One thing that does bug me in the published adventures is that there too many pointless fights which seem to be included to make exp budget. A way to fix this is instead of having the players fight out all the small encounters, rather have skill challenges with varying levels of healingsurge tax depending on thier outcome. As an example instead of having the players fight out with random bandits waylaying travellers, have a skill challenge involving nature, perception, insight, bluff, diplomacy and intimidate to have the characters notice and talk thier way through the ambush. Especially if the ambush has no real bearing on the overall quest/story. A successful challenge will gain the party information as they talk down and interrogate the bandits, a failed one will yield less information and cost 1 or 2 healing surges from wounds taken.
.-= Phaezen´s last blog ..Greetings! =-.
Wow, to say that I lost ‘control’ of this thread is a euphemism of the first order. I didn’t know it would spark such discussions. Let me try to answer some comments…
@Dave: I think we’ve outlined a D&D 4e supplement (or series of Article) that people would want to see: The Art of D&D4e Combat. To be discussed!
@Brian: As I said on your blog. Great response post you did yesterday, I will revise my way of DMing monster to go from At-Wills to Encounters to Action points.
@The Gun Nut: Yeah, I too experienced with giving Solos the ability to heal multiple times. Ohhhhh that turned out bad for the PCs and I ended up with one of my rare 4e TPKs. Good lesson to learn.
@LesInk: I’m happy to see so many DMs stepping forward and trying ways to speed up combat.
I will however use your comment to answer all those I’ve seen proposing ‘Time Limits’. I’m not comfortable with those. In fact I’m not confortable with any new rules that give DMs more power over the players. I’m not a ‘classic boss’ kind of DM but more of a ‘Project Manager’ kind of DM. I yield the authority granted to me by the players. So for me, making D&D combat faster needs to be an objective that all players agree on and work togethjer to achieve.
Of course, if a group agrees to time limits, all the best.
But what would all you Time Limit proponents do in the cases @Michelle was presenting of all those conditionals?
@Dead Orc: A lot of my issues is that we barely can afford to play 3 hours every 3 weeks. So any fight lasting more than one hour is taxing for the whole session. Maybe that’s another issue that needs to be addressed more than speeding combat up.
@DNAPhil: Good suggestions, your Iron Hero experience (and mine) does indeed point toward ways of changing the role of combat in the adventure. Since I got rid of XPs a long time ago, all my combat encounters don’t have to be the Guardian vs Invader type…
…however, my current campaign is about Dungeon Crawling. Maybe I should take a page from the Old School book and reduce fights to increase the Exploration factor.
@Swordgleam:
The only thing that speeds combat up is experienced players who want combat to go fast.
So true! Thanks for the pocket Zen insight!
@Dndguy: And that’s a perfectly fine reason not to play 4e. Thanks for reading this 4e heavy blog all the same!
@Lanir: You tangentially hit another core reason for the Grind. Many gamers haven’t ‘caught on’ (or don’t want to) that D&D 4e is first and foremost a Team game. If everyone acts like Lone Wolves, you get longer fights and more dying PCs. When all players act as strikers the group’s efficiency drops dramatically. So having a group form into an efficient team that support itself makes fights go faster ()or at the very least, more fun to play).
@Katana: Good suggestions here too. And SW is a close cousin to 4e so I know that what works for one works for the other,
@Rechan: Your request has been noted and is on the ‘Chatty sludge pile of things to write about’ Given the response to the post I may call on my blogger friends and propose we do some sort of Net Book for Combat. No promises, I’m more careful about starting projects now. Thanks for the suggestion.
@Phazen: As everything, we need to adjust the game to our play styles. I’m finding that the Houserules I make for D&D are more about stuff like Treasure Parcels and XP rewards and less about combat rules and such. D&D published adventures need to be hacked to meet our needs because by default they are all Encounters stringed together by a often Porn-thin story.
🙂
I don’t like long fights either. I usually find a way to cut the fight if it gets boring. But I will always make sure the motivation for disrupting the fight goes unnoticed by the players. Like it was meant to happened that way.
Ex:
The building where the fight is set in suddenly give signs of collapsing.
The enemies stop fighting and retreat like something called them off, giving hints that maybe something worst is approching making sure the PCs would not try to run after them.
Kill the PCs. (JOKE!)
D
@Phazen: Your comment raised a question in my head… How many people really stick to the xp progression charts?
Chatty and I have converge on the same solution. We do not give XP to our players. I schedule leveling up in between every other games. That way I don’t care about XP (Except to calculated difficulty of a fight) and focus on making Story driven rich encounter.
@Yan: Given the types of questions I get in Email and those heard in D&D Seminars, I get a feeling that many many people try to play the Rules as Written (RAW)… and that’s a clean departure from the spirit of the old (pre 2e) editions.
I left out a key point in my previous comment @24:
The unwieldy nature of combat, as described in my example, *is* the single true weak point of 4e, but I enjoy 4e combat anyway. However…
My group has had some incredibly long combats — a couple have gone more than four hours. There are several reasons, but I think the main ones are:
1. A character trying to perform non-combat actions instead of fighting, e.g. opening jail cells to let out prisoners. Oh, and that character is our only striker…
2. Did I mention we only have one striker in a party of 5?
3. The DM doesn’t use minions any more, at least in the big combats. I think it’s because he got sick of losing them to auto-damage zones.
4. We are operating in enemy territory where there is usually a second wave. By the time they arrive, we are down to At-Will powers.
Chatty: I would *love* it if you could follow this post with a part II that focuses on solutions. Pleasepleaseplease.
We play for 3.5 hours and constantly experience the grind effect.
We’ve tried several solutions (monsters running away, reducing hit points, auto kills, kills in exchange for healing surges, free intimidate checks when bloodied or leaders dead) and it seems to leave many of the players feeling cheated. We play a very wide assortment of games. The general attitude seems to be if we have to change too many things to make it work, why not just play something else?
We use the following once the grind effect starts (monsters are bloodied, out of major powers, will clearly lose, but still have many HPs):
– once per round as a minor action, a monster may sacrifice 20 HPs to gain an Action Point which they may immediately spend.
– once per round as a minor action, monsters may sacrifice 20 HPs to recharge an encounter power.
– elites may perform the above two times per round.
– solos may perform the above three times per round.
Everyone seems pleased with this fix. It keeps the monsters competitive, we don’t have to alter any statistics or rules, combats still play out normally, and the GM is given an additional interesting tactical option to choose from that also allows them to subtly control pacing. And you can easily scale the HP cost to your groups liking.
Rock,
John Jenskot
.-= John Jenskot´s last blog ..Music, Art =-.
My group tried 4.0 and absolutely hated it for the very reasons espoused here. Most of the players are not particularly tactically oriented and disliked the amount of bookeeping and tracking of so many different exceptions (in the form of daily/encounter/at will powers) that affected not just their own character, but any number of others as well. I know that the 4.0 version has relegated roles to various monsters to create a “paint by number” DM’ing scheme, but the layers and layers of special abilities make it a logistical nightmare — and WOTC would have you believe this is an improvement! In my opinion, the system is broken and the company is selling the “bugs” as “features.” We may try it again after the one person in our group who is actually running 4.0 for another group gets more experience, but it will take a while to get that taste out of our mouths. Of course, by then the 4.5 or 5.0 edition will likely be ready for release.
I realize that some of the same problems crop up with D20 and other systems, but we’ve been able to adjust (again, using some of the techniques previously discussed by others here). For me, the key is designing adventures that stress roleplay over tactical battle-mat management. Use combats sparingly and make sure that goals and objectives are clearly understood. Not every encounter should have a complete monster kill as the only resolution. In fact, having the PCs get into an unwinnable combat once in a great while keeps them humble and reinforces non-linear thinking. At any rate, I appreciate the thought that you put into addressing the issues inherent in 4.0 combat.
Thank you Gary S Watkins for proving my point their are others, and the gaming world is split when WOTC released 4th ED they made a mistake by changing something that was not broken to begin with and now this division is the beginning of the END.
“Boycotting 4th Ed” check this out I have my problems with it but, I am starting to turn on to 4th ED if I could afford the books.
Take a look at this site
http://www.lilith-ezine.com/articles/entertainment/Boycotting-4th-Edition-DnD.html
On the topic of avoiding the Grind, here’s a useful guide:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/254630-stalker0s-guide-anti-grind.html
Garrr, this thread is too long! I can’t possibly read it all, so I can’t promise that this point hasn’t been made before.
Firstly, and because I think it bears pointing out, pg 186 of the PHB says that a successful Intimidate vs. Will check will force a bloodied foe to retreat, surrender or the nearest equivalent. That’d speed up combat nicely, I think… 🙂
BUT if we want a spot more mechanics and action in our combat denouements, here’s an idea – @chattydm is the master of the skill challenge, and I’ve got a love of introducing skill challenges into combat. How about, when you hit the Grind, agree to resolve the combat by way of skill challenge. I recall @chattydm writing an article (or was it someone else?) on running a combat as a skill challenge – now you just start it later in the encounter. Physical attributes (and possibly powers!) can be used to quickly overpower, or disable. Diplomacy/intimidate etc. can be used to get the enemies to surrender. The price of a failure for the skill challenge? A healing surge, maybe, or the use of a daily power for a particularly badly chosen skill or spectacularly bad roll.
I think it could work. Pick the difficulty/complexity of the skill challenge as the amount of hit points left in the monsters when you first notice the Grind. So if it’s at bloodied (I don’t think you should implement this before at least half the creatures are bloodied), you make it a 6 success skill challenge (indefinite failures, as eventually the party will run out of healing surges and/or powers). Near-death can be 2 successes. Quick solution, a change in mechanics to wake people up and the ability to let players role-play instead of strategize for a few moments.
…but I’m weird like that 😉
.-= Johenius´s last blog ..Awesome Gaming, Deep Role-Play and DM Profiling =-.
Another quick thought:
I hate meetings. I have them every so often at work, and I can’t stand them – *especially* when they hit the meeting equivalent of the Grind.
One trick that has been shown to work and that I rather enjoy – standing meetings. No-one sits. This keeps decision-making quick, because things are getting uncomfortable. Because most of the rest of the time is sitting down, it lets you stretch your legs. And you can express yourself a lot better with broader body language.
I’m not suggesting combats should be LARPs, but the ability to move around a bit and REACH OUT TO HIT THE THING or cower back into a corner expressively adds interest to the combat, and the necessity of not sitting down will keep things moving. At the very least, the novelty of what you’re doing will get your group focused on combat efficiency, anyway.
Of course, this also means they’re not flipping through books for powers. I’ve found power cards (homemade in my case) very effective. Insist *at least* that players have noted what their +to-hit and +to-damage on every power is – otherwise figuring out what 2[W] + Strength + Weapon proficiency bonus + magic bonus + etc. bogs things down TERRIBLY.
.-= Johenius´s last blog ..Awesome Gaming, Deep Role-Play and DM Profiling =-.
I’ve been using a combination system in combat recently. I give my PC’s the option to declare a Duel with their enemy. The Duel is represented in a Skill Challenge with the target rolls and amount of passes required increasing depending on the HP and powers left on the Monster. These has created some really interesting RP situations. If the PC fails he is reduced to 0HP, on rare occasions i let Monsters call duels, but it is usually just to make an interesting death scene.
Secondly i’ve been giving my monsters objectives for me to aspire to. Not every monster and minion needs an grand scheme to rule the world. But interesting little objectives like grappling the striker or flanking the caster. While these are normal tactics that dm’s should use i find that once a monsters powers are gone or the grind sets in i rush through the monsters turns to try and get through combat. With clear notes next to the monster it makes me focus on them more which i’ve found keeps the players interested. It’s amazing how much you let things go when the grind sets in.
Finally i fudge alot, i see it as my battle and my monster. If the sheets says he has 100HP left but i see my players getting bored! Fighter hits him, Bloodied. Wizard casts a spell, Toasty Monster. This way i’m not robbing my players of thier kill and also when handled a little more delicately than above it can go unnoticed. In the end i feel its my task to entertain the players, if that means i ignore the rules completely so be it.
Whit
I’ve been checking out Savage Worlds lately with an eye to running it precisely because the long 3.5/4E combats are beginning to dampen my enthusiasm. I was hoping to get a bit of insight into how SW fares in this department, but hardly anyone has commented on it, except Chatty who said:
And SW is a close cousin to 4e so I know that what works for one works for the other.
As I said, I’ve only read-not-played SW, but it feels to me to have a lot more in common with the retro-clones (S&W, OSRIC, LL) in the way it hands much of the control back to the GM: this seems to be opposite of what 4E does with its highly mechanised and detailed “powers” system.
I guess I’m curious to find out why you think a system like SW, which is intentionally rules-light(er), is as prone to long grinds as the rules-dense 3.5 & 4Es.
Yeah, fights are sometimes too long… but they rarely have felt long to me – even the 3 hour long fight from my last game session didn’t feel all that long. (Of course it was).
@Brian / @ChattyDM : Regarding the “Daily->Encounter->Action” thing… I usually decide the monster’s strategy based on my impression of its strategy. For example, the dragon I was playing liked to show its strength and intimidate – so it started strong with a breath weapon, an action point and a fear effect.
The zombie I played before, though, kept its stronger powers for when it actually felt threatened.
.-= Eric Maziade´s last blog ..Tales of the City Within, Session 3: The Final Chapter =-.
Just played my weekly game and after reading all the information the Chatty and everyone here has provided i decided to take a small change of tactics. I let my PC’s know that my monsters had a series of specific objectives and that their job was to stop them from obtaining these unkown objectives. A failure didn’t mean death but would affect the future of the game.
Armed with this information my battle lasted 1h15m. and was propbably one of the most interesting battles i’ve ever run. My PC’s really started thinking outside of the box in ways that they could stop the Monsters from achieving anything they percieved as a goal.
The fight was against 2 lvl 15 Controllers, same level as the PCs. Once it became clear that both Monsters could not achieve there goals anymore i wrapped the battle up within a round of combat. I asked my PC’s how they felt about the new method and my butt kicker who is always trying to hit everything looked over and said. ‘We didn’t just kill something, we achieved a victory.’ Seconded by everyone else at the table.
I’ve personally found that system the best i’ve used in memory and it didn’t change the rules.
Whit
I can’t keep up with comments and I won’t try to. So thanks to everyone who took the time to share their ideas, experiences and opinions about the whole thing.
Suffice it to say that I will try using combat goals and objectives for both players and Monsters. I may write a follow up post, where I’ll try to distill the wisdom of this post and comments.
and finally:
@WhitDnd: Sir, you just made this both so much more worthwhile! Thank you, there’s no better motivation than seeing someone apply ideas that were just shared here. Thanks
I know Chatty is pretty much done on this subject, but let me ask this question: Do GMs like myself feel that we need a long battle in order to challenge the players? The problem I have is that in order to challenge the players I either have to play to their specific weaknesses (which can limit the types of enemies placed on the board) or keep making the battle bigger and bigger and, thus, longer. 4E characters are just so tough, you have to setup enemies that will last several rounds before you start really hurting the characters. And if the characters get to (short) rest a little bit, they’re almost back up to full.
Perhaps that is part of the answer — when the first battle is ending, bring in the second battle immediately on the first, changing the dynamics of the combat, and pushing the characters past their limits. And if that doesn’t work, go for a third. Is it one long battle or just multiple smaller battles?
@LesInk: I haven’t played 4e much so I can’t offer anything useful on the level of challenge involved in a normal encounter. Part of the answer is the same in any game system though. It sounds like you’re a little unhappy with just burying the PCs in monsters as a form of challenge. So try a couple fights with different objectives and see how it works out for you.
Quickie Example: The PCs have allies who are fighting a common foe. But the allies differ in how they want to resolve the problem in the end. Perhaps they want to capture and use some enemy resource and the PCs think it’s too dangerous (or vice versa). So they kind of win even if the allies get there first but to -really- win they need to win the race to the objective as well.
@LesInk: As Lanir and several others mention on this thread, once players have discovered 4e’s Sweet spot of team play and Synergistic use of powers, the DM can’t properly ‘scare’ players with straight combat encounters unless he becomes a dedicated ‘encounter builder’ where each monster are chosen to mesh perfectly together to counter the party’s level of efficiency.
The goal of the DM then should be to focus on other objectives. Ex: PCs must exit a battlemap, with an unwilling NPC in tow’ before the whole thing collapses… and monsters are in the way trying to prevent just that.
Now 4e shows it’s biggest strength, you can create action scenes where combat is not the main ‘raison d’être’
That’s the most important lesson I take of this whole thread!
In a game I DMed with kids, there was a final fight with a dragon.
The kids were aiming to rescue a few children who were offered as a sacrifice to the dragon.
They split in two groups : one group worked at freeing the children and escaping the dragon’s lair while the other group kept the dragon busy.
Their strategy worked and the first group even had time to come back and help finish off the dragon (by then, it was trying to escape).
Pretty cool stuff.
.-= Eric Maziade´s last blog ..On the road to Spellguard – the final mile before destination =-.
Hi to all,
I experienced the grind the other night, by my own fault. I tried doing 2 battles in the same night to finish the KotS module.
If you plan on playing Keep On the Shadowfell, don’t read .. spoilers!
Situation : last 2 encounters in Keep of the Shadowfell
When i DM’ it with the monster’s in the book with my other group, it felt bland and not really exciting. So i decided to change the monsters to something more cinematic
Area18 : changed mobs for minions , all minions except for 1 darkcreeper that was going to report back to the big boss Kalarel.
It was like a adventure film scene : big fight with alot of mooks right before meeting Mr Big Bad
-> This worked great ! when the players opened the doors and saw 14 monsters waiting for them, they had a blast mowing them down.
Area 19 : changed the story a bit so that when 4/8 successes on closing to gate to Shadowfell, Kalarel was hit by a backlash and changed him into a Zombie Abominition (lvl4 solo brute).
Also, changed all other monsters for Zombie Rotters with their controller, Maw (see Dungeon #155).
-> This didnt work to remove grind, since we finished about 2.5hrs later than usual !
They had fun battling the Zombie Abomination. I had fun also , with almost 3 players death (2 players at -15+, almost bloodied value and 1 player almost at the Shadowfell gate with the help of Maw).
The error i made, with time running short at 1am, was not to cut the battle when the gate to Shadowfell was closed by the PC’s.
Now with my 2 groups, i will cut battle short with a nice story to go with it when it’s clear that my baddies will be losing it. I should get up to 30min of game time with that.
I like the idea of a Healing Surge Tax when that happens though.
OK, You have made your point, I will not mention it any longer and I will Stick to what the articles are talking about.
@Francois: Good lessons learned right there. Do note that cutting a fight short is hard to do when you are focused on running the game… it takes the ability of being able to step back and observe the game state and look for other solutions than the drawn out quest for the last monster HP.
@DandDguy: Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m all for people with different opinions about 4e, especially people whose opinion change with time (either way) based on new experiences and info they get. But this post wasn’t the focus for such a discussion. Although I do appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on the matter.
@ChattyDM
When you write “raison d’être”, why is it impossible for me not to hear it in my head with as an English speaker would say it?
I would totally be incapable to restraining myself from saying it with the accent too – event in the middle of a french sentence.
.-= Eric Maziade´s last blog ..On the road to Spellguard – the final mile before destination =-.
Wow, mentioned in an article, it’s like I’m famous now 😀
Since this discussion aired over twitter (and I was following most of the replies at the time). I’ve been trying to make myself very aware of exactly when the Grind sets in. I definitely have far less of a tolerance for the Grind than my players do. I’m much more interested in moving the story forward giving the short playing time we have available but they are really enjoying the tactical options provided by combat.
Not that I’m NOT enjoying the fights, I think my problem is I’m second guessing my players and when it’s hits the Grind, assuming they are going to get bored soon, which actually isn’t true!
I’ve got a couple of big solos planned down the road though so I shall be keeping a careful eye on those fights.
Concerning Solo and bbeg with alot of HP
I think having a secondary “win the battle” objective for the party should remove some of the Grind. I assume they will battle the monster, but instead of a race to the last HP, they could have something that triggers the end-game and stops the battle.
When i’ll design my future encounters that have big monster, i’ll be thinking about adding a skill challenge for the PC’s to do at the same time of Grinding the Monster.
@Francois: Great plan, just remember to make each roll of the skill challenge be worth at least as much to the player as spending an Encounter power. ‘Winning the fight faster’ is not sufficient motivation for the average D&D player.
When I do this, I usually have each success of the skill challenge trigger a cool effect that has a direct impact on the fight. Like an explosion of Arcane power underneath the bbeg or having the black tentacles of doom trying to enter thhe world convulse and knock the Solo Prone (or at least get a chance to do it)
Just my 2 cents…. (60 comments? Geez that’s awesome!)
Eh, not for nothing… but I think there’s anough material in this thread for a Dragon Magazine article.
Seriously.
.-= newbiedm´s last blog ..Advice for Newbie DM’s: The Competitor DM vs. the Storyteller DM =-.
@chatty : i’ll certainly take your 2c and search your pockets for more change ! (dm thievery check)
With that idea and my skill challenge with Kalarel/Zombie Abomination
-the last 4 successes to close the portal to Shadowfell should either Daze or damage him for 2d4+4 (similar to a magic missile in dmg)
(if any want to take that idea, it’s free but next one gonna cost ya 😉 )
Isn’t it possible to add more story element into the fight itself so that story-driven players are also interested?
Yes it is it’s all in the way the DM describe the fight scene and it is up to who ever is running the game to fully describe the action that is taking place.
By the way, it does not matter which version of the game you like or play description is everything.
ssh83;
Certainly you can add story elements, but with the combats taking hours, why would I play modern D&D and not Burning Wheel or something else that actively helps me in building story as a player?
.-= Tommi´s last blog ..D&D, old and new (Ropecon 09) =-.
@Tommi: If the tactical aspects of D&D 4e are of no interest to a gamer, adding story is not a stopgap. However, for a crowd of mixed gamers like my own group, adding more story to fights (like building a context for the conflict, having strong personalities in the fight and have opponents surrender) really makes for a more enjoyable experience.
Great article but i would really like to compliment the Comments! Great Ideas all of you.
@Guidance: It’s the goal of this series to have constructive discussions about a ‘hot’ RPG subject. I’m glad you liked it.
Great Wavatar BTW.
Wanted to give the board here a small update of something I tried in my last game. In short, I wanted to *encourage* my players to make combat faster, but not resort to draconian methods.
So I imposed these general rules:
1) For each combat, the GM sets an amount of time that if the party completes the combat within, they get a +20% XP bonus. Yeah!
2) Likewise, the GM also sets a second amount of time that if the battle goes over they get a -20% XP bonus. Boo!
Notice that there is no upper limit on the time and if a battle takes too much time, they suffer a small, but painfull loss of XP. The penalty only is for XP, not for loot.
In the first battle, I said, “45 minutes for a bonus, go over 1 hr 15 minutes and you get a penalty.” This first battle was just a fight with 8 minions to warm them up to the idea and they quickly cleared the area in 10 minutes. A cheap setup on my part, but I wanted to make it clear that they could indeed complete battles quickly. This got them more agreeable to trying it again.
Second battle, same time frame. This is a lower level group fighting some fire bats, about 5. The group struggled a bit on time, but I would announce how long they had left on the timer roughly each round. They seemed to enjoy being pushed a bit and took the time limit as a challenge. Low and behold, we finished the battle with the last kill going off when the timer went off. Close enough, I rewarded them as promised.
Our next scenario was more complex as they came across a guardian demanding them for a password and shooting anyone who stepped too close to the door. It was a strange battle, if you want to call it that, and because of that, I used no time limit. I knew it was more of a puzzle than a combat. Again, I wanted to show them that the time limit is not always going to hang over them — especially in more confusing scenarios.
There were other short combats in the night, but none of them went longer than 45 minutes. I was pleased.
So, did the time limit work overall? I would say it did what I generally wanted — and that’s to make the players move along a little faster when they needed to. I tried to set the time limits well within a good range so there was plenty room for error. I liked it because it allowed everyone to take the time they NEED, but not so much they want to go looking up rules for each hypothesis. Some players were naturally faster than others allowing different speed folks (due to their own play styles or characters). It just kept a sense of urgency going.
Phil;
Yes, certainly, and I would go as far as to say that even the most combat-centric group will find the combats more meaningful with some context provided by the fiction. Witness action movies and combat-focused video games, which tend to have some story to frame the fights.
.-= Tommi´s last blog ..D&D, old and new (Ropecon 09) =-.
One of the issues we’re facing is related to the grind but not it exactly. We also are a group that can only get together one a month for about 4-5 hours.
We’ve come to the place where if we are facing a balanced encounter (in particular those in modules) we are starting to experience a “what’s the point” feeling.
In part it is because of fights going on for a long time. But perhaps more importantly we are feeling a bit of we can’t die syndrome. We are running the scales of war campaign with as little modification as possible. Every once in a while we feel threatened (basically only when our DM does some creative fudging), but for the most part we are just trying to minimize our losses (of healing and secondarily powers) as we go through the encounters.
We are divided between feeling that we should worry that our characters might die and feeling that we have invested time and energy into the characters and they should only die when we (or the story) wants them to. We have a mix of players who like the story telling aspect and the tactical wargaming feel of the game…but the story tellers are feeling a bit left out with the combat’s taking as long as they do.
We’re going to try halving everyone’s hp (PC and monster) and perhaps also double damage (and healing) but are concerned that that will make things be too “swingie” and it become a race to see who wins initiative.
thoughts?
I’m glad someone reposted on this, because i brought up the issue with my group since my group is now full (yeah!) but combat as considerably increased it’s time-consumming goodness. I had the comment from a new player waiting over 30min for his turn to come.. so i have to take some action and proposed the following to my group
Ok, here’s a suggestion (suggestion mind you!)
Battles maximum length we should shoot for
Encounter below your level : 30min
Encounter your level : 45min
Encounter above your level : 60min
If maximum length is not passed
+1 healing surge is gained at end of battle
+10% XP is gained
If maximun length is passed
-1 healing surge is lost at end of battle
Start of battle
– If not a surprise, 2min max group tactic talks at the start of the battle
– No group tactics if the group is surprised
– Higher initiatives PC’s can decide to lower their Initiative
Before your turn
– DM (me) will say who is “on deck” at the start of each persons turn (meaning : you are next in line) on each start of turn
– The player “on deck” has to prepare his declaration while the other is doing is turn
During your turn
– 30sec to declare your attack power, move and minor (I don’t mean finish your turn, just declare “i use this, go there, minor this” )
– if not, you are delayed at the end
When you use a power
-get +To Attack and defense it’s attacking (ex.: +7 vs AC) first
-roll the dice, add and give me the number against which defense
-tell me any other effect it does
During battle
– Tactics talks kept to a minimum (quick phrases – no long discussions)
– Decide and prepare attacks before start of turn
That’s it.. my next game is coming saturday, i’ll post an update on how it went
@andy:
I’m running my players through the scales of war campaign too. If you feel you are having an easy time of it, I would suggest having a word with your DM. What I’ve found in running the campaign is a lot of the battle are fairly middle of the road and don’t add a lot to the story. As such, they also are pretty easy.
As DM, I tend to go over the adventure in advance and cut any blatantly boring or unnecessary combats since the last thing I want is the players getting bored at another ‘minion stomp’. I prefer to run a few key encounters per area but make sure those are really meaningful and the players have to think or suffer the consequences of their actions. In some cases, this really is as simple as combining two existing encounters into one tougher encounter.
@Destrin:
Not sure I’d say we’re having an easy time of it as we do occasionlly have characters going to 0 and are often running low on healing surges and such by the end of a stretch. I think we’re just running into the paradim shift that 4e has where character death is really only possible with a TPK or other extreme circumstances.
I like the suggestion to combine encounters. He and I had talked about possibliy trying to skip some or translate them into a skill chanllenge or something (but neither of those sat well). But combining into a larger encounter might work.
Of course that will probably lead to longer combat which we are trying to avoid as well, but we’re going to try the 1/2 hp (monsters and PCs) and timer for player decisions suggestions when we get together next. We’ve got a whiteboard initiative chart that everyone can see so it is easy to do the “on deck” suggestion and we all help with that so it isn’t just the DMs job to say who is going next.