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How to speed up combat?
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8223237" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>My response to that is that a combat which lasts two hours and is ONLY about fighting, and more fighting, is not really what I'm talking about. This was the danger of a lot of the 'big solo' model of encounter design. I question the use of solos in most cases. Of course there are plenty of other encounter designs that aren't great either. If you stick to the 'this is an action adventure scene' and make sure there is a solid 'encounter plot' with goals and characters, etc. then you shouldn't really be bored. The whole thing will include lots of fun RP, characterization, planning, etc.</p><p></p><p>There's still plenty of variation when you take to-hit (remember, always gotta hit in 4e) and variations in damage rolls. I didn't, personally, find it necessary to have these much larger swings that arise when a single check can 'kill' a monster. If you think about it, this is a pretty big swing. Just obliterating one of the 5 standards in a stock encounter is enough to pretty much guarantee it will be an easy encounter. The PCs will focus on the most dangerous thing still standing etc. </p><p></p><p>The odd thing is, I always hear about "all combats are multi-hour slogs" but IME A) every other version of D&D has long combats. Maybe not always as long as the longest 4e combats, but AD&D (which is my main edition that I have mostly played) combats can be stupid long, even at low levels. Everyone needs a 17 to hit anything and you can grind through round after round of nothing at all happening. Not only that but EVERY substantial monster has 3+ attacks, which means plenty of rolling. Plus you have morale, and maybe obedience too (for allies). Depending on exactly how you interpret the rules on melee there's also a whole bunch of randomly determining who attacks who, and once you engage movement is impossible. I found it pretty often to be QUITE dull. Often you could cut it short by expending expensive resources, but clearly that is usually sub-optimal. B) 4e combats are just not necessarily, or even normally, some kind of slow slog. Exciting stuff is always happening, and when you DO make it interesting, the fights don't really bog down, everyone stays engaged!</p><p></p><p>So, in the first campaign I ran, levels 1-5 we sometimes ran into this 'slog' encounter. If you have some overleveled elite, especially one with good defenses like a soldier, then all of a sudden everything went into snail mode, assuming nothing else was going on. So this is why I invented the rule 'there is always something else going on' ALWAYS. Also don't use level +2 elite soldiers, just don't. Granted, this all does put a bit of 'know the game' on the DM. I don't think 4e is anything like a perfect game, but I don't think that burden is higher than for 1e, 2e, or 3.x.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8223237, member: 82106"] My response to that is that a combat which lasts two hours and is ONLY about fighting, and more fighting, is not really what I'm talking about. This was the danger of a lot of the 'big solo' model of encounter design. I question the use of solos in most cases. Of course there are plenty of other encounter designs that aren't great either. If you stick to the 'this is an action adventure scene' and make sure there is a solid 'encounter plot' with goals and characters, etc. then you shouldn't really be bored. The whole thing will include lots of fun RP, characterization, planning, etc. There's still plenty of variation when you take to-hit (remember, always gotta hit in 4e) and variations in damage rolls. I didn't, personally, find it necessary to have these much larger swings that arise when a single check can 'kill' a monster. If you think about it, this is a pretty big swing. Just obliterating one of the 5 standards in a stock encounter is enough to pretty much guarantee it will be an easy encounter. The PCs will focus on the most dangerous thing still standing etc. The odd thing is, I always hear about "all combats are multi-hour slogs" but IME A) every other version of D&D has long combats. Maybe not always as long as the longest 4e combats, but AD&D (which is my main edition that I have mostly played) combats can be stupid long, even at low levels. Everyone needs a 17 to hit anything and you can grind through round after round of nothing at all happening. Not only that but EVERY substantial monster has 3+ attacks, which means plenty of rolling. Plus you have morale, and maybe obedience too (for allies). Depending on exactly how you interpret the rules on melee there's also a whole bunch of randomly determining who attacks who, and once you engage movement is impossible. I found it pretty often to be QUITE dull. Often you could cut it short by expending expensive resources, but clearly that is usually sub-optimal. B) 4e combats are just not necessarily, or even normally, some kind of slow slog. Exciting stuff is always happening, and when you DO make it interesting, the fights don't really bog down, everyone stays engaged! So, in the first campaign I ran, levels 1-5 we sometimes ran into this 'slog' encounter. If you have some overleveled elite, especially one with good defenses like a soldier, then all of a sudden everything went into snail mode, assuming nothing else was going on. So this is why I invented the rule 'there is always something else going on' ALWAYS. Also don't use level +2 elite soldiers, just don't. Granted, this all does put a bit of 'know the game' on the DM. I don't think 4e is anything like a perfect game, but I don't think that burden is higher than for 1e, 2e, or 3.x. [/QUOTE]
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