News: My Saturday night challenge is being postponed for a week while i rebuild my system, it pooched out on me today in the middle of work and that's no fun at all. I just want to make sure i give myself enough time between my chores, family and rebuilding my system in the next 24 hours.
Round 1, Fight
Ah the age old question of speeding up combat, i remember back in the 3.x days this was a problem for my group, The big problem then was you had to wait 40 minutes for your turn, then roll a 1, and wait another 40 minutes. Lets look at my group for an example right now and just break things down to the core math of it all.
Players: 6
Level: 12
Average Monsters: 6
Average Monster level: 12 (+/- with minions etc)
for 12 combatants 1 round of combat takes 15 minutes
that's 1.25 minutes per combatant which is pretty decent
Average fight duration in rounds: 4.5
Average fight duration in minutes: 70 minutes (67.5)
Now lets take a look at a few ideas right now, timed turns. Right now each player only has roughly 100 seconds to decide, move, attack, and minor. If i force this rule on them to 30 this will indeed speed up the game, but i must also be prepared to do the same.
Now it comes down to more combat focused as opposed to adding role playing into combat (yes its possible, I'll explain further below), and i can actually keep combat the same lenght, because now players might end up using powers that would not be the best option thus slowing the game back down to the original time.
Round 2, Fight
There is another common tip of how to finish fights faster, is to reduce hit points. From what i was Reading is you knock the HP of everything by 50%. The idea here is of course you kill things faster. Well lets keep with the above example of 4.5 rounds, now I'm cutting a combat encounter down to lets say 3 rounds. At 12th level, the average player has 5 encounter powers and 3 dailies.
Were cutting back on all the cool things that players get to do in the fight, thus reducing the fun that can be had. again this seems to turn the game more into a combat oriented (taking away from the idea of it being a role playing game)
This also does not seem to level the system out either, in my experience classes with abilities that heal or grant temp hp are unaffected by the 50% rule, therefore being more powerful than normal.
Finish Him
There are several things that i have found that work great in speeding up combat. Now combat only takes roughly 70 minutes per encounter.
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Wait a tic, that's exactly what i started with maybe my math isn't correct.
Well true enough, combat is still tacking the same amount of time but as the old adage goes, a watched pot never boils. In my combat i try to include players at a different level that it seems to just fly by and everyone is having fun.
That's the secret right there, and the number 1 problem with 4e. People who are experiencing slowdowns in 4e are not having fun. People who dislike 4e and say its not my game, is because combat wasn't fun like it was in the older editions.
Once you start having fun in combat again, you're players will get into the game more and no one will notice the encounter length. Instead at the end of the night they will say wow i can't believe its over already.
Intimidate
I have a player who really trained out intimidate, and has spent several standard actions trying to intimidate bloodied opponents, the party gives him some hassle when he does it, and at first i even cheated so he would have to fight the creature. my thinking was that he himself was cheating. Ive come to terms with it and allowed it, now the creatures run away. And it works. He loves it, he gets use out of his skills, its always impressive, and adds more RP for the interrogation later on.
Break the rules
I played in a friends game not to long ago, i played a wolverine rip off (shifter ranger) it was a ninja style game, were were all in tree tops when we got jumped by other ninjas. I had one jump on my tree branch and was awarded an opportunity attack. I asked the DM if i could instead of making the attack, use it to continue the ninjas momentum off the tree. I felt there was no way in hell she would allow this as i would not if i was asked. She said yes and gave me the attack anyway. The result was a extremely fun and memorable encounter
When you say yes to break the rules your really getting the players more involved with their characters and always wanting to try new things. Remember fortune favors the bold.
Ending Arguments
If an argument comes up or a confusion about the rule i call it, i say here is how its happening right now. We continue with the round, then i offer the player a chance to look up the rule before its his turn again. If I'm wrong i give him an action point he can use until the end of the encounter. Its a win win situation for everyone involved.
Go get them my minions
Minions are great, i love them. Who cares if they die right away, that was one turn the players weren't focusing on the main guys. An ettin surrounded my minions is a blast because the ettin goes twice, he is such a treat players will ignore the minions for a few rounds. They are also fun for players too because they get to A either single hit kill something, or B kill a lot of things at once. Running a party of six, take out 2 standard monsters for 8 minions.
Run away!
Have monsters run away, if half the monster side drops why isn't the drow saying F this, and get out of there. I can understand if its dumb monsters, but even loyal creatures should just go and leave. Perhaps they run to where they know is even more and tell their new companions to be prepared
Drop on bloodied
This is similar to the run away option. Have some humanoid creatures drop unconscious on becoming bloodied, when the fight is over if none of the players mention they tie them up, have him run away. (isn't this like the 50% rule?) No the creature is still alive and now has more affect on the games story and future combat.
Be Prepared (players & dm)
I'm lucky in my game everyone is always focused on the combat and deciding what they are going to do in advance, because combat is such a fluid thing they are always trying to predict or setup combo's off one another. Players should get in the habit of doing this as well, having a general idea of whats going can help you chose better tactics.
DM's should be prepared as well, have monsters printed out, tracking initiative, being aware of where everything is and what conditions are on each creature. Ask players to help out by identifying creatures.
Here are some initiative tools that can help you with your game.
Character Initiative Cards to use with your DM Screen
Use Google Docs to create a spreadsheet
The key here is introducing the element of role playing within the combat portion, this adds the fun back to the combat and lets people forget about time involved. Let them jump off of creates to attack, let them come up with ideas and shape the game. It needs to be fun for everyone otherwise you have to question why you play.
Well i hope i covered all my thoughts on initiative, i certainly appreciate you reading it. I know its been a hot topic in the blog sphere (is that what this is being called now) and everyone has their own point of view.
Well all, until next time keep your dice on the table
Posts
My group is working on another way to shorten combat using some sort of constitution check after the monster is bloodied. We're still tweaking the math, but we tried it in the last game.
ReplyDeleteThe big combat (9 PCs vs. 10 goblins) lasted about 2 hours, which (remarkably) is an improvement from previous encounters.